Weakness and the Glory of God

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.

Bioethical Decisions in a Fallen World

As both a Christian and a caregiver for the elderly and those with disabilities, I'm struck with this Biblical view point- sin obstructs our decision making process.  In our fallen state, we often make choices, including medical choices, for the wrong reasons- often for motives that appeal to the flesh or mere human reasoning.  While paitents should remain a crucial part of the decision making process regarding their medical treatment and doctors should have the freedome to discern the best care for his/her patient, both patients and doctors would be wise to remember that human reasoning does not always lead us to the right choices.

Bioethics is attempting to set standards for the conduct of medicine and healthcare in an age of new knowledge and changing science.  However, bioethicists are setting these standards from a fallen state of mind.  Truth is subjective to them, as are ethics, dependent on such things as a person’s worldview, religion, and philosophy.   “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”  (Proverbs 14:12, 16:25)  If this proverb has ever been relevant, it is so with bioethics.  

When we, as Christians, set standards for how we care for the sick and needy, we must remember that truth is not relative.  The truth- the Biblical truth- about who God is and who man is plays a critical role in regard to medical decisions that affect the lives of the weak and the needy. All of those we care for in the hospital bed, teach life skills to in the group home, or 'produce' in the laboratory are deserving of dignity and respect for the sole reason that "In the image of God, made He man."  (Genesis 9:6)  So, while scientists can manipulate genes and clone embryos, we can never engineer the image of God out of a human being.  This truth alone could set the tone for any medical ethic.

However, likewise, in our attempts to manipulate genes and clone embryos to eradicate diseases and eliminate disabilities, we can never create a person who will not inherit the struggle with sin.  As much as we are created in the image of God, we are also sons of Adam; therefore, there will never be a perfect person.  Our only hope remains, as it always has, in Christ and Him crucified.  In His work on the cross- the great exchange, the righteous for the unrighteous, the suffering for our sins so He could save us from them and bring us to God.   This is incredible mercy and incredible love.

Despite the uniqueness of each created person, in these two things- our common created image and our common depravity- man can be considered virtually identical to one another.  Our worth could not be contingent upon any work or ability.  To say that a person is too weak or does not contribute enough is laughable compared to the greatness and splendor and perfection that is in God!  All men fall short of that Glory.  We are all too weak and no one ‘contributes’ enough!  For all of us, our worth is dependent only on who we are through the work of Christ at the cross. 

With new life in Christ through the cross, we are given new nature and the told to renew our minds.  In both this new nature and in our renewed minds, we view suffering, ethics, and caring for the weak and the vulnerable differently.  We now consider those weaker than we are, and we realize that it is a sin to not show them the same grace and mercy we were given, even if one is so weak that he or she is not even cognitively aware of it.  

Suffering is horrible.  It is no light thing.  We are better off dead and at peace with our Maker than alive on this dead earth!  But in our renewed minds, we know, also, that we cannot take suffering into our own hands, as those in bioethics seem to do.  We can never consider breaking God’s commandment to not murder, for instance, through abortion and euthanasia because we deem someone to be suffering too much.  We cooperate with nature and conform to the way God created it.  For when we attempt to manipulate nature (think of the undignified 'Ashley Treatment') and destroy that which we judge undesirable- destroy whom we judge undesirable because of the sufferings they are given- we question God’s goodness and wisdom leaving us rebuked as Job was- “Where was man when God laid the foundation of the earth?”  

As we painfully watch those around us suffer, doing all we can to ease their suffering, we are to suffer with those suffering.  We are not to cooperate with the hopelessness that suffering brings by manipulating the death one suffering or who we assume will suffer after birth.  Instead we offer them and their loved ones the hope of Christ found in His Gospel, that those who call upon His name will be saved from their sin soaked hearts, from the wrath of God, and from hell.  And that those who call upon His name will be saved to new life in Christ, to a perfect and holy body in eternity, and the unimaginable joy of eternity in the presence of the Creator.

