Healing misrepresented

Introduction

I struggle with blind acceptance of biblical principles, and by that I don’t mean that I don’t believe the bible whole-heartedly. What I mean is that it is inherently dangerous to read something in the bible and base a belief on it without understanding what God’s intention was and the principles that surround the particular promise or commandment.

One of the principles of the bible that has been taught to us since we were children is that of God’s capacity to heal. I have never questioned the fact that God has this capacity (and I still don’t) yet a quick straw poll of a few close Christian friends indicates to me that God doesn’t seem to be doing much healing.

This created somewhat of a concern for me – if there is a biblical principle there that says that God will heal us, and He isn’t doing so, there must be a problem. Healing is presented to us in the bible as a promise – something that can be relied upon. In the legal world, this is called a contract, and in fact it’s the case that contract law has developed around the centuries old principles of the promiser (the person giving the promise) and promisee (the person receiving it).

I thought that it might be useful to approach this issue from a rather legalistic perspective in the first instance, and doing this I don’t intend any disrespect – it is simply a vehicle to bash out the issues.

So let’s assume that God is being sued! God will be the Defendant in this matter, and the Christians will be the plaintiffs (the people bringing the complaint).

Let’s pretend for a moment that this is a real case – that Christians are suing God for failing to deliver on His promise of healing. When lawyers a preparing to go to court and fight a case, what we do is develop a case theory – basically, a summary of the arguments and the evidence that will be used to support those arguments.

The plaintiffs’ case really pivots on a few simple issues:

• God claims to be ready, willing, and able to heal;
• God has put in writing His intentions regarding healing;
• God does not deliver on this stated intention, or alternatively, God only delivers on this intention at His sole discretion;
• As a result, the promise that God has given is unreliable or uncertain;
• The bible contains many stories of God’s healing power in action, but these stories misrepresent God’s actual intentions for Christians today;
• The “contract” says that the reason that Christians don’t receive from God is because they ask with “selfish motive”, and given that the request for healing could conceivably be classed as “selfish”, God has created a contract that is entirely “unenforceable” – that is, there is no way that Christians can possibly “force” God to deliver on His promise; and
• We have suffered damage as a result of the God’s failure to deliver on His promise.

Reasonably straightforward case I would have thought. I believe that, had I been briefed to appear for the Christians in this class action against God, I would be in a reasonably strong position.

An outline of the submissions has been prepared by the legal team for the Christian, summarising the arguments they intend to make to the court at the trial. The document is a little bit “legalistic” but you’ll get my drift as you read (and potentially re-read) the submissions. Hopefully, you’ll see from the outline of submissions the crux of the arguments that is being made.

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IN THE SUPREME COURT

Applicants: CHRISTIANS

And

First Defendant: GOD

OUTLINE OF SUBMISSIONS
ON BEHALF OF THE PLAINTIFFS

Background

• This is a class action commenced by the Plaintiff against the Respondent with respect to a breach of contract;
• The Defendant has specified in the Contract that the Defendant would heal the Plainifffs (hereafter referred to as “the Service”);
• The Plaintiffs maintains that the Respondent has breached an essential term of an expressed and implied unilateral contract by failing to provide the contracted Service;
• Alternatively, the Plaintiffs submit that the Respondent has displayed a willingness to provide the Service; however the Respondents has acted in a discriminatory nature and only agreed to provide the Service at the discretion of the Defendant;
• The Plaintiff seeks damages and compensation from the Defendant.

Essential Terms & Conditions Precedent

• The unilateral contract in question was made by the Respondent on various dates between 1445BC and 80AD in which the Respondent made two (2) specific representations, namely:
• To forgive the plaintiffs of all their sins; and
• To heal the plaintiff of all their diseases
  

• The Contract is considered unilateral as said Contract was constructed without the requirement for a mutual promise, that is, that there was no requirement for the Plaintiffs to provide consideration for the creation of the Contract;
• The offer to provide the Service contained within the subject Contract did not require the Plaintiffs to accept the offer;
• The Plaintiffs concede that certain expressed and implied obligations (constituting consideration on the part of the Plaintiffs) attach to the provision of the Service, those being:
• that the Plaintiff must ask;
• that the act of asking must be accompanied by faith;
• that the motive for asking must not be from selfish motive.
  

