Oct. 11, 2015

A child is killed by an automobile and someone attempts to comfort the parents with the assurance, "It was God’s will."

A husband is lost to ravages of cancer, and we are blithely told, "It was meant to be."

A whole town and its inhabitants are erased from the countryside by the waters thundering down upon it from a seriously compromised dam and the newspapers label it "an act of God."

Judgments such as these, well-intentioned though they may be, stand on the ragged edge of blasphemy, for they make God the source of evil as well as of good. Yet it is one of the most persistent religious ideas in the world today, despite the good news of Jesus Christ.

As we read the gospels, Jesus never saw it that way. It is quite evident he regarded illness and brokenness as the enemies of God. The evil spirits he cast out of the possessed were never addressed in friendly terms, as if they were God’s "little helpers."

Healing and the bestowal of wholeness were always regarded as a divine victory over the power of evil, the vanquishing of a mortal foe. If God was sometimes or ever the sender of illness, Jesus didn’t seem to know it.

If we closely examine Jesus’ ministry of healing in Luke, the gospel that gives the greatest emphasis to Jesus as healer, we find even when he was approached by what would be considered the less desirable elements of society, we never see him saying, "I’m sorry, you are not righteous enough to be healed," or even, "You are too sinful for healing to be effective."

Although requests for healing frequently came from those who were not even Jews, he never turned anyone away because they had the wrong theology, doctrine, creed or ritual – or lack of them. People were not qualified or disqualified to receive healing because of the correctness or incorrectness of their religious beliefs and practices. In fact, healing was never meted out to people because they deserved it.

Nor do we ever find Jesus saying, "I’m sorry, but I think you will be better off ill." He never suggested God had made them ill for their own good or to stimulate their spiritual growth. He never told anyone their illness was the "cross" God had sent for them to bear, or suggested illness would bring out the best in a person.

One cannot help concluding that Jesus would wince at some of the blithe explanations we give today to explain brokenness. In short, Jesus seems never to have wondered whether it was God’s will to heal anyone.

Neither do the writers of the gospels suggest that only those whom God wanted healed came to Jesus. The only barrier to healing we can find in the New Testament is one of receptivity, not the question of God’s will.

It was the unreceptive attitude of the people of Nazareth, not the will of God, that prevented Jesus from performing many miracles there. Jesus never prefaced his prayers for healing with, "If it be your will …" Why? Because Jesus never doubted that God’s will for his children was wholeness of mind, body and spirit.

Have you ever stopped to consider that if illnesses were sometimes God’s will, Jesus would have often been in opposition to the will of God in pursuing his ministry of healing? If God wanted some people broken, why would Jesus have offered healing to all who sought it?

Further, if you believe it may be God’s will for you to be ill or broken in some way, why would you go to a doctor in order to be cured? If God wants you ill, are you not opposing Him by seeking medical help?

Luke tells us: "Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them" (4:40).

Apparently, Jesus believed God’s will for His children is wholeness, just as that will is also for righteousness. But although he desires both wholeness and righteousness for us, he does not compel us to be either. Just as he wants us to live by the laws of righteousness, so he wants us also to live by the laws of wholeness.

The healing ministry of Jesus was not just a passing phase in his career: he came as, and remains today, the healing Christ. (For a fuller discussion of this issue, see Rediscovering The Gift of Healing by Lawrence W. Althouse, Abingdon, 1977, Samuel Weiser, 1983. There are usually some copies available online at Amazon. Copies may also be found in public and church libraries.)

•Re-read the above and note any of the attitudes toward God’s will and illness that you have held. How do you feel about these attitudes now? Are there any you feel you should revise?

•Look at Luke 4:31-37 and 4:38-39. In either case, does the healing seem dependent upon the faith of the person being healed? The man with "an unclean demon" was not in his right mind and Simon’s mother-in-law had a high fever that probably affected adversely her state of consciousness.

In other words, she was probably not able to respond in faith. Where, then, do you think faith or receptivity entered into the picture in these two healings?

•If it is true that God heals us not because we deserve it, but because of the greatness of His love, how does that realization effect your life?

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Rev. Althouse may write to him in care of this publication.