Because of the unity we have with Christ (because of the great love and mercy shown to us at the cross), we, in humility, count others more significant than ourselves.  We look not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others.  We have this mind among ourselves, which is ours in Christ Jesus Who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  (Philippians 2:1-8)

And so we humble ourselves to one another, using our freedom to serve one another in love (Galatians 5:13), taking tender care of the weak (1 Thessalonians 5:14), seeking justice and encouraging the oppressed (Isaiah 1:17), and becoming disabled to the disabled (1 Corinthians 9:22) in order to share the Gospel to all people, in hopes that all people will be saved from, among other things, their fallen states of minds, having their minds aligned with Christ and His purposes for all things- including suffering and caring for those suffering.  

Genetic Testing and Family Planning

A video on genetic testing.

Listen carefully to what Devin's mother says.  Had she known she were a carrier for Fragile X Syndrome, she would have had her eggs fertilized outside of her womb, tested, and implanted only healthy eggs.  This son whom she obviously loves and adores would not have been born.  She would rather have his just forming life destroyed than let him be born with a disability.

This is what we are doing with the gift of genetic testing?  Reverting to eugenics- from which the science of genetics evolved?  What kind of people can reason like this?

Oh, that's right.  All of us.

The human heart is deceitful and desperately sick.  (Jeremiah 17:9)  We live in sin and obey the devil, the one at work in the sons of disobedience.  We've all lived that way, following the inclinations of our sinful nature.  By our very nature, we are subject to God's wrath.  (Ephesians 2:1-3)

God says to take tender care of the weak.  (1 Thessalonias 5:14)  He commands we learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, and plead the widow's cause. (Isaiah 1:17)

But we don't do it, and so God's justice demands consequences.  The wages of sin is death.  (Romans 6:23)  But, God in His great mercy, sent His Son as a propitiation, to absorb the wrath of God and to suffer our consequences.  The good news is that, God showed His love for us in that while we were still sinning Christ died for us.  And now all who repent and believe in Christ and his work on the cross will be saved.  (Romans 3:21-26, Mark 1:15)

We're then given a new nature.  No longer children of wrath, we are children of God.  (Romans 8:15, Titus 3:7), heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), given His righteousness (1 Corinthinas 1:30).  And, now, we're told to renew our minds (Ephesians 2:23).

So, we don't reason like Devin's mom anymore.  With our renewed minds, we know that as God knit Devin in his mother's womb, Devin's form was not hidden from God.  God knew Devin had Fragile X Syndrome.  And, yet, Devin was fearfully and wonderfully made, a wonderful work.  How precious are God's thoughts toward Devin!  And Devin's mother.  (Psalm 139:13-16)

And also with our renewed minds, as we now seek God and His ways, we do as He commands.  We stand up for the weak, needy, poor, oppressed, and the very, very tiny.  We love justice.  We show the hope of God to Devin's mom and to Devin.

We don't let murder in the name of genetic testing just happen.  We do something about it.  

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.  (Proverbs 14:12)

Why Can't a Person in a Committed Homosexual Relationship Wholeheartedly Follow Christ?

From the blog post of Tony Jones.

If you are one who thinks that homosexual sex is sinful, can you please explain to me WHY a gay or lesbian person who is in a long-term, monogamous relationship would not be able to wholeheartedly follow Christ?

My only stipulation is this: You may not quote one of the six verses in scripture that mentions homosexuality.  Instead, you must use theological and/or philosophical arguments to attempt to convince me that when you have genital contact with someone of your own gender, it somehow inhibits your relationship with Christ.

Yes, Mr. Jones, I have an answer for you.  Why can't a person in a committed homosexual relationship wholeheartedly follow Christ?  Because no one can wholeheartedly follow Christ!  No one seeks God.  (Romans 3:10-12)

Wholeheartedly following Christ (obeying God, loving God with all your heart, mind, and strength) is a law.  The Law of God demands perfection.  But, instead, all have sinned- we are all under it (Romans 3:23, Romans 3:9).  We are  children of wrath by nature (Ephesians 2:1-3) and enemies of God (Colossians 1:21). We are sons of Adam, born in sin, and sinful from conception (Romans 5:12-13, Psalm 51:5).  

Mr. Jones, have you wholeheartedly followed Christ all your life?  Do you obey the Law- always?  Again, the Law demands perfection.  And we can't do it.  So, therein enters the cross.