Representations

• It is submitted that the Contract was represented to the Plaintiffs by the Defendant on the basis that:
• The Defendant had an intention to create a legally binding Contract;
• The Defendant had the requisite capacity to provide the Service;
  

• The Plaintiffs have relied upon these representations, and presumed reasonably that said representations were provided in good faith;
• It is conceded that this Honourable Court may look to external standards, which are either mentioned explicitly in the Contract or implied by common practice in the subject field;
• It is respectfully submitted that the Defendant had represented His capacity and capability to provide the Service by communicating the Defendant’s previous record of Contract compliance, with primary reference to the practices of Jesus Christ on various dates between 0 BC and 3 AD;
• The Defendant further communicated His capacity and capability to provide the Service by reference to the activities of various authorized agents, namely:
• His appointed executive officers (traditionally referred to as “the twelve (12) apostles”); and
• Various and subsequently appointed agents (and in particular the agent commonly referred to as “the apostle Paul”)

Time to Completion

• It is submitted that the Contract implicitly indicates that the healing to be provided by the Defendant would occur contemporaneously with the request for said healing;
• It is submitted that no provision, either explicitly or implicitly, has been made within the terms and conditions of the Contract for said healing to be delayed; however despite the fact that the Plaintiffs concede that time is not of the essence it remains that:
• The Defendant should complete the Service within a reasonable time; and
• The Defendant has represented that the Service would be provided immediately;
  

Unreasonable Conditions

• It is submitted that the Defendant has unilaterally and unreasonably relied upon two (2) clauses within the Contract in order to avoid provision of the Service, namely:
• That the Defendant has unilaterally required that the Plaintiffs understand His intentions and will prior to asking for the Service; and
• The Defendant has required that the Plaintiffs exercise faith, without providing any reasonable facility to evaluate whether sufficient faith has been exercised by the Plaintiffs
  

• Accordingly, it is submitted that these terms should be considered by this Honourable Court to be severable on the grounds of uncertainty;

Breach of Contract

• It is submitted that the Defendant has failed to heal the Plaintiffs of their diseases:
• The Plaintiffs complied with all conditions precedent to said completion;
• The Plaintiffs, in accordance with the Contract, made reasonable requests of the Defendant for healing;
• As a result of the Respondent’s failure to complete the contract, the Plaintiffs have suffered loss and damage.

Damages

• The specific damages that the Plaintiffs have suffered are as follows:
• Ongoing physical ailments, including physical pain and discomfort; and
• Ongoing mental ailments, including depression, anxiety and fear; and
• Interest pursuant to section 47 of the Supreme Court Act
• Costs
  

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Defence case

I would think that God’s legal team is going to address the case fairly aggressively – after all, there’s quite a bit at stake here. God’s whole character and reputation is built on the premise that He is reliable, trustworthy, truthful, and powerful. This case is questioning some of these claims.
God’s lawyers are defending the claim on the following basis:

• The representations that are made are reliable;
• Healing is available to everyone;
• God has a proven track record of healing;
• Christians are expecting healing without fulfilling their obligations;
• Christians have an incorrect understanding of the contract, which provides God with grounds not to provide healing.

Defence is going to argue their case, and attempt to prove that God is ready, willing and able to heal the Christians, on three main bases:

• that the Plaintiff must ask;
• that the act of asking must be accompanied by faith;
• that the motive for asking must not be from selfish motive.

Let’s get into court and see what happens!

The trial commences

In any trial, there are going to be a number of things that the parties don’t see eye to eye on – that’s the reason that we’re in court! However, there will usually be things that the parties do agree on, and the judge generally wants to know right up front what the “agreed facts” are.

