Author Tim Barnett
Published on 09/25/2017
Theology

Does God Care about Our Pain and Suffering?

Tim offers biblical insights highlighting the reality of God’s immeasurable care for us.


Transcript

Does God care about our pain and suffering? I think He does. In fact, in the Christian story, the story of reality, God the Son takes on a human nature in the Incarnation. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” the Apostle John says. Jesus is truly God and truly man, one person with two natures. And as a man, He experiences pain and suffering like we do. Pre-incarnation it’s hard to see how God could sympathize with our pain and our suffering. But this all changes with the Incarnation.

By the way, this makes Christianity unique among the world religions. Because of the Incarnation, we know that we have a God who can sympathize with us. The author of Hebrews puts it this way, “For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but one in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.” He can sympathize with our weakness because he experienced weakness.

Through the life of Jesus we see the compassion of God for those who were helpless and hurting. In the ninth chapter of Matthew we read, “When he saw the crowds he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Only six chapters later we read that great crowds came to Him bringing with them the lame and the blind, the crippled and the mute, and many others and they put them at the feet of Jesus and He healed them. These texts make it clear that Jesus cares about our suffering. More than that, Jesus experienced suffering as an answer to suffering, especially eternal suffering.

The prophet Isaiah says, “He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds we are healed.” Jesus bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. The Godman cared enough about our suffering to take suffering upon Himself. And eventually, God will put a final end to sin and the effects of sin, the suffering, that comes with it. John says, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more, neither shall there be any mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.”