Jesus didn't come to teach us new laws or even how to follow the already established one.  He didn't come to teach us a 'better way to live' (which is a law).  He came to fulfill the Law.  (Matthew 5:17)  Sent by His Father (John 8:42), Jesus came to call sinners (Matthew 9:12-13), 'that those who do not see may see and those who see may become blind' (John 9:39), and to die for them (John 12:23-29).  

In doing so, Jesus doesn't abolish the Law (Matthew 5:17), but He sets us free from the yolk of the Law (We are no longer slaves to it.)  (Galatians 4- Galatians 5:1)  

What does this mean?  For mankind, who has had the Law of God written on our hearts (Romans 2:14-16), we are invited to enter the rest that Jesus Christ provides from the pain and conflict of striving through works (such as wholeheartedly following Christ) (Matthew 25:30, Hebrew 4:10).  

How do we enter that rest?  

Well, the Law demands perfection, and it demands justice when it is not obeyed.  However, for His name's sake, for His glory John 12:28), and for His love of the world (John 3:16) God sent His One and Only Son to meet that demand for justice.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although, the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it- the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.  For there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.  This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.  It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who had faith in Jesus.  (Romans 3:21-26)

We enter into that rest through faith- faith in Christ and His atoning work on the Cross.  For even Abraham, his righteousness was a result of faith.  (Galatians 3:5-9)  "A person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law,because by works of the law no one will be justified."  Galatians 2:16 (emphasis mine)  We are no longer imprisoned to sin, but are justified by faith in Christ.  (Galatians 3:23-26)

And, now, I would point out, Mr. Jones, that you have asked two distinct questions.  You asked why can one living in a committed homosexual relationship would not be able to wholeheartedly follow Christ.  The answer would be because no one can do that.  No one can follow the law.

And you ask for thoughts on why practicing homosexuality inhibits one's relationship with Christ.  Yet, you ask me not to use the Scriptures that reference homosexuality, only philosophical and theological arguments.  

When one understands that one's relationship with Christ is dependent on Christ and His work on the Cross, not on our work of wholeheartedly following Him, we understand that through faith in Him, the Spirit is given to us, and through the Spirit, we are given santicfication.  "...Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by hearing with faith?... Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?"  (Galatians 3:2-3)  If we are led by the Spirit, we are not under the law, yet when we walk by the Spirit, we will not gratify the desires of our flesh.  (Galatians 5:16-18)

If you remember, while Jesus has fulfilled and freed us from the Yolk of the Law, He has not abolished it.  He has set, clearly, His desire and commands for our sexuality.  When Scripture is read in context, we see clearly in Genesis 1 and 3 that man and woman are created in the image of God and together reflect that image.  We also see that it is not good for man to be alone, so God gives Him woman.  We see that the people that God loves, Israel in the Old Testament and the Church in the New Testament, are represented as a feminine Bride that our masculine Bridegroom pursues, changes (calls to repentance), saves, and loves like a jealous lover.

That being said, I cannot completely respect your stipulation to ignore Scripture pertaining to homosexuality.  For the Bible must be read in whole and in context.  (It's interesting that you imply that a committed homosexual relationship would be more acceptable- more Biblical?- than homosexual promiscuity.  Is that assumption part of Scriptural references to sexuality taken out of context?)  As it says in 2 Timothy 3:15-17, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."  

Homosexuality inhibits one's relationship with Christ because it is sin.  (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, 1 Timothy 1:9-11, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, Romans 1:18-27).   "If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.  But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.  If we say we have no sin, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."  1 John 1:6- 10

And, yes, my answer ultimately is- because the Bible says so.  

Oh, but there's good news!  Christ died even for the sin of homosexuality.  The Spirit makes us new!  (1 Corinthians 6:11)  We still struggle with our sin, as we will until we die.  But forgiveness is promised for those who put their trust in Christ and there is hope in the change that comes from sanctification through the Spirit.

Thouhts on Seven Pounds

Spoiler Warning!

