The Challenge to Faith

Scripture

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Isaiah 53:5 KJV

📗 Read Isaiah 53:5 in the UECF.NET NKJV Bible →

Big idea

Summary

Keller begins with creation and fall: Genesis pictures a world made without suffering, so our sense that pain and death are “wrong” is not sentimentality but a genuine echo of how things were meant to be. The fall in Genesis 3 explains suffering’s origin in a ruptured relationship with God without licensing the simplistic idea that any individual’s suffering is a direct, traceable punishment for that individual’s sin; the honest conclusion, Keller says, is a shared human fallenness that should produce humility rather than either self-righteousness or despair.

He then turns to two further doctrines that, he argues, no purely philosophical account of suffering can offer: final judgment, which promises every wrong will eventually be set right without requiring victims to secure justice themselves, and the resurrection, which promises not just consolation but the actual restoration of what was lost. The chapter’s emotional center is the incarnation: because Jesus himself suffered, wept, and was forsaken on the cross, Christians can trust a God who has not remained safely outside human pain, but has entered it — a claim Keller grounds in the true story of “Georgianna,” whose family endured a false accusation of abuse and the loss of custody of their children, and who found that walking through unjust suffering with God led, eventually, to forgiveness and healing.

Key points

• Genesis’s picture of a good creation without suffering explains why suffering feels fundamentally “wrong” rather than merely unpleasant.
• The fall (Genesis 3) explains the origin of suffering in humanity’s broken relationship with God, without implying any specific person’s suffering is direct, individual punishment.
• Shared human fallenness should produce humility, not the assumption that comfortable people are more righteous, or suffering people more guilty.
• Final judgment offers hope that every injustice will eventually be addressed, freeing believers from having to secure their own vengeance now.
• The resurrection promises restoration, not just comfort — a renewed and even greater life, not simply the absence of pain.
• Because Jesus himself suffered and was forsaken, God is not distant from human pain but has personally entered it.

Illustrations & stories

• Genesis 3’s account of the fall as the origin of a “wrongness” in a world not created for suffering.
• “Georgianna’s” story: a false child-abuse accusation, the loss of custody, and the long path to healing and forgiveness that followed.

Notable line

There is no greater inner agony than the loss of a love relationship.

Timothy Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, ch. 5

For reflection and discussion

1. Do you agree that our sense that suffering is “wrong” points to something real about how the world was meant to be?
2. How does distinguishing “shared human fallenness” from “personal punishment for personal sin” change how you’d counsel a suffering friend?
3. What difference does the promise of future judgment make to how you handle present injustice?
4. Why might resurrection (restoration) be a more powerful hope than simple comfort or consolation?
5. Georgianna’s story ends in forgiveness after an unjust accusation. What do you think made that possible?