Cancer and my offense

Cancer is an incredibly complex and intruiging disease. In order for cancer to begin it's coup of the body, a few things must happen for it to break free of the normal controls and regulations of the body. First, the cells must become immortal. Normal cells have telomere caps which slowly erode as the cell proliferates and when these caps are gone, the cell dies. Programmed death. Cancer cells find a way to rebuild these telomere caps and can continue to proliferate their mutated genes to an infinite number of daughter cells. They also learn not only to shut off anti-growth signals, but also to promote pro-growth signals and division so not only do they live "forever" but they proliferate more quickly and outgrow the surrounding healthy cells. In this way, the cancer begins to alter the tissue and normal functioning of the organ. As the tumor grows, the blood demands increase, so in order to continue it's seige it must obtain a blood supply. So it secretes hormones and signals which attract blood vessel growth to feed itself. It is now fully independent of the body. It has become an anomoly, an aberration of nature. It has erected a kingdom of its own altogether independent of the controls and natural functioning of the body. The cancer rejects the normal functioning for which it was made. The result is a mass of undifferentiated cells, destructive, unusable and altogether alien from their original purpose.

We are all born sick. Bodily alive, spiritually breathless. There is a cancer within us from birth, which is the root of all manifestations of evil. Anger, lust, pride, impatience, cruetly, selfishness, unkindness - these the Bible calls 'sins'; the cancer is called Sin. Just as a cancer has syptoms, so Sin has sins which errupt in avulsions and blisters on the character. These syptoms seems to vary form person to person and it is by these syptoms that we compare ourselves to establish ourselves in the moral food chain. Hitler, of course, is at the bottom and traditionally someone like Mother Theresa is at the top. Oddly enough, the symptoms don't seem to correlate with the worldview in any diagnostic manner: you get some atheists who have less symptoms than some christians, but there are some agnostics who are seeminlgy healthier by far than some Muslims, and I am not as symptomless as so and so, but I am far less sickly than... Most of us are perfectly content with the middle ground. Though this cancer manifests in ten thousand ways, in its essence it pulses the same throughout humanity: it hates God, usurps the throne and places the self in His stead. It's proper name is Pride, the great and first sin from which all other sins branch.

There are obvious syptoms which offer no pretenses in its offensive behavior, lewdness and the like; the wanton foolishness of frivilous declaration of independence from the God who continues to bless him. Then there are the more insidious symptoms which manifest in ways such as religion, good-deed-doing, piety. The people with these syomtoms are found hiding in the pews of all kinds of faiths, singing their hyms, sitting on committees, preaching at the pulpit... These people know the easiest way to not need a doctor is to not have nasty syptoms like the other immoral caste. And so, they work to have a right standing with God on their own terms, a shiny badge of approval wrought with their own efforts, tipping the scales until God is in their debt. What they don't realize is the proclivity to earn a rightousness of their own is, in fact, a symptom of the cancer itself. Any suggestions that they are really cancerous when their syomtpoms are so mild, is offensive. I was/am of this stock, and so I am offended by the gospel. I don't like being told I'm sick and am powerless to heal myself; it challenges my pride.

But, the divine medical diagnosis is cancer for all. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. For we suppress the truth of God in our ungodliness, we do not thank Him or honor Him as God and we worship the creation rather than the Creator - thats how the bible puts it. The prognosis of this cancer is unequivocal and undifferentiated: death.

All those who here this prognosis of the Doctor and believe him, go to the hospital to be healed. The cancer itself is healed instantly and removed, but the body has accostomed to years of living with the symptoms, and habits, behaviors and compensations have furrowed deeply into well trodden patterns. Outsiders looking into the hospital, still unaware of their illness, can be appalled by the syptoms they still see manifested by those within and questions the claim that they are really cured. But they are in a hospital after all, and they are there to heal. But this healing lasts a lifetime as the inferm continues to steadily gaze on and obey the doctor; submitting to his treatments and surrendering to His care.

The means to the cure of the cancer, or Sin as I will refer to it from here, is unique. God, holy and just, has some options but is bound by his character. He can vindicate His name and the denegration of his glory by punising the sin or he can find a substitute for the punishment and buy us out of our death sentence. But there can be no silly talk of 'just forgiving people' like he is giving out candy. There has been real offense and it really has to be dealth with. Anything less would make God guilty of abetting the criminal in the denegration of His infinite worth. There needs to be a righeousness within us, but not attained by means of our own efforts, for they are all tainted with the cancer and therefore are rottennes to him. In the bible, God equates our 'righteous works' to bloody menstration rags (literally). This is how unworthy our efforts are. They are unworthy because they all have their root in the cancer, in pride and self exaltation.

So God, intending to show his infinite mercy to us in our dead and precarious state, set out to save us from his wrath. He loved the world and demonstrates His love to us by giving us, for free, the righteousness we could not earn. And he gives it to us by the only means that accords with grace (or free gift): faith. Faith, by definition, looks away from the self to receive. Eternal life will be received for free or we will get none of it. In God's economy, it is essential that everything be free, lest God become a debtor of man and owe him something. God owes no man anything. Also, just as the nature of a spring is to overflow, so it is the nature of God's infinite love and grace to pour out onto those whom He loves. This is also very good news because we are paupers, spiritually bankrupt, and have no means to reconcile ourselves. Hence the greek word "evangelion" which translates to be "good news".

But the righteousness that God gives is not groundless; He does not whimsically give it; it must be paid for. And He paid for it with the blood of His precious Son Jesus. Jesus lived a perfect life and upheld the glory of God. And so what God does is he swaps our lives. He imputes the perfect life of Christ on to me and gives Christ my tumorous, God-hating, prideful, symptomatic life. Then that sin is dealt with in Jesus. So when God looks at a believer,though still sypmtomatic, he sees the fullness of His perfect Son. Likewise, God saw the wicked unbeliever "in Jesus" as He carried out the death sentence. The sin was really dealt with, someone really died - and died in my stead. I ought to have been on that cross bearing the weight of my own sin and been seperated from God for ever. But Jesus swapped lives with me. Not only am I forgiven because my debt has been paid (forgiveness) but God has given to me all the rightousness of Jesus (justification). A prisoner aquitted of his crime can leave prison but has no friends, money or home. God aquits the sinner and then gives him the estate, the faimly and life of Jesus. And makes him an heir to all the inheritance of God. This is available to all who believe.

This is precious to me and I believe it with all of my being.

To close, I wanted to clarify why the gospel offends me. I am a pretty capable person and I don't like being told I am not good enough and my efforts are vain. I don't like there being a God to whom i am acountable and I don't like not being able to make God my debtor by my good works. Its odd that on the one hand I don't want to believe what I believe to be true, yet am compelled to believe because I see it as the truth. As a person who has had the cancer removed, I still have many symptoms engrained in my behavior. The gospel offends me, because its not about me. I want my own kingdom, my own blood supply, my own life. But it is God's kingdom, Christs' blood and Life of the Spirit.