Agreed facts

The judge in this matter has been informed of the following “undisputed facts”:

• Firstly, that the parties agree God has the power to heal – that’s not in issue – everyone agrees that God is powerful and capable healing;
• Secondly, that God has a track record of healing – the parties don’t dispute the fact that God has healed in the past and that the bible contains a truthful account of God’s activities when it comes to healing;
• Thirdly, it is not disputed that God hears Christians when they pray to Him;
• Fourthly, it is no disputed that Christians are actually asking for healing;

Issues to be decided

Given these agreed facts, the judge is being asked by the plaintiffs to focus on deciding two main issues:

• Has God reasonably withheld healing because the Christians have failed to ask in faith; and
• Has God reasonably withheld healing because the Christians have asked with a selfish motive.

These are fairly reasonable grounds for the defence, and given the rather eclectic and perhaps “fuzzy” nature of the conditions it seems that God has created a contract that gives Him a good “escape clause” if and when He decided not to heal someone.

Escape Clauses

• How do you measure empirically whether a person has the faith to be healed – there is no scientific measure of faith, and no evidence that could be put before the court to prove that a person has faith or how much faith a person may have?
• What about the selfishness piece? It would be reasonably easy for the defence team to prove that, when we are asking for healing, we are asking with ourselves in mind. We want the healing for ourselves. We want it for our own benefit. That would quite reasonably constitute a “selfish motive”.

A lawyer, advising the Christians as to their prospects of success at trial, would be considering these issues and considering the matter from the perspective of the judge. And taking that tack, I would say that the plaintiff lawyers are suggesting to their Christian clients that they “settle out of court”.

But these Christians are a litigious and stubborn bunch, and they want to bat on because “it’s the principle of the thing”...words that are music to the ears of any lawyer, and the reason that so many of them drive luxury cars and drink expensive wine in penthouse apartments all around the city. When clients say “principles” a lawyer hears “money”. So, despite the odds, the trial is going to go ahead. Game on!

Argument #1 - Faith

Consideration of faith

We said that there are effectively three conditions for God to fulfil the contract – asking, faith, and lack of selfishness. Having established that the “asking” is not in issue (because everyone agrees that the Christians are asking), we need to deal with the other two issues. The first point to be argued is faith.

The defence team will argue that Christians lack faith, and that’s one of the reasons that God doesn’t heal them. There are good grounds for this argument – the bible makes particular mention of men and women that had faith, as well as those that did not.

The judge in this matter needs some certainty about what the parties are talking about when they use the word faith, and the judge calls for some definitions and discussions (fully expecting that there are some strong arguments to be had).

The plaintiffs argue that faith is a characteristic – its something that you develop, and it would be unreasonable for God to expect us to have faith in Him unless He did something that gave us reason to trust Him. The plaintiffs make a “chicken and egg” argument – they want faith so that God will do something for them, but God won’t do something for them unless they have faith….and around and around it goes. This is the classic “Unreasonable God” argument, where the Defendant has seemingly established a circular dependency that cannot be broken into or out of.

The defence readily concede that the concept of faith is a difficult one (and the plaintiff lawyers turn to one another and congratulate themselves on how clever they are). However the defence team’s position and counter-argument proves to be quite interesting, and causes the plaintiff team to scratch their heads and stop congratulating one another. The defence makes a rather novel argument, submitting that faith is not something that Christians can develop within themselves – faith is not something that the Christian can directly generate – and in fact the plaintiffs have incorrectly defined faith as a characteristic that God wants Christians to exhibit. The defence argument is that faith is in fact a lifestyle, not a characteristic.

Taking that then one step further, defence argues that the act of “asking in faith” does not mean asking whilst exhibiting the characteristic of faith – what it means is asking whilst living a life of faith.
A rather confused look crosses the face of the judge at this juncture, and the judge starts asking questions…

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(Judge) - “Let me ensure that I understand your position – you are saying that faith is not a characteristic - or perhaps to put it another way, you’re saying that faith is not a character trait?”

(Defence) - “That’s so, Your Honour”

(Judge) - “And you are saying that when your Client talks about faith, what He is talking about is a lifestyle?”

