What is This “Great Controversy” Idea all About?

How many times have you heard someone ask: “If God is so good, why does He let all this bad stuff happen to good people?!” Or maybe you have wondered why evil seems to thrive while good people suffer all kinds of troubles. Some folks say they wouldn’t want to live an eternity with a God who doesn’t seem to care enough to stop such things.

It is undeniable that bad things do happen to good people, and the unrighteous seem to flourish in this world more than the righteous. The Bible acknowledges that this seems to be true but points out that a day of judgment is coming when all will be rewarded according to their deeds.

But why does God permit those who do evil to prosper while those who do good suffer?¹ The simple answer is that the fruits of both good and evil are being allowed to grow and manifest themselves until the day of Judgment when every man will receive according to the fruit of his works—the evil man will perish while the good man will spend eternity with God.²

But if God is omniscient, knowing the end from the beginning, why does He need to let evil exist and manifest its evil works—can’t He just judge good and evil now? This is an excellent question and the answer needs a thorough explanation as to the reason for the Great Controversy and why that controversy must be allowed to play out and reveal its fruits.

The Bible tells us that God created the angels and other intelligent beings on worlds throughout the universe, just as He created mankind and this earth.³ The Bible also tells us that God is a god of order and system, not of chaos and disorder.⁴ And the Bible tells us that God is love; that selfless benevolence is the very foundation and fabric of His character and His divine government.⁵

War in Heaven

God created His intelligent beings in His image, capable of loving.⁶ Love cannot be commanded or forced or coerced. While force and coercion can produce compliance, they operate by fear and not by love. True love is a choice by an intelligent being free to love or not to love. Thus, all of God’s intelligent beings (angels and other beings throughout God’s creation in the universe) were created with the freedom to love and comply with God’s divine order or to not love and not comply.

The scriptures tell of a war that took place in heaven when this freedom to choose whether to love and comply led to an irreconcilable division. The result was a battle between God and the angels who chose to love God versus those who chose to rebel.⁷

This presented a dilemma. Because God’s intelligent beings are finite and cannot see the past-present-and-future as God does, some could not help wondering whether those who rebelled might be right—or at least partly right.⁸ If God had immediately and unequivocally destroyed those who rebelled, these questions in the minds of the loyal about the possible validity of the assertions of the disloyal would have lingered and likely continued to arise.⁹ God needed to deal with the rebellion in a manner that revealed He truly is a God of selfless love and free choice. He must let the assertion that there was a better way ‘play out’ and reveal that selfless love is the only path to happiness and that any path built upon self-love is doomed to death and the absence of peace.

Freedom to Choose

Being all-knowing, God had foreseen this eventuality and prepared for it even before creating the first intelligent being with a free will. The Bible tells us that from the foundation of the world, a provision was made for a sacrificial Lamb to pay the price should any being make the wrong choice.¹⁰ That provision was invoked when the war in heaven took place, thus launching The Great Controversy between Satan and Christ the Lamb.

When Adam and Eve were created in the image of God and placed in the Garden of Eden, they were given a choice to love, trust, and obey God or not. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was placed in the garden, and they were instructed not to eat its fruit.¹¹ Satan and his angels were cast out of heaven to the earth where Adam and Eve lived ¹² and Satan was allowed to interact with them at the forbidden tree. Satan deceived Eve into doubting God. When Eve accepted the lie that God was withholding the benefits of the Tree of Knowledge from them because He did not want them to be like Him, knowing good and evil, she ate the fruit.¹³

After this first act of human sin, Adam and Eve could not be permitted to live eternally in their sinfulness. This choice to distrust and disobey required that sin not be immortalized by allowing Adam and Eve to continue to eat from the Tree of Life, and they were cast out of the Garden.¹⁴

When they were cast out, God promised that one of their descendants would overcome Satan, but that Satan would fatally injure him in the process. It was a symbolic representation of the promised Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.¹⁵ After many demonstrations that sinful mankind was incapable of loving, trusting, and obeying God without divine intervention, Jesus the Lamb was born of the virgin Mary.¹⁶

God's Love or Self-Love?

In a climactic demonstration of the cruelty and injustice of Satan’s self-love, Jesus was crucified for claiming to be the Son of God, the promised Savior of mankind.¹⁷ The self-loving Jewish nation rejected the selfless love and humility of God demonstrated in Jesus’ life of ministry to the undeserving.¹⁸ This completely undermined and destroyed their religious economy of using works to earn and deserve salvation. Jesus the Lamb lived a sinless life, never once giving in to Satan’s temptations and offers of grandeur.¹⁹

The dramatic contrast between selfless love and self-love convinced the watching universe that God’s way and plan was the only path to eternal happiness, peace, and joy.²⁰ But God had an even bigger demonstration of the power of His love in store—He would show that it could also transform sinners into saints. This demonstration is even now taking place as the descendants of Adam and Eve learn of Jesus and make their choice to love, trust, and serve Him, or to reject His love and trust in themselves.²¹ This process is nearing its end and Jesus will soon declare it finished and come to take those who have chosen to love Him to heaven where He will open the books fully for complete examination by His intelligent beings so they can see what He has done has always been for the good of His created beings.²

This investigative judgment will forever settle the questions and doubts raised by Satan’s assertion about God being selfish and arbitrary. The entire universe will be eternally at joyful peace, each free will choosing to work in harmony for the good of others.²²

Call to Consider: Selfless Love or Rebelliousness?

In summary, events during the “sin experience,” including bad things happening to good people, can only be properly understood as a necessary corollary and consequence of God giving finite beings the free will necessary for the universe to operate by selfless love. The reason bad things happen even to good and innocent people is because the Creator has given every intelligent being a free will to choose whether to love, trust, and obey, or to envy, distrust, and rebel against God and His divine order. These two choices are incompatible and cannot co-exist in peace. God’s intelligent beings have free choice, but they are finite and cannot see the end from the beginning as God does. Therefore, He must let self-love play out until the natural consequences are manifest so that all beings can see the result of that choice and make an eternal informed choice themselves. It is the nature of selfless love to serve others and endure any suffering involved. In this way, others can see the consequences of making faulty choices and have the opportunity to make better choices, all because of the selfless love shown to them by those they have hurt. Doing good to those who do evil to us is the essence of selfless love.²³ This is the evidence being revealed to the angels and unfallen worlds during The Great Controversy. If evil could not happen to good people, love could not function as the uniting principle in God’s universe.

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1. (2 Peter 2:9) “The Lord knoweth how to . . . reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:” (Jeremiah 25:14) “I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the works of their own hands.
2. (Revelation 20:12) “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.”
3. (Hebrews 1:2) “Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;” (Hebrews 11:3) “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”
4. (Genesis 1:2-31)
5. (1 John 4:8) “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”
6. (Genesis 1:26) “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:”
7. (Revelation 12:7) “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,”
8. (Isaiah 46:10) “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:”
9. (1 Corinthians 6:3) “Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?”
10. (Revelation 13:8) “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (1 Peter 1:20) “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,”
11. (Genesis 2:17) “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
12. (Revelation 12:9) “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”
13. (Genesis 3:6) “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”
14. (Genesis 3:22-23) “And God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.”
15. (Genesis 3:15) “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
16. (Matthew 1:21) “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.”
17. (John 19:7) “The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.”
18. (Acts 10:38) “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.”
19. (John 8:46) “Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?”
20. (Revelation 22:17) "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” (Revelation 14:5) “And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.”
21. (2 Corinthians 5:17) “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (Romans 6:4) “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
22. (Revelation 21:27) “And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.” (Isaiah 66:23) “And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD.”
23. (Matthew 5:44) “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”