Like me, you’ve probably heard it often said among Christians that God cannot allow sin in His presence. I’m not so sure that’s right, for there are several bits of knowledge from the Bible that make me go “Hmmm, I wonder about that.”

For example, Job 1: 6- “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came among them.” Obviously Satan is sin personified. Then there’s Jeremiah 23: 24. From it we learn that God is omnipresent. So if He’s everywhere, He’d certainly be in the presence of the sin that’s inherent in all of us. “Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?” says the Lord; “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the Lord.

I think the notion of no sin allowed in God’s presence might come form Habakkuk 1: 13. “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness.” If it is this passage that’s the basis for the notion, that means the rest of the verse has been disregarded, which has the prophet asking God, “Why do You look on those who deal treacherously, and hold Your tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he?”

On one hand, the verse says God can’t look at wickedness. On the other hand, it says that He does. Which is it? The first half comes across to me as the Prophet referencing what he knows to be God’s holy and righteous character (purer eyes). As such, he cannot fathom God approving of or favoring wickedness. That’s why in the verse’s second half, the prophet’s attitude is “So why then is wickedness allowed to take place?” And that, to me, is the gist of the verse.

The verse is not about God’s presence. It’s about the perplexity of God’s plans; about His motives and purposes that are encapsulated in that age-old question asked by billions: “How can a good God allow bad things to happen to good people?”

We know that our holy and righteous God hates sin and will eventually do away with it. But until then, He obviously tolerates its presence. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here because humanity never would’ve come into existence.

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Read more that’s related to God’s tolerance of sin in Sin Had to Happen? It Seems So. Click here.