Can evil be good?

When Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, they thought only of themselves and how angry this upstart made them with his dreams and visions of his own future glory. They didn’t think of the anguish it would cause their father Jacob over the loss of his favored son. They didn’t think of his mother who would certainly grieve the rest of her days. They were totally selfish in their actions, and God calls that selfishness evil.

They had no idea of the power of God either. In an outcome that surprised them all, God used Joseph. He put him into a place of power in Egypt, and when famine came and people were dying for lack of food, Joseph was the one who saved his entire family.

When the brothers realized that this Egyptian leader was their brother, they were terrified. They knew he could destroy them. Yet the power of God had also transformed Joseph’s life. Instead of an arrogant revenge, Joseph offered forgiveness and compassion. He said to them, 

But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. (Genesis 50:20)

Today’s world is filled with unfair and evil actions and reactions. Christians are not in a bubble; these things affect us too. Sometimes members of the body of Christ, in a reversion to being governed by that old nature, commit some of those evil things. We hurt one another and the people around us with our disobedience and selfishness.

In my heart I know that I cannot do good without the power of God enabling me. The Holy Spirit is the source of godly attitudes and actions. The fruit of the Spirit includes love, patience, gentleness and self-control. Without Him, I’m as selfish as Joseph’s brothers.

But when I sin, I cannot say that the Spirit left me and I could not help what I did. This is a mystery. My Christian life depends on God, but it also involves the choices that I make. At times I’ve felt helpless to make the right decisions and unable to depend on the God that I love, but I still cannot blame Him if I act in helplessness and wind up doing something foolish.

Nor can I claim that it doesn’t matter, that God can still use my sin for good. He does use my mistakes to teach me lessons, but going into sin and committing with that presumptuous attitude will result in the most difficult lessons of all.

James 4:17 winds up a section on the folly of assuming that God will bless me even when I do whatever I please with these words, “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.”

Evil is never good. The wages or the result of sin is always death. It may be physical (should I persist), but it certainly will be a separation or loss of some kind. Because of God’s promises to “save to the uttermost” I will come out of it, hopefully wiser and more humble, but I will miss any rewards that might have been mine had I obeyed Him in the first place, and the people around me will also miss out on those benefits.

No one can rewrite history. I cannot ‘what if’ regarding Joseph and his brothers. God could have used another way to rescue them from the famine, but the story stands. The brothers didn’t make much of a mark, but Joseph, who obeyed God throughout his ordeal became one of the Old Testament heros, an example of what God can do when others abuse one of His children.

Joseph is an example for me of what to do when life seems unfair. I can trust God with everything, even to use evil for good. However, I cannot ever say that evil is good. Only God can pull His good purposes out of it, and He makes all the decisions of what and how to do it.