I just saw the movie Seven Pounds, and I found it disturbing. In an age where support for euthanasia and assisted suicide is on the rise, any movie that portrays suicide as a good thing raises my suspicion. But as a Christian, I found the reasoning behind main character choosing death, as denying the hope we have from the sacrificial death of Christ.

Superbly acted, Will Smith plays a man named Ben Thomas who seeks to right the terrible wrong of accidentally killing seven people. He does so by donating some of his own organs to people he judges to be 'good people' in need of transplants.

Some organs he is able to give as a 'live donor', such as a kidney, a lung, part of a liver. But in order to donate other organs, such as his heart, he must die. And so, he commits suicide, enabling him to give away those organs.

When Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13), I think He was talking about Himself, foreshadowing the redemption that would come when He would give His life at the cross.

Ben Thomas will find no redemption in his own death.

Ben Thomas was a terribly depressed man, filled with guilt and grief- one of those people he killed was his own wife. Ben was a man desperately in need of the Truth- that there is a God and He is willing to forgive (Romans 3:30, 1 John 1:9). He needed to know that by giving away his organs, sacrificing his own life so that others may live, he would NOT make up for the terrible tragedy for which he was responsible. No one can pay for his own sins. (Romans 3:23). We need a Savior. Thankfully, Jesus died for the sins of Ben Thomas'- so that Ben wouldn't have to.

There is only one sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 10:10). There is only one justification (God can justify Ben Thomas), one way of redemption (God can redeem Ben Thomas), one propitiation (the wrath of God that was on Ben was placed onto Christ)- it is the death and the resurrection of the Perfect One (Hebrews 4:15)- the only 'good man' to ever live, by the way (Romans 3:10)- the only begotten Son of God, the God Man Christ Jesus. (Roman 3:21-26).

It is He Who makes all things new (Revelation 21:5). It is the Father, in Whom "we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28) All things will work together for good- even a tragedy such as the one Ben faced.

Ben Thomas needed to be told of the new life found in Christ. He needed to be told of the LOVE of GOD and that "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) Ben needed to be given this hope from his friends- the hope we have from Christ's death- not help in causing his own death.

Do You Doubt My Puberty?

This is an excellent article on a father's perspective regarding the right of his son, who has autism, to sexuality and to sex.

Because this is not a Christian article, it made me think, what would a Christian perspective be on the subject of sex for people with developmental disabilities?

Legally and ethically, an adult with a developmental disability has the same rights and responsibilities to sexual activity as does anyone else. The only way this right can be interfered with is through proper legal channels due to concern that the person may not be able to consent to sex or because the person's sexual behavior may be predatory toward others.

Please understand. A man or woman with a development's disability is not a child. He or she has passed puberty and is a sexual being. As do the rest of us, a man or woman with a developmental disability has the right to choose what he or she does with his or her sexuality. To choose his or her own morals and to act on them. Our responsibility as caregivers and loved ones is to educate and protect- but we cannot, nor should not, forbid sexual activity, unless someone is immediately being harmed.

What about the Christian man or woman with a developmental disability? How do we, who have been given permission by this person, mentor his or her sexuality?

I haven't had the opportunity to do this yet. My experience in the sexuality of those with developmental disabilities has been in a secular setting, where all I had to offer the person were his or her legal rights, counsel on choosing his or her own morals, and counsel on the physical and emotional consequences of sexual activity. (The nurse was supposed to explain the, um, 'mechanics'.)

I look forward to walking this out with someone one day, not just from a 'Christian perspective', but from a relational perspective, based on the personal relationship between God and the woman I would mentor. I look forward to affirming her personhood by affirming and protecting her sexuality and inviting her to surrender her sexuality to God. And I look forward to the good things God will do through her sexuality.

I look forward the woman making her own decisions about sexual activity as much as she is able, based on what God has taught her through His Word. I look forward to her deciding for herself to choose God and His laws and deny her flesh unless married, as all of us single women must do, through the power of the Holy Spirit, through which is our only ability to do such a difficult thing.

I look foward to offering her grace and assuring her of God's grace and forgiveness should she fall.

One day soon, I hope...

Dr. Oz on the Stem Cell Debate

Dr. Oz to Oprah and Michael J Fox: "The stem cell debate is dead."