(Defence) - “Yes your Honour, that’s our position.”

(Judge) - “What you also propose is that faith is not something that the plaintiff can develop of their own volition?”

(Defence) - “Yes, your Honour, it’s our position that faith is not something that a human being can develop themselves directly, and furthermore because it’s not actually a ‘thing’ per se.”

(Judge) - “You realise, Counsel, that you’re skating on incredibly thin ice, don’t you?

(Defence) - "It may appear so at first blush, Your Honour, but that’s our position nonetheless".

(Judge) - "Can you give me some kind of analogy that might assist me in understanding exactly what you mean?”

(Defence) - "It may appear to be a fairly rough example, but perhaps we could compare it to physical fitness. One cannot simply have the characteristic of fitness – it requires a considerable number of lifestyle choices. Fitness may finally be classed as a characteristic of a person, but primarily it relates to the lifestyle of the person".

(Judge) - "So, if I understand where your argument is going, and I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, what you are proposing is that the plaintiffs may potentially not be asking in faith because they are not living the lifestyle that your Client has established for them – is that a reasonable summary?”

(Defence) - "Your Honour has indeed summarised our position most eloquently.”

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The concept of anticipation

I haven’t quite got this next concept all sorted out in my mind at this stage; however let me give you what I’ve got and what my current understanding is.

I have indicated in previous documents that the concept of faith can be looked at a number of different ways, and I’m about to add another to the list. For the purposes of this paper, I define faith from two perspectives:

Firstly, reiterating what I’ve said already, faith is a lifestyle rather than simply a characteristic. I’m not saying that it is not a characteristic, but for the Christian it is should be considered as such.

Secondly, and again considering faith from a lifestyle perspective, living by faith means living in such a way that you are actively making space for God. How we each do tis will be different, and God requires different things of all of us. Sufficed to say that by putting our own desires, thoughts, biases, etc to one side and allowing God to take that space, we give God some “elbow room” to work in and around our life.

Thirdly, and this is the new concept, faith is a state of spiritual anticipation. By that I mean that faith actually results from the Holy Spirit living in us, and as a result of that we begin to sense what God’s intentions at any given time and in any given situation. That “sense” then results in a spiritual anticipation.
Ok, now that I have kind of packaged together some fairly simplistic view on faith (I hope), now I want to take it one step further.

Activating faith

Let me give you a scripture that most of you will have read a million times before:

James 2

17 So also faith, if it does not have works (deeds and actions of obedience to back it up), by itself is destitute of power (inoperative, dead).

18 But someone will say [to you then], You [say you] have faith, and I have [good] works. Now you show me your [alleged] faith apart from any [good] works [if you can], and I by [good] works [of obedience] will show you my faith.
…
26 For as the human body apart from the spirit is lifeless, so faith apart from [its] works of obedience is also dead.

This scripture sound familiar? I have always been taught (and thus I have always believed) that this scripture means that you cant say you have faith if you’re not using it to do something for God. Indeed, it has been a “helpful” scripture for many a church to get their congregations engaged in doing something, or as a motivational tool to get people out of their seats and get into “exercising their faith”.

I’d like to propose a slightly different take on this scripture.

Whilst I agree that there is a need for us to be active Christians. One of the “activities” that we might typically be involved with is to pray for healing for someone (just to keep the whole thing topical). Some might say that this is “faith with works”. But I need to give you another scripture.

In Mark 9, we see the disciples praying for a boy that was possessed by a demon that caused him to be unable to speak. Not only that, the demon would force the child into water and fire with the intention of killing the child. The demon refused to budge until Jesus cast the demon out. Read this scripture – it was a pretty traumatic event.

In verse 28, the disciples asked Jesus privately why they could not drive the demon out? Jesus says that this kind could not be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.

