ON DECEMBER 6, 1829, George Wilson and James Porter robbed a United States mail carrier in Pennsylvania. Both men were subsequently captured, tried and, on May 1, 1830, found guilty of robbing the mail and putting the life of the driver in jeopardy. Four weeks later, Wilson and Porter received their sentences: execution by hanging, to be carried out on July 2, 1830.
Before the date of the scheduled execution, some of Wilson’s influential friends pleaded for mercy from the president of the United States, Andrew Jackson, on behalf of their colleague. President Jackson issued a formal pardon, but George Wilson refused to accept it!
Wilson’s response must have been a first, because the justice system did not know what to do with him. Was he off the hook for what he had done, or not? The case was sent to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the opinion:
A pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered; and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him.
In simple terms, a refused pardon was no pardon, so Wilson was sent to the gallows.1
Evil and lawlessness are not new problems; the fact that God has not already put an end to them has caused some people to doubt or desert their faith—and many more feel a sense of deep disappointment. God has always been Creator, King, Judge and Savior. He continues to rule over all and have supreme authority. Because He is holy, righteous and just, we can be certain He will not (and cannot) let sin go unpunished. Yet He is also gracious, loving, merciful and patient, so He has provided a way of rescue for those who place their faith in Him. Jesus Christ bore the consequences of evil on the cross so that we can experience forgiveness, love and the kind of peace only God can provide. Through Jesus, God offers sinful humanity a pardon.
So we have a choice to make. We can be proud like George Wilson, reject an offer of mercy and go to the gallows defiant until the end. Or we can admit we are sinners and accept the mercy of God. In His sovereignty and wisdom, God permits every individual to exercise his or her free will within the boundaries of His divine purpose and redemptive plan for the world. When someone refuses divine mercy, love and power, God allows the continuing downward spiral of individuals and society.
Very few would deny that evil exists and that it wreaks havoc in our world. The reason we need a pardon is that we are by nature drawn to the evil that surrounds us and are easily entangled in it. But who is responsible for the evil and suffering in this world?
In one sense we are all guilty of the unraveling of society. To the extent that we do not do good, we extend the arm of evil and foster injustice in our world. Yet the source of the trouble is not our fellow men but the ancient enemy, Satan, who stands in the shadow of freedom, waiting to hatch his evil trap. So skilled is he in his spiritual guerilla tactics that we rarely acknowledge him as the culprit. He generates all manner of evil but leaves us thinking that evil is an impersonal force that emerges from poverty, greed, ignorance or a myriad of other sources.
From its opening chapters, the Bible confirms that Satan is the personification of evil. He is introduced in the book of Genesis as the serpent who craftily tempted Eve to betray her Creator (Genesis 3:1). Soon afterward, Satan was there to take advantage of Cain’s bitterness toward his brother Abel. God intervened and warned Cain to deal with his anger before it escalated into something worse: “Sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him” (Genesis 4:7 KJV). God tried to convince Cain that Satan’s desire was to tempt him to do wrong, but that He had provided everything Cain needed to resist the enemy and to rule over him. Cain chose to disregard his position as a son and forfeited his dominion to Satan. This departure from God’s design would lead Cain and others into despair and ruin.
Some people want to blame God for the evil in the world, but this tendency is yet another tactic of the enemy. When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, the cunning serpent asked Eve, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1). His loaded question subtly challenged them to question the goodness of God, suggesting that Eve was being denied the full expression of her freedom. (In other words, “If God were really good, He would let you do what you want to do.”) It was similar to what you hear today when people question God’s ability or willingness to intervene or stop evil. (“If God were really good, He wouldn’t make me endure such unpleasantness.”) Dr. Norman L. Geisler writes,
From a purely apologetic perspective, more skepticism, agnosticism, and atheism have sprung from an inability to answer various aspects of the problem of evil than from any other single issue. What is more, when doubt begins in this area, it moves quickly to other areas.2
Regardless of how society frames the question or the argument, the blame always seems to rest on a restrictive God who is holding back the best from His children. Harvard professor Michael J. Sandel demonstrates the way humankind approaches freedom from a philosophical perspective:
Aristotle teaches that justice means giving people what they deserve. And in order to determine who deserves what, we have to determine what virtues are worthy of honor and reward. . . .
By contrast, modern political philosophers—from Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century to John Rawls in the twentieth century—argue that the principles of justice that define our rights should not rest on any particular conception of virtue, or of the best way to live. Instead, a just society respects each person’s freedom to choose his or her own conception of the good life.3
Even though freedom has been elevated to such a high level, it is nearly impossible to find a situation in which we can eliminate virtue. Modern man is torn between freedom and virtue. Freedom is usually preferred until one person’s freedom to choose encroaches on another’s individual freedom. When this happens, there is a cry for justice.
Phil Hotsenpiller is Founder and President of American Faith.
1United States v. George Wilson, 32 U.S. 150 (1833); see also “United States v. George Wilson,” Legal Information Institute, accessed November 30, 2016, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/32/150.
2Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil? (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2011), 10.
3 Michael J. Sandel, Justice (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009), 9.
