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When one enters in to another person's world, sometimes the "solution" can appear very different than it did from the detached sideline. And whether or not something is "sin" becomes completely irrelevant, crumbling beside the reality of the individual human experience: the child trapped in the collapsed basement next to a mother gone insane, with a hurricane roaring overhead like a thousand freight trains, the child calling out, "Mommy, mommy, mommy..." to a pair of frozen eyes in a mask of fear.

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Jesus pays the ransom with his life because when all is said and done it is not about the sin, it is not about the debt, it is not about the justice, it is not even about the life itself - it is about love, and the lengths one will go to bring back one's child into one's arms, to love them, no matter what.

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Forgiveness is agreeing to live with the consequences of another person’s sin. Forgiveness is costly; we pay the price of the evil we forgive. Yet you’re going to live with those consequences whether you want to or not; your only choice is whether you will do so in the bitterness of unforgiveness or the freedom of forgiveness. That’s how Jesus forgave you – he took the consequences of your sin upon Himself. All true forgiveness is substitutional, because no one really forgives without bearing the penalty of the other person’s sin.

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I just wanted to reiterate how powerful the service was on Sunday.

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I asked my ten year old and she said SHE COULD UNDERSTAND THE
SPEAKER. That's hugh for a ten year old.

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Jesus pays his life for us not because we are bad and God needed our sin to be "paid for" - but because we are his children whom he loves beyond reason and justice...

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I just hope he hasn't blasphemed the spirit, because all of our prayers won't really help.

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First, what do you guys think about emotional responses such as were displayed on Sunday? God forbid that I stand in the way of someone’s healing transformation. I’m all for even instant transformations (healings) taking place. My worry is that some might interpret some of these emotional responses as “healings” when in fact all they were were JUST THAT-- emotional reactions. I guess my line of reasoning in most cases is, “Wait and see.”

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“A loving parent’s discipline is only fair and helpful if the child knows what it is for. If the parent strikes a child with no explanation, there is no educational value in it. Actually, this kind of behaviour would teach a child that the parent is unpredictably cruel. God is not like that.”

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I think that the disciples had a similar view as what you are expressing here when they asked Jesus whether the blind man (from birth) had sinned or his parents. Jesus made it pretty clear that his plight had nothing to do with either of them sinning.

Similarly with bad things happening to people (tower of Siloam).

Also, it seems to me that whenever Jesus came across people who were sick He just healed them. He didn't lecture them about washing their hands better or anything. Wouldn't we say it would be capricious if Jesus (God) struck someone with hemophilia and then years later just healed them?

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Right. We have two scriptures here. One noted above where Jesus denies that this person or this person’s parents had anything to do with their sickness, Jn 9. We also have scriptures that support the idea that sickness CAN BE for remedial/educational purposes. Or even Annanias and Sapphira ones where it says twice that “great fear” came on those who heard and once on the “whole church.” BOOM! You’re dead! BOOM! You’re frozen! THINK THEY LEARNED A LESSON?? (I know I’m gonna hear someone say something along the lines that we should not “draw patterns” from “historical documents.” Ugh…) As much as I agree with “Jesus is the fullness” of the revelation of God, I simply must take the scriptures AS A WHOLE, not highlighting one (everything Jesus did) to the exclusion of the other Acts 5, 1 Cor 11.

In my view, Jesus never inflicted this person or anyone for some higher purpose/good. But he always healed someone FOR THAT reason. It is clear that sickness is an enemy and NOT a friend. And we are to fight it every step of the way. The Meph Man spoke about this in terms of 9/11. UNLESS God puts a “stop action” to it, we should continue to fight evil. And the way that God will put a “stop action” to it is that it will be BEYOND OUR ABILITY to stop it (i.e. evil, sickness) Acts 16:6-7. Again, I am troubled by the the lack of faith among Christians who surrender to or sit passively by, even saying that it is a “cross to bear” when we, the Church, are given the arsenal, Christ’s ministry of healing, with which to fight it with. This is one reason why the health and wealth Gospel has flourished! There definitely was a need or a vacuum there (lack of faith, surrender to whatever comes, seeing things as a “test from God,” crosses to bear, etc). And I think that Greg, to some extent, has brought a balance by way of providing a theodicy with “explanatory power.” WE ARE NOT TO SIT PASSIVELY BY!! However, this is not to say that there are no remedial/educational purposes to judgment.

In terms of the Tower of Siloam, again, I must reiterate what I stated above and what was stated on the 9/11 thread. NO ONE IS SAYING THAT THIS IS JUDGMENT! There are WAY TO MANY VARIABLES for us to say with ANY certainty. Too many “unknowables.” It could be a judgment of God, it could be Satanic, it could be God acting unilaterally for some higher purpose or good, that is, using the analogy of playing chess as was used on the 9/11 thread, he wants to save the rook, but the rook gets caught in the cross fire and cannot be saved because doing so would not be the “lesser of two evils.” That is, God sees the big picture and he knows what would be the lesser of two evils. Again, on some level, the principle of “double effect” does seem to have divine approval.

In terms of which I am speaking here. I am saying that if something IS a judgment of God, God will make it clear. He will educate you. I think I may have misspoke by saying that God will make it clear ”beforehand.” In the case of the Corinthians, they were sick and dying and Paul THEN tells them why this is happening. Either way, he will make it clear to the person whom he is bringing judgment against. And he will always have reconciliation in mind. Hopefully this will respond to your last statement Iconoclast. God is NOT capricious.

fyodor said:

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It seems tough to make any sort of judgement call on this one. For all we know, all the baggage that was being "unfroze" was emotional. There is no reason to negate the emotional response as far as I can understand it.

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Yes. I agree with ya. I don’t want to say that everyone who was being emotionally responsive was not having a real touch from the Holy Spirit. Scripture is pretty clear (positively) on this. But I do hold to a certain amount of skepticism. I should “test all things” right? My understanding of healing is much like my understanding of assurance of salvation. It comes only as we live it. And that takes time.

Springs said:

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What if a child had abusive parents? What if they struck their child violently, continuously, without explanation? What if as a result the child believed that parents, and God by transference, were unpredictably cruel? What if the parents had abused the child verbally, and destroyed any healthy sense of self worth? What about spiritual abuse? When that person is invited forward at church to lay down the hurt and the lies of their childhood, and receive the love, healing and truth of Christ, should they first be told that the abuse that caused their current dysfunction is a result of their own sin?

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You’re asking some really practical questions here Springs. As I said, relationship. Paul had relationship with the Corinthian church. He was also establishing his authority there, “I’m an Apostle! You can listen to me!” It doesn’t affect my thinking about judgment though.

In some cases, people are sooo wounded that they might as well not even pick up the Bible to read about some of the REALLY CRAZY stuff God did because it will only reinforce their stereotype of God. I guess you could say that I look at judgment similarly to church discipline (which is another form of judgment). Whenever Paul speaks about church discipline, reconciliation is ALWAYS at the heart of it. There is a time and a place and an attitude and (a contrite heart as though a loved one had died) in which confrontation should be done with. A person may want to ask clarifying questions, i.e. "Can you think of something that may be hindering your relationship with God?" or as we use to say in youth group, "Is there any sin in your life? Kiss the carpet baby!" My point though, is simply that there are times when God will use sickness as a judgment of which he will make clear.


Brandon
"And don't say it's love that broke your heart when you trusted someone. Cause love's the victim, not the crime."--Jody McBrayer, Love Can Break Your Fall www.jodymcbrayer.com





Edited by - BBBCanada on 03/19/2003 12:20:37 PM