My point is that the disciples didn’t lack faith – they had a spiritual anticipation and expectation. They even had a track record of being able to drive out demons. I think what was happening here (as with most of what Jesus did in front of the disciples) was that Jesus was both teaching a spiritual principle and demanding that the disciples rise to their next level of spiritual maturity. The disciples were being asked to focus on their preparation and discipline. Jesus was pointing the disciples at the need to spend time in prayer and fasting to prepare for the situations that they would encounter. Faith without preparation and discipline results in a Christian simply talking a “big game” – lots of noise, plenty of excitement, high levels of expectation…but no result.

Lifestyle change

So basically I’m asking myself this question – what would compel me to change my lifestyle from the one that I live now to one where faith is central (rather than peripheral)? More than that, how can I make the lifestyle “stick” rather than it being like the gym membership that I signed up for that never really took off?
The answer is not simple (sorry about that!)

Stay tuned - there's more to come on this!

Adjournment

A brief adjournment has been called to the case as the defence team wish to do some research into this issue of faith.

There are a bunch of scriptures that comes to mind when we think of faith, and it is generally thought of a belief and confidence in God to do something. That definition isn’t entirely incorrect; however, it is an incredible over-simplification of what faith is.

The classic scripture that comes to mind when thinking about faith is this one…

Hebrews 11:1 NOW FAITH is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].

This scripture gives us a good starting point, because it really makes it clear that faith is a big concept.
Firstly, faith is more than just belief in what God can do. I would suggest that faith is more about “enlightened perception” – seeing things the way that God sees them.

It goes a step beyond this though - faith actually brings together several important concepts:

• The fact that God is actually capable of doing the impossible, and He is ready to do so;
• The fact that God’s character is such that He only does the impossible;
• The fact that our “situations” are not coincidental – that God’s purpose for our lives is so comprehensive that it can be defined on a minute by minute basis;
• The fact that we have the capacity to understand God’s purpose on that “minute by minute” basis – we are not puppets, nor is it God’s intention that we live our lives in the dark.
• The fact that God has a desire to be involved in our day-to-day situations – He has not only defined the purpose, but wants to be involved in bringing it to fruition – and furthermore that we have confidence in the fact that He will become involved;

It’s worth “soaking” in these ideas for a couple of minutes, rather than simply agreeing with them (or disagreeing!). I would think that few Christians would have any problem with these proposals – so why don’t we feel that God is responding to our faith in the same way that He did with the people we read about in the bible? Dangerous territory, I will concede; however we might as well ask the hard questions!

“Starting Faith”

I said earlier that our spirit is switched on 24x7, but “active” does not mean “perceptive”.

I mentioned above that being faithful is a three-part exercise in seeing things the way that God sees them, understanding the purpose that God has in the situation, and having a level of confidence in God’s intention to get involved (as we give Him space to do so).

The encouraging thing is that there is at least some faith in all of us – if we totally lacked the ability to see things the way that God sees them, then we would never have turned to God in the first place.

The bible talks about having faith the size of a mustard seed – a tiny seed about 1mm across and virtually weightless – so small in fact that it’s hard to pick up with your fingers. Mustard is an annual plant that grows so fast that it is the type of seed that most farmers would not deliberately sow in their fields - a single mustard plant may grow to about 4 meters (15 feet) high in just weeks & sprout many leafy branches that overshadow other slower growing plants.

I refer to this small amount of faith as “starting faith” – the faith that we all have. The amazing thing is that even this small amount of faith can really make a difference. The disciples were talking to Jesus one day, and wanted to have bigger, more effective faith. Look at what Jesus says.

Luke 17:5-6 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" He (Jesus) replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you.

Interestingly, Jesus talks about this again after the disciples could not drive a demon from a boy. Jesus explains to the disciples why they had failed…

Matthew 17:20 He said to them, Because of the littleness of your faith [that is, your lack of firmly relying trust]. For truly I say to you, if you have faith [that is living] like a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, Move from here to yonder place, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

Jesus then goes to say that the demon that He cast out could only be dealt with through prayer and fasting – time spent with God, and time spent focussed on “relocating”. Starting faith is great, but we’ve go to take some action to “plant” that seed firmly. And that’s where the Spirit comes to our assistance…

Faith and the Spirit

This scripture is going to make a regular appearance, but I’m going to keep reprinting it anyway:

2 Peter 1:5-8 For this very reason, adding your diligence [to the divine promises], employ every effort in exercising your faith to develop virtue (excellence, resolution, Christian energy), and in [exercising] virtue [develop] knowledge (intelligence)

And in [exercising] knowledge [develop] self-control, and in [exercising] self-control [develop] steadfastness (patience, endurance), and in [exercising] steadfastness [develop] godliness (piety),
And in [exercising] godliness [develop] brotherly affection, and in [exercising] brotherly affection [develop] Christian love.

