Big Healing Book - God Creates Evil (Isaiah 45:7), Kills, and Wounds

Objection: God Creates Evil (Isaiah 45:7), Kills, and Wounds (Deuteronomy 32:39)

Yes, God does say that He creates evil in Isaiah 45:7: “I form the light and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.” And He does say that he kills and wounds in Deuteronomy 32:39: “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.” Then there’s Lamentations 3:38: “Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?” People sometimes quote other verses to give the impression that God has a part in every bad thing that happens.

Or how about Genesis 38:7 and 10: “And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him...And the thing which (Onan) did displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him also.”

Why stop there? After all, there is a New Testament passage where Jesus Himself says that He will kill people! No, I’m not joking – I refer to Revelation 2:20-23, which you should click and read, since it may bend your theology a little!

Now, even also in our more merciful covenant, we also find in Acts 12:23: “And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him [Herod], because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.”

Haven’t we been taught that God is good and the devil is bad, and that only the devil kills? What is going on here?

Although some would hasten to make an argument here that God solely “permits the devil to do the killing,” that is not going to satisfy many people who read these verses. Frankly, it does not satisfy me either. It is obvious that God can kill people and has killed huge numbers of people! Think of the armies that opposed Israel, for example. God killed them. Even if you want to say that He “allowed” Satan to do the dirty work (which I would not go along with), God certainly commissioned it in these cases. However, in the clear-cut case of the flood in Noah’s day, it was certainly not Satan who unleashed the water – it was unmistakably GOD who killed EVERYONE with the exception of the eight people in Noah’s ark!

Having determined that, we should now determine exactly whom he kills, wounds and creates evil for. Very simple – His enemies! God never kills His own people who are walking in the light. The people killed in these passages were all wicked people who set themselves against God.

God helped David kill Goliath! God killed Korah and his company of traitors. What about those other battles where the Lord killed even hundreds of thousands of enemies to protect His people? What about the Red Sea where God killed an army of Egyptian soldiers? God does kill people! Anyone reading the Old Testament in particular cannot escape this fact. But the people who were killed were almost always His enemies. We’ll return to the almost part shortly.

You cannot take any of these verses and derive a doctrine that God is going to wound you, make you sick, and kill you – not if you’re a Christian walking in the light! There’s no precedent for God afflicting His own people as long as they walk with Him. God killed only Israel’s enemies as long as Israel walked in the light. He did not kill His covenant people when they abode in Him. He had promised to satisfy them with long life (Psalm 91:16)!

Now, I said “almost” above. God’s people sometimes died, but only if they did something wrong. The offenses may have seemed minor to man, but the mistreatment of holy things is major to God. Nadab, Abihu and Uzzah learned this lesson the hard way – they died for failure to respect the holy things of God. Nadab and Abihu offered unlawful incense before the Lord, and the Lord was incensed. Uzzah’s sinful flesh touched the ark that had God’s holy presence in it, and God was angry about it and killed him.

“And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.” – Leviticus 10:1-2

“And when they came to Nachon’s threshing floor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.” – 2 Samuel 6:6-7

God takes His holy things seriously. Let Nadab, Abihu and Uzzah stand as warnings to anyone even under our New Covenant who would play games with the things of God.

Of course, we have the example of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11 to warn us against playing games with God or with His servants: We have a similar warning in 1 Corinthians 11:27-32.

So what can we conclude from all this? God does in fact kill, but He is not going to kill YOU – unless you decide that you want to make yourself His enemy or try to mess up His church.

In passing, “evil” in Isaiah 45:7 refers to calamity, not to moral evil. The Hebrew word is not the word that is used for sin. God has never created moral evil, but He has created free will, which allows people and angels to choose moral evil. If you sin, God is not the creator of your moral evil – YOU are!