Early in Scripture we read a seemingly disheartening command of God. None of the offspring of Aaron, the priests of Israel, who had a disability could go through the veil and approach God’s altar, ‘lest he profane God’s sanctuaries’. (Leviticus 21:23) In addition, for sacrifice, God only accepted ‘perfect’ animals, those without blemish or illness. Yet, even men in ‘perfect’ bodies sacrificing ‘perfect’ animals were not perfect enough to purify us once for all time- as was the perfect sacrifice made by Jesus Christ (Hebrews 7:26-28).
The animals sacrificed were a foreshadow and type of this perfect sacrifice to come. The sacrificed animals and the men entering into God’s holiest place on Earth had to be as perfect as they could be to mimic the Christ. However, neither were really perfect.
All priests had to offer sacrifices for themselves before offering sacrifices for the people, for these priests sinned. Because of this sin, their bodies wouldn’t remain perfect forever. They would with age begin to wither, fail, and die. Had they not been sacrificed the bodies of these perfect animals, also, would also have grown old and died because sin was in the world.
God considered, for the Old Testament system of sacrifice, disability ‘profane’. God always considers sin profane. Could disability be profane because it is a result of sin in the world?
Yet, God doesn’t shun the person with the disability. He still refers to Himself as their God, as the God Who sanctifies them. (Leviticus 21:21, 23) In His same grace and mercy, God doesn’t shun His sin-drenched people.
God is a God of both justice and love. God hates sin. Sin must be atoned for. However, God loves His people, and for His Holy namesake, forgives His people for their sin, sending His own Son as atonement. For we His people cannot atone for ourselves.
We are not saved by our own righteousness. Our righteousness is like filthy rags. The only righteousness we have to offer God is that which was imputed to us by Christ at His sacrifice. The only sacrifices we have to offer God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart. God draws near to the humble. God knows we are weak, that we are only dust. He takes pity on the weak, and, while He demands us to do so, also, as Job found out, caring for the weak- the blind and the lame- did not even make him righteous ‘enough’. (Job 29:15)
There is hardly a greater a symbol of weakness than disability or illness, and these people to whom God seems most drawn. While they were forbidden to enter the holy of holies, God comes to them. To people like Paul who know that because God’s grace is made perfect in our weakness, when we are weak they are strong. The only strength that is to be relied upon is God’s, as the only righteousness that is to be counted is Christ’s. It is God Who opens the eyes of the blind and the deaf, makes the lame man leap, and the tongue of the mute sin for joy (Isaiah 35:5-6), and in His justice, Jesus came to open the eyes of the Spiritually blind. (John 9:39)
Interestingly, God calls people to weakness- before He calls us to stand and to run. He calls us to repentance, to a time of contriteness and humility at salvation, making us His. When we are God’s we rely on God’s strength, and, therefore, must die to our own.
In our weaknesses, God glorifies Himself. It was because of a bodily ailment that Paul first preached the Gospel to the Galatians. (Galatians 4:13) God is just as glorified by leaving Paul with his ‘thorn’ in 2 Corinthians 12, as when Jesus gives glory to Him through the healing of a man born blind in John 9.
God receives glory in His compassion for the suffering and the hurting. Jesus, for instance, Who only did the work that He saw His Father doing first, (John 5:19) ministered to and healed people with disabilities, illnesses, and sin. He was filled with compassion for the widow whose only son had passed away. After raising the son from the dead, He returned him to His mother. This most compassionate act caused the people to cry, “God has visited His people!” (Luke 7:11-18)
In the resurrection of Christ, those of us called by God unto salvation, having had our spiritual eyes opened, have hope of an end to suffering. Our physical weaknesses will have an ending. We will not always be disabled, old, and emotionally vulnerable. Most excitedly, in our new bodies we will no longer battle with sin. One day, we will be perfect (1 Corinthians 15).
However, even in our perfect bodies in our perfect Home, human beings, once being imperfect, children of wrath and enemies of God, we will always remain dependent on Christ and His perfect sacrifice. Upon Christ, who embraced weakness by putting human flesh and dying our death (Philippians 2:5-11) , to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18), to give us eternal life (John 3:16), which is knowing God (John 17:3), forever in perfect harmony with our Creator.
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