Heavy Thoughts...

Thoughts on Covenant Dynamics, Sin, Suffering, Human Responsibility

Covenant dynamics (Deut 28):
Obedience & Loyalty to God = blessings in nature and war
Disobedience = curses in nature and war

When we experience times of hardship, suffering, illness, etc, the first thing it seems we are called to do, Scripturally, is search our own heart, with the Lord’s convicting assistance, for habitual sins that we haven’t yet or aren’t willing to acknowledge (Ps 132). Even simply asking the question is a significant step in the right direction. The reality is, the Disciples were right to ask whose sin resulted in the man being born blind (John 9:1), although they were operating within a box too small. For them, and for Job’s friends, suffering was viewed as a mathematical, binary equation: Someone sins, someone suffers. Jesus broadened their horizons...and ours as well. Every temporal misfortune is not always the result of God’s punitive judgment for some specific sin. It is a question to ask, an option to explore, but not one to get “locked into.”

The message of Job and Romans 9 is that there are no easy answers. We don’t know the whole story, we can’t see “beyond the veil.” Our responsibility is to remain faithful in times of fortune and misfortune. It is a test of our faith and our devotion. It is in the times of hardship and suffering that the questions come fast and furious. It is not wrong to ask the questions (Proverbs 25:2). The error comes in demanding an answer to those questions. Answers are sometimes provided, more often are not. We have been given ample reason to trust in the Lord and His ways in Scripture. Time and again we are shown God caring for and tending to His people. Even in their disobedience, even when He was punishing them, His tender hand is always present. Time and again our Lord emphasizes that He is working all things for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). Is it not similar to the tender love a parent offers his child? Whether the child does wrong and needs to be punished or just comes on a run of bum luck, her father constantly encourages and affirms his child - "It’s for the best, it’ll work out in the end, you’ll see.” Based on past experience, the child trusts her father. Even if she can’t see it at the time, she eventually will.

That eventuality may not come for the Christian this side of heaven, but it will come. Some say that once we get to heaven those questions won’t matter. Maybe not, but it is there that answers will be made available, if the questions are still hanging in the air.

So does God punish children for the sins of the parents? Yes, according to Exodus 20:5, 34:7; Numbers 14:18; Jeremiah 11:22-23, but not according to Ezekiel 18 and Jeremiah 31:29-30. Both individual responsibility and corporate responsibility are taught in Scripture. Both need to be held together, in balance. But even in the Old Covenant, the punishment of the children to the 3rd and 4th generation could be avoided if the children repented and served the Lord obediently and faithfully - this can be seen in the lives of Joseph and Josiah.

Is the doctrine/concept of corporate responsibility abrogated in the New Covenant (cf. Jeremiah 31:29-30, but also 32:18)? It certainly seems that a primary component of the New Covenant is individual responsibility - if you are experiencing physical hardship, it is not due to your parents sins. If you, as a parent, see your children suffering physical hardship, or born with it, it is not because of your own sin. Yet there are consequences of sin, if not intentional punishment, that extend to the community. James tells believers to confess their sins to one another (5:16).
Of course, that begs the question of exactly what is the nature of the “consequences of sins”? Is it possible to have consequences and them not be punishments? Are not the consequences written into the very fabric of the universe, of nature? Is it not a cause and effect relationship? “Do good, get good...do bad, get bad.” Obviously that phrase is an oversimplification, but that does seem to be the heart of Galatians 6:9 & Romans 8:12-14. Sin, evil, etc. distort and contort this dynamic in our world, but ultimately this is the case. So does it stand to reason that the consequences of sin, the natural results of sinful behavior, are indeed punishments from God, but punishments written into the fabric of nature...in much the same way that violating the law of gravity results in a squashed brain?

It just can’t be boiled down to a multiple-choice question. There are an infinite number of reasons and purposes why something is happening. We can ask the Lord about it, but must content ourselves with no answer.

The End of the Matter: Trust. Serve the Lord faithfully, be obedient, ask for forgiveness, hold nothing back. Trust. Search your own heart, and ask God to search it for you. Trust. We can be faithful throughout this process, in times of health and sickness, because, as Paul reminds us, we are strengthened by Christ Jesus himself (Philippians 4:13).

Thoughts on the Fellowship of His Sufferings and the Power of His Resurrection

Adding to the complexity of the issue of suffering in our lives comes the constant exhortation on the part of the New Testament authors to celebrate, rejoice and delight in the sufferings that come our way, especially when they are, as best as we can tell, unprovoked on our part. We live in a world at war. Many times it is a literal, physical war. All the time it is a spiritual war. The forces of darkness are doing everything they can to resist and hold off the advance of the Kingdom of God. Those who serve the Lord faithfully and boldly will find themselves on the front lines of the battle. What is our attitude toward this?

There is a scene in the movie, We Were Soldiers, where a young, brash, eager major leads his troops in a chase after a North Vietnamese soldier. The end result was that they walked into a trap and ended up cut off from the rest of the force for several days. The major was one of the first to go down. As he was dying he said, “I’m just glad I was able to die for my country.” The constant refrain found in the New Testament seems to be, “I’m just glad I might be able to die for my Lord.” For them, the possibility of death was a motivating rather than demotivating factor. How far we, in our middle-class, white-picket-fence, suburban Christian subculture are from that sort of passionate attitude.

They say that those who are afraid of death never truly live. They, out of a desire to protect themselves from the possibility of dying or striving for some sort of immortality, shy away from the challenges, risks and adventures that really help us understand what life is all about. We live our lives envious of those who do push the limits and take the challenges, wondering what it is that they’ve got that we don’t. It strikes me that Christians have more reason to be out on the edge, or maybe less of a reason to stay away from it, than non-Christians. The power of death has been broken, it’s sting has been lost. There is no reason to fear death, so why live trying to avoid it? By taking the risks, by fearlessly following Christ wherever he might lead, we willingly walk into sufferings and trials. Why? So that with Paul we might be able to say that we “know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings” (Phil 3:11).

Pain and suffering is the refining fire that purifies our soul and softens our hard hearts so that we can be molded in the image of God. Without the refining fire, metal can never be purified. Without the refining fire of suffering, we can never be purified of our sin either. There is a popular slogan quoted by many who aspire to be physically fit: no pain, no gain. We intentionally inflict damage on our muscle cells, knowing that the only way to strengthen them is to tear them. The only way we can be molded in the image of Christ is to be torn. As Christians, we are called to seek out opportunities that may result in suffering. But the Christian does that with great hope, hope in this life and the life to come. It is not a self-serving motivation, but a God-glorifying one.