Commenting on John 9:3, Ryle remarks:

A deep and instructive principle lies in these words. They surely throw some light on that great question, the origin of evil. God has thought fit to allow evil to exist in order that he may have a platform for showing his mercy, grace, and compassion. If man had never fallen there would have been no opportunity of showing divine mercy. But by permitting evil, mysterious as it seems, God’s works of grace, mercy, and wisdom in saving sinners have been wonderfully manifested to all his creatures. The redeeming of the church of elect sinners is the means of ‘showing to principalities and powers the manifold wisdom of God’ (Eph. 3:10). Without the Fall we should have known nothing of the Cross and the Gospel.

from Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (John Vol. 2), J. C. Ryle

Edwards discusses the necessity of evil in order to fully display God’s glory:

It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God’s glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all; for then the effulgence would not answer the reality. For the same reason it is not proper that one should be manifested exceedingly, and another but very little. It is highly proper that the effulgent glory of God should answer his real excellency; that the splendour should be answerable to the real and essential glory, for the same reason that it is proper and excellent for God to glorify himself at all.

Thus it is necessary, that God’s awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God’s glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all.

If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God’s holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God’s grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from. How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired, and the sense of it not so great, as we have elsewhere shown. We little consider how much the sense of good is heightened by the sense of evil, both moral and natural.

And as it is necessary that there should be evil, because the display of the glory of God could not but be imperfect and incomplete without it, so evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature’s happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect; and the happiness of the creature would be imperfect upon another account also; for, as we have said, the sense of good is comparatively dull and flat, without the knowledge of evil.

The Works of Jonathan Edwards: Remarks on Important Theological Controversies (Chapter 3: Concerning the Divine Decrees in General, and Election in Particular), Originally published in 1834.

For those who have been struggling with the co-existence of God and evil, MacArthur gives a great summary on the problem of evil. Here are some excerpts from his sermon “Why Does Evil Dominate the World?”

God controls absolutely everything. There is no evil outside His plan. There is no evil outside His purpose. He knows everything that can be known, that is knowable. He has comprehensive power to do everything that can be done that is possible.  That is what the Bible says about God. And in that perfect knowledge, and in that perfect power, and with perfect holiness, and expressing His perfect love, God ordains everything.

Evil exists. God exists. God wills evil to exist. He did not create it. He could not create it. But He did not prevent it. He ordained it.  He willed it. Here it comes, listen carefully…because He had a purpose for it….He had a purpose for it…a purpose. This is critical.  He had a purpose for evil.

The reason for God ordaining evil is for the praise of His glory…God allowed evil to put His righteousness on display. God allowed evil to put His love on display. And God allowed evil to put His wrath on display.

MacArthur goes on to unpack this thought further and quotes from the Westminster Confession:

All that God decrees and all that God providentially brings to pass is all to the praise of His glory.

>>>Read MacArthur’s sermon in its entirety or download the MP3<<<