|
John 9:3 "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. The Torah teaches us the notions of right and wrong according to the Father Creator of the universe. It sets before us the rewards of obedience and warns us of the chastisements for breach of contract. God says to His Children who know His Name, have witnessed His power, and lived of His bounty, "If you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you (Leviticus 26:14-17). As the Messiah was the executer of God’s will at creation (John 1:3; Proverbs 8:22-31) so will Messiah be the executor of God’s judgment on the disobedient (Revelations 19). He will come in His time. In the mean time, should we deduct that all diseases, fevers, business and military failures are the direct consequences of our sins? Should we assume that one who is sick with cancer sins more than the one who is healthy? It is neither safe nor true to come to such conclusion. The Torah instructs us in this matter. The book of Job for example tells us of a man who was righteous and yet suffered affliction without measure (to be righteous doesn’t necessarily mean that one does not sin ‘for all have sinned’ (Romans 3:23). To be called righteous by God simply defines our status with Him). The whole Job event seems to be for the purpose of creating a Messianic analogy that teaches us about Messiah the True Righteous One who like Job, unduly suffered, was condemned by his friends for it (Isaiah 53:3-4), but who at a later time will be justified and vindicated by God in plain sight of those who accused him (Revelations 19). It seems like Job’s suffering were solely that God may tell us of His work through Messiah. It is just like with that time when the disciples asked the Master when they saw a man who had been blind from birth, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" The Master answered, "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him (John 9:2-3). In a sense, the wise and safe conclusion we can make from our passage in the Book of Leviticus is that, ‘whereas sin and disobedience always result in calamities, calamities are not always the direct consequence of sin and disobedience’.
Related Articles -
Righteousness, sinm suffering, Leviticus, Job,
|
