ranierean
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John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Why Did God Make Me Unattractive?
Few of us feel as attractive as we would like, and some of us feel downright ugly. Why does God allow such unattractiveness in a world that prizes physical beauty?
www.desiringgod.org
I think the deepest answer to the question of why there is so much ugliness and deformity and injury and disability and misery in the world is found in Romans 8:18–23. I don’t think it gets any more helpful or important or profound than these verses. I want to read the whole thing, making comments as I go, because I think this paragraph is worth meditating on for the rest of your life. Here’s what he says. This is Paul in Romans 8:18:
I’m going to include in that every form of ugliness or disfigurement, and you’ll see why I include it in this word sufferings as we go on. So, the fundamental hope of Christianity is suffering now, glory later — suffering now, glory later. Now, what kind of suffering?
Now take note: this is not primarily suffering persecution here. This is creation-based suffering.
Who’s that? That’s God, because only God subjects the creation in hope. The devil doesn’t do that. Sinful man doesn’t do that. Only God subjects the creation to futility in hope. So this is a reference to the fall in Genesis 3, the fall into sin and the consequent miseries that were brought into the world — all the horrific consequences of sin, including every disfigurement, every injury, every disability, every catastrophe. And so, he says that God subjected the creation to that in hope. What hope?
That’s just another phrase for “subjected to futility.” So we have creation in subjection to futility and in bondage to corruption — decay, ruination, futility, horrors. Continuing now with the description of hope:
So, the physical world, the creation — including our bodies — will share in the glory God has destined for his children.
What an image! This is another way of saying “subjected in hope.” It’s as if the creation is pregnant, and all the pain and misery and disfigurement are like cosmic birth pangs — a mother crying out in pain, a world in labor. And here’s where it gets really personal:
And you can hear Paul responding to people here who say, “Look, I’m saved. I’m redeemed. I’m forgiven. I’m a child of God. I have the Spirit of God in me. How can it be going so bad for me?” And he’s drawing attention to that.
The phrase “redemption of our bodies” covers the whole waterfront of aging miseries, disease miseries, disability miseries, ugliness miseries. In other words, he makes explicit that the horrors of groaning and corruption and futility include Spirit-filled Christians. Our bodies — John Piper’s body, Tony Reinke’s body, everyone’s body — desperately need now, or will need soon, redemption. We feel it in disease, we feel it in aging, and we see it in the mirror — some early, some late. And that redemption is coming. I think that’s the most important passage in the Bible for our friend to think about.
