What Turns a Person Evil?
“Turns” a person evil? . . . Well, nothing. . . . Because we already are evil.
Surely there is no one on earth who always does good and never sins. [Ecclesiastes 7:20]
All have sinned and are not good enough to share God’s divine greatness. [Romans 3:23]
All of us, without exception, have an anti-God bias in our hearts. But since God’s very being is the Ultimate Good, and the Standard of Goodness, then to be anti-God is, logically, to be anti-Good — and therefore evil.
But of course there are degrees of evil. Jesus once said to his opponents, “if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father [who is sinless] give good gifts to those who ask him.” (Matthew 7:11)
On the other hand . . . although God pokes and prods people in their hearts to seek Him out and to do what is good in His eyes . . . the more they resist Him over time, the more He will hand them over to their own devices. In a sense, God will eventually give persistent rebels “enough rope to hang themselves.” (Romans 1:21, 24, 26, 28–29, 32)
A closely related — and vital — question is: What can turn a person good?
In short: A relationship with God. He promises the following to His people:
. . . God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God . . . . For God . . . chose them to become like his Son [i.e., Jesus — Romans 8:28–29].
We have not yet been shown what we will be in the future. But we know that when Christ comes again, we will be like him. [1 John 3:2]
This is why one of my favorite Bible verses is 1 Corinthians 2:9: “No one has ever seen — no one has ever heard — no one has ever imagined — what God has prepared for those who love Him.”
