Who Sinned?
Lisa Burley has a blog (http://burleyblog.blogspot.com/) and having read one of her articles recently it reminded me of something I think is worth sharing. When Jesus healed the man born blind (John 9) the apostles asked, "Who sinned, this man or his parents that he should be born blind?" It's an interesting question and one that many seek the answer to, because far too many believe that bad things only happen when you sin and good things happen when you are good. Believing that kind of thing forces us to live with tremendous guilt and a total feeling of being inadequate. Just before dying from his wounds, Captain Miller (Saving Private Ryan) told Ryan, in a clenched-teeth, breathy whisper, "earn it!" What?! What was he saying to him? Earn the death of the eight men who went to find him? Earn that? (I'm yelling here!!!) It's impossible, so Ryan struggled with their deaths his whole life and ended up begging his wife to "tell me I'm a good man!"
Back in John 9 Jesus explains that their view of sin and blessings is skewed and that they were ignorant of God's devices. "'Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' said Jesus, 'but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life...'" There is a passage found in Exodus 4:11 that reads, "The LORD said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD?" We don't wish to say things like this. We want to defend God and say, "Oh no! God would never do such a thing." But Jesus tells us that the man born blind was born without sight so that God might display His work in that man. Take a moment and read John 20:30-31 and see that the signs Jesus did were for the purpose of giving us faith that who He said He was He really was/is.
The above being so, we are to understand that God does not operate under our rules or ideas. He does things He knows are right, just, honest and good and that our understanding has nothing to do with it. The Apostles were wrong and Jesus explained their error. Bad things do happen to the innocent. Evil people do not always receive evil in return for their deeds. Sometimes they receive great financial gain and live in Good health their whole lives.
The truth is, and this should be everyone's world view, God is in charge and He is doing everything for the express purpose of taking us to heaven. (See Acts 17:24-28, especially 27) This world exists ONLY because God wants us to live with Him eternally. So God does things that will lead us to Him. Sometimes He even makes a person be born blind...
posted by Josiah Tilton at 10:16 AM
2 Comments:
Just finished teaching this chapter on Wednesday night. In contrast to this question asked by the disciples are the times when Jesus follows a healing with the warning, "go and sin no more lest something worse happen to you." Somethings that happen to us are our own fault and not always the result of sin. The lesson? We are not God, but God can deal with us and our problems to His glory.
An interesting observation with respect to the encounter with the man born blind. Jesus does not deal with the "why" of his condition, just the "purpose" of this man's condition. The question is not why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? The question is WHO IS God? Questions about why God does this or that come from a picture of God that is way to small. As if we could call HIM on the carpet to give an account of His actions.
Job learned that lesson! As God began to ask him question after question he began to understand that his words were foolish and that he had spoken in ignorance. What change? The size of his God.
Great thoughts Si.
That's a hard one to wrestle with, isn't it? Maybe we need the difficulties of our life to make us seek God. That doesn't mean that we're bad and "deserve" them, but that somehow we need them to bring us to him and strengthen our character.
There's so much I don't understand, but thankfully I've reached a place in life where I don't feel as much of a need to understand. I understand that God loves me and that I will be with him in eternity. That is enough.
Trying to unravel the mystery can still be lots of fun though. :-)
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