Is God cruel?

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?

Death and suffering entered the world when Adam and Eve sinned. What feels like cruelty in this world, then, is the punishment we brought on ourselves. The Bible presents God as perfectly righteous and compassionate, even when He judges. While His actions may appear harsh at times, they are always grounded in justice and tempered by mercy. Because God is not cruel, He delays judgment to give time for repentance, and even His discipline is for our good.

Jesus is the greatest display of God’s kindness. By sending Him to live and die, God gave us a way to escape the just wrath that we deserve. When God punishes evil, it is never because He takes pleasure in suffering, but because He cannot overlook sin and still be good. Those who accuse God of cruelty often overlook their own guilt and the grace He continually extends by allowing them to continue to live.

FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

• God is often accused of being cruel because there is death and suffering in the world. The accusation stems from the belief that if God were really good and loving, then nothing bad would ever happen. However, that accusation misses the key reason that death and suffering exist. What God created was good—seven times Genesis 1 says that God looked at what He created and saw that it was good (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, and 31). Genesis 1 ends with the statement, “God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). God did not create anything from cruelty. It was all “very good.”
• God, Himself, is also perfectly good (Deuteronomy 32:4). By calling God, “Rock,” Moses declared that God is a solidly righteous foundation. Everything that God does is just and righteous.
• When Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command, it came with the penalty of death, difficulty, and disease (Genesis 2:15–17; 3:19).
• Sin did not stop with Adam and Eve. Instead, everyone was born a sinner by nature and by choice. After the first sin, the world became filled with evil (Genesis 6:5–6). Because of mankind’s wickedness, God said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them” (Genesis 6:7). Killing everyone was God’s just judgment against evil. However, he mercifully held off from killing all of humanity by saving Noah and his family because “Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD” (Genesis 6:8).
• Though God must judge us for our rebellion, He doesn’t take cruel pleasure from it (Ezekiel 18:23). God gets no enjoyment out of punishing people. However, He must do so because He is just (Ezekiel 18:24a). If someone is sinning, how can God allow that person to continue to live and still be just?
• God, when describing Himself to Moses, said, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty” (Exodus 34:6–7). Though God is merciful, compassionate, and loving, none of that overrides justice. He “will by no means clear the guilty” because that would pervert justice, making Him unjust!
• God provided a way to forgive the individual while still punishing all sin with death (Leviticus 17:11). But sacrifices alone are worthless (2 Samuel 12; Psalm 51:16–17). The one being forgiven must express genuine sorrow for his sin. While the sacrificial system starts to explain how God can be both gracious and just, the animal sacrifices only paid for a limited number of sins, leaving the person still guilty when he sinned again. This is why Israel continually sacrificed animals every day—there was never a complete forgiveness for sin.

FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT

• John 3:16 is perhaps the most famous verse about how God’s expressed His love to humanity.
• God is not cruel but loving (1 John 4:9–10). The Father sent Jesus as a propitiation, a sacrifice that appeases the wrath of God.
• In the Old Testament, God’s wrath was temporarily appeased by an animal sacrifice. However, Jesus’s sacrifice was the final and complete sacrifice (Hebrews 10:3–4, 11–12, 14). Jesus, as fully human, was the only sacrifice that paid, in full, for human sin.
• God is a loving and just. He maintains justice but also offers an escape from justice by sending His Son to die in our place (Romans 5:8).
• While suffering and pain today might seem like cruelty, the fact that He keeps us alive for a period of time before He inflicts His full judgment in eternity is His mercy (2 Peter 3:9)! He doesn’t wish that anyone would die and gives us all an opportunity to repent of our sin and trust in His sacrifice, Jesus.

IMPLICATIONS FOR TODAY

If we accuse God of cruelty, we misunderstand either His holiness or our sin. We tend to measure justice by how it affects us (“I’m a good person—this isn’t fair!”). However, God is the perfect Judge, who sees everything clearly. Every punishment is just. God did not have to show us His love or mercy, and He would be perfectly just if He simply killed us the moment we each sinned. However, He has delayed His judgment, extending underserved mercy toward us. So, rather than think, “God must help me or else He is a cruel God!” we need to think, “I can’t believe a just God kindly helped me despite my cruelty to Him!”

God’s wrath is not wild rage but holy resistance to evil. His discipline is not hatred but the loving correction of a Father. He waits longer than we would, forgives more deeply than we expect, and acts more justly than we dare to admit. At the cross, cruelty is exposed—not from God, but from us. And yet He offered mercy.

We can trust Him, even when we do not understand His ways. Instead of accusing Him of wrongdoing, we should marvel that He has not judged us more quickly. If you feel anger toward God’s justice, look again at the cross. There, God displayed His lack of cruelty by providing an escape from the final, judging wrath to come.

UNDERSTAND

• Suffering and evil exist because of our sin, not God’s cruelty.
• God is just and must judge sin, but He does not enjoy it.
• Jesus proves God’s love, not cruelty.

REFLECT

• How do you respond when life feels unfair?
• How have you overlooked your own sin when wrestling with God's judgments?
• How does knowing that Jesus took the punishment you deserve shape the way you view God’s justice?

ENGAGE

• What do accusations of God’s cruelty reveal about how people define fairness and goodness?
• How can the Old and New Testament views of sacrifice and judgment help us understand God’s justice and mercy?
• How does the cross challenge the idea that God is cruel and instead reveal the depth of His love?