While they were dealing with a problematic member, someone on the church board said to the pastor, “We can’t make decisions based on compassion.” We can’t? The pastor wondered what this person’s understanding of God and of God’s law must have been. Compassion certainly needs to be central in how we deal with people, especially erring ones. Compassion is part and parcel of love, and as Romans 13:8 tells us, to love one’s neighbor is to fulfill the law.

If love is indeed the fulfillment of the law, then we should be careful not to think of law in a way that is separate from love or to think of love in a way that is disconnected from law. In Scripture, love and law go together. The divine Lawgiver is love, and accordingly, God’s law is the law of love. It is, as Ellen G. White put it, the transcript of God’s character. (See Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 305.)

Though we have confidence that God will make all things right in the end, it still matters what we, as Christians, do in the here and now. Though there may be many injustices and evils that God will not now eradicate (because of the parameters of the cosmic conflict), this doesn’t mean that we can’t be used to help alleviate whatever suffering and evil we come across, at least to whatever degree possible. In fact, we are obligated, as Christians, to do just that. As we have seen, love and justice go together; they are inseparable. God loves justice. Accordingly, if we love God, we will love justice, as well.

Some years ago, an insightful children’s story was printed in Guide magazine. The story focuses on a boy named Denis, an orphan living as a foster child with a family in medieval times. Denis passionately hates the king of his land because, when his parents were sick, the king’s soldiers carried him away, and he never saw them again. Only later did he learn that the king separated them in order to spare the living all the horrors of the Black Plague. The truth about the king sets Denis free from the hatred that he had harbored almost his entire life. The king had always, and in every case, acted out of love for his people.

A powerful narrative that reveals the nature of the cosmic conflict can be found in 1 Kings 18:19–40, Elijah on Mount Carmel, where the Lord exposes the so-called “gods of the nations.” Yet, there is more behind the scenes about these “gods” than that they are mere figments of pagan imagination. Behind the “gods” that the nations surrounding Israel thought they were worshiping was, actually, something else.

“ ‘They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they did not know, to new gods, new arrivals that your fathers did not fear’ ” (Deut. 32:17, NKJV). Paul adds, “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons” (1 Cor. 10:20, NKJV). Behind the false “gods” of the nations, then, were actually demons in disguise. This means, then, that all of the texts of Scripture dealing with idolatry and the foreign gods are “cosmic conflict” texts.

Central to biblical theology is the great controversy between Christ and Satan. Although the idea of a cosmic conflict between God and celestial creatures who have fallen and rebelled against God is a prominent motif of Scripture (Matt. 13:24–30, 37–39; Rev. 12:7–10) and also is prevalent in much of Christian tradition, many Christians have rejected or neglected the whole idea.

From a biblical perspective, however, the theme of a cosmic conflict, in which the kingdom of God is opposed by the devil and his angels, is not one that we can neglect without missing a great deal of what the biblical narratives are about. The Gospels alone are filled with references to the devil and demons who oppose God.

Providence is the term used to describe God’s action in the world. How we think about God’s providence makes a huge difference in how we relate to God, how we relate to others, and how we think about the problem of evil.

Christians hold various understandings of divine providence. Some believe that God exercises His power in a way that determines all events to happen just as they do. He even chooses who will be saved and who will be lost! In this view, people are not free to choose other than what God decrees. In fact, people who believe this way argue that even human desires are determined by God.

Perhaps the greatest problem facing Christianity is the problem of evil—how to reconcile the fact that God is perfectly good and loving, with the fact of evil in this world. In brief terms, if God is all-good and all-powerful, why is there evil, and so much of it, too? This is not merely an academic problem but something that deeply troubles many people and that keeps some from coming to know and love God.

“To many minds the origin of sin and the reason for its existence are a source of great perplexity. They see the work of evil, with its terrible results of woe and desolation, and they question how all this can exist under the sovereignty of One who is infinite in wisdom, in power, and in love. Here is a mystery of which they find no explanation.”—Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 492.

n the ancient Near East, the “gods” of the nations were not only fickle, immoral, and unpredictable, but they also commanded atrocities, such as child sacrifice. And even then, the pagan masses could not count on their favor, and so they dared not cross their tribal “deities.”

According to Deuteronomy 32:17, behind such “gods” were demons (see also 1 Cor. 10:20, 21). And their forms of worship were ripe for exploitation, leaving the people in great spiritual and moral darkness.

The God of the Bible could not be more different from these demonic forces. Yahweh is perfectly good and His character changeless. And it is only because of God’s constant goodness that we can have any hope, now and for eternity.

Though God’s compassion is often celebrated, many find the idea of His wrath disturbing. If God is love, they think He should never express wrath. That notion, however, is false. His wrath arises directly from His love.

Some claim that the Old Testament God is a God of wrath and that the New Testament God is a God of love. But there is only one God, and He is revealed as the same in both Testaments. The God who is love does become angry at evil—but precisely because He is love. Jesus Himself expressed profound anger against evil, and the New Testament teaches numerous times about the righteous and appropriate wrath of God.

Emotions are often viewed as undesirable and to be avoided. For some people, emotions are intrinsically irrational, and thus, the good man or woman would not be described as “emotional.” In some ancient Greek philosophy, the idea of the “rational” man, who is (mostly) either impervious to passions or who rules over his emotions by way of unemotional reason, is prized as the ideal.

Unbridled emotions can be problematic, yes. However, God created people with the capacity for emotions, and God Himself is displayed throughout Scripture as experiencing profound emotions. If God can experience deep emotions, as the Bible consistently portrays, then emotions cannot be intrinsically bad or irrational—for the God of the Bible is perfectly good and possesses perfect wisdom.