Perhaps
that is God's doing, God's fault." That is a common puzzle enough,
and a sad and fearful one. The sin and the misery and the death are
here. If God did not bring it here, yet why did He let it come here?
He could have stopped if He would, and kept out all this
wretchedness: why did He not? Was He just or loving in letting sin
into the world?
To all which St. Paul answers: "God was justified in the Spirit."
You do not see what that has to do with it? Then let me show you.
To be justified means to be shown and proved to be just, righteous.
Now what justified God to man was the Spirit of God, as He showed
Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ. For when God became man and dwelt
among men, what sort of works were His? What was His conduct, His
character; of what sort of spirit did He show Himself to be? He
went, we read, doing good, for God was with Him. Not of His own
will, but to do His Father's will, and because He was filled without
measure by the Spirit of God, He did good, He healed the sick, He
rebuked the proud and self-conceited hypocrite, He proclaimed pardon
and mercy to the broken-hearted sinner, wearied and worn out by the
burden of his sins. Thus, in every action of His life, He was
fighting against evil and misery, and conquering it; and so showing
that God hates evil and misery, and that the evil and the misery in
the world are here against God's will.
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