For as these qualities are yours and increasingly abound in you, they will keep [you] from being idle or unfruitful unto the [full personal] knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).

It’s verse 9 that follows the “fruits” verses that I want to highlight:

For whoever lacks these qualities is blind, [spiritually] shortsighted, seeing only what is near to him, and has become oblivious [to the fact] that he was cleansed from his old sins.

So, winding this passage of scripture back a bit, we are blind if we don’t have faith – we will lack God’s perception of situations, we will fail to understand God’s purposes, and we will lack confidence that God actually intends to get engaged in the situation.

And because faith is a quality or fruit of the Spirit, we will be “blind mice” if we don’t allow the Spirit to truly be with us and working through us on a consistent basis.

Taking it just one step further – if we choose not to relocate into the spiritual realm that we’ve been talking about, we are making a positive choice to be blind…or to put it the way the bible puts it, we are being “wilfully blind” (Eph. 4:18).

Argument #2 - Selfish motive

The defence “curve ball”

One of the most stressful things about trial work is the unpredictability of what can and will happen in court. It is also one of the things that makes trial advocacy interesting and exciting – it’s a kind of “full contact sport” where you pit your skills against an opponent in a highly charged tactical game.

Almost inevitably, at some stage in the trial, your opponent throws you a “curve ball” – something that you were not really expecting. Usually, if you’ve done your preparation and have looked at all the angles, these curve balls don’t cause you too much damage. However, from time to time, there is an argument that is raised by your opponent that can really cause you some difficulties.

The defence team have kept their powder dry and are now ready to release a curve ball that may well cause the whole trial to come to an abrupt end. And here it is…let’s hear the transcript of the submissions made by the defence lawyer:

“Your Honour, my learned colleagues for the Christians maintains that my Client will not provide the healing that they have asked for pursuant to the promises made by my Client.

It is my respectful submission, however, that the Christians have failed to understand what, in fact, my Client has promised to deliver – that is, that the Christians have a fundamental misunderstanding of what “healing” actually means, and I will address this momentarily.

Firstly, I submit that my Client has been prepared from the outset to provide healing, and in fact what has happened is that the Christians have refused to accept the healing that has been presented to them.”

(There is a brief break in proceedings at this juncture whilst the judge tells the plaintiff lawyers to bring their clients under control – the Christians are apparently a little upset at this submission by the defence team, and have started making some rather uncomplimentary remarks. Order now having been restored, the defence lawyer continues.)

“The fundamental misunderstanding that I eluded to is this – the Christians have identified what they perceive as an illness, disease, complaint or ailment – and they have sought to have my Client restore them to health. It is my Client’s position that this was never His intention.”

(Again, the plaintiff lawyers clap one another on the back and light cigars in the court room at this admission by the defence…they quickly put out the cigars though as defence continues with their “curve ball”).

“What my Client intended, has always intended, and with respect to this intention presents with a proven history, is that His healing would have a transformative effect rather than simply a restorative effect on the lives of the Christians. Moreover, this intention by my Client extends beyond Christians and applies just as readily to the non-Christian.”

“The problem is, from our viewpoint, that Christians do not want to be transformed – they just want to be restored to the position that they were in. If they have a physical injury or ailment, they want the physical healing. Our Client wants to do far more than that – the healing that He provides goes against the laws of the natural world and is intended to focus people on God in such a way that the person that is healed AND the people that see the healing are affected in a transformative way".

Stay tuned - more to come....




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