28 years ago, my wife Gaye gave birth to our second daughter. After a very long labour and a breach birth, Leah was born four weeks early. We suspected that something was wrong with her quite early on. She was misdiagnosed at 18 months with cerebral palsy, but Leah never seemed to be like other children with that condition. At the age of 15, Leah was correctly diagnosed with Angelman Syndrome, a fairly rare genetic condition where there’s a small deletion in the 15th chromosome. Having a 28-year-old severely disabled daughter who doesn’t speak and who has the understanding of a three-year-old has brought many difficulties, frustrations and disappointments. But she has also brought our family a tremendous amount of fun and laughter.
Families never plan to have a disabled child. We live in a society that strives for and idolizes perfection, with people paying exorbitant amounts of money to have reconstructions done on their bodies. Yet about four million Australians have a disability. That’s one in five. You probably know someone who is disabled, or you may have some kind of disability yourself.
The question I want to ask is, “How do people with bodies that are less than perfect fit into God’s world?” What is the big picture of how God views his creation? How does he view people with disabilities? How should we view them? How do people with disabilities fit into his plan? Let’s have a look at what the Bible has to say.
1. God is responsible for people having disabilities
In Exodus 4, God is just about to put his plan to rescue the Israelites into operation. He chooses Moses to be his spokesperson. But Moses responds by saying, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue” (v. 10). Moses isn’t keen to accept the job because he doesn’t think he can speak well enough. Perhaps he had some sort of speech impediment. In reply, the all-powerful creator reminds Moses, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” (v. 11).
Notice what God is saying. He is the one who creates human mouths. In Moses’ case, God created Moses with an imperfect mouth. God is also responsible for the mute, the deaf, the seeing and the blind. It’s clear that God gives abilities and withholds abilities. He is in control when things go well in our lives and when things don’t go to plan.
We live in a world where accidents happen all the time—at birth, before birth (as in the case of Leah), in the car, in the home and in the workplace. If all the accidents that take place in the world were outside of God’s control, it would indeed be a frightening and unpredictable world. Knowing that God is sovereign is liberating and refreshing. In his great wisdom he gives and withholds abilities so that through our weak and frail bodies he can work out his good purposes for his honour and glory. We have a loving heavenly father who cares greatly about every aspect of our lives as his dear children. Psalm 139:13-16 tells us:
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there were none of them.
That God is in control is a wonderful incentive to put our trust in his word day by day as we live under his care.
2. Disabilities are signposts of a broken and fallen world
Although God made this world good, when our first parents, Adam and his wife, turned their back on God’s loving care and rebelled against his authority, it had a devastating effect on the whole of creation. We see it in earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and floods. We see it when our bodies get sick, when we pass on diseases to one another, when we age, when our organs wear out and when we die. We see it in our warped emotions, thoughts and actions. We see it in our propensity towards evil, for, given the opportunity, our true natures show themselves for what they are. We see it in the ugliness of flawed human relationships—in broken marriages and dysfunctional families. And we see it in our physical disabilities.
Physical disabilities signify the presence of sin, and sin prevents us from coming into the presence of God. We see this in Leviticus 21:17-20 where God lays down the regulations for the priests, the sons of Aaron:
None of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the bread of his God. For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, a man blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, or a man who has an injured foot or an injured hand, or a hunchback or a dwarf or a man with a defect in his sight or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles.
Disabilities are like signposts telling us there’s something dreadfully wrong with this world because of our collective rebellion.
However, it’s not just physical disabilities. We are all spiritually disabled. Man was made in the image of God to be the pinnacle of creation, but because of sin, he is blind: he closes his eyes to the glory and majesty of God; he is dumb: he does not glorify God and give him thanks as his creator; he is lame: he is under the curse of death; and, saddest of all, he is deaf: he doesn’t hear the voice of his creator and he does not want to. We are all in need of a saviour.
3. God has a special concern for people with disabilities and special needs
Fortunately for us, God has a very special concern for the disadvantaged and disabled amongst God’s people—the fatherless, the widowed, the foreigner, the poor and the disabled (Ps 146:8-9). He is the “Father of the fatherless” and a “protector of widows” (Ps 68:5). He gives justice to the “weak” and maintains “the right of the afflicted and destitute” (Ps 82:3).
Because God had a special concern for these people, Israel was also to have a special concern for them too. For example, in Leviticus 19:14 God commands the Israelites, saying, “You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord”. However, as Israel turned her back on God and things went from bad to worse, the fatherless, the widowed, the foreigner, the poor and the disabled were forgotten and mistreated. So the prophet Isaiah said,
Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees,
and the writers who keep writing oppression,
to turn aside the needy from justice
and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
that widows may be their spoil,
and that they may make the fatherless their prey!
(Isa 10:1-2)
Just as God poured out his judgement on these perpetrators of injustice, so too will he hold us responsible for the way we treat the weak in our society.
4. God promises to restore fallen creation
But during this period of failure in Israel’s history when the whole nation was disabled before God and under the shadow of his judgement, Isaiah also spoke of the promise of a new creation when the land would see “the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God” (Isa 35:2). The coming of the Lord would bring salvation (35:4) and, as a result,
… the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. (35:5-6)
When God saves his people, the evidence will be seen in the healing of broken bodies. Those who displayed the brokenness of the world and the crippling nature of sin in their bodies will now have new restored bodies. Those who experienced frustration and pain because of their bodies’ deficiencies will now be granted bodies that will function beautifully in heaven.
5. Jesus breaks the power of sin and begins to restore creation
But how does God do this? How is the promise of Isaiah 35 fulfilled in the New Testament? In Matthew 11, when John the Baptist is in prison, John sends his disciples to Jesus to ask him whether or not he is the Christ. Jesus replies,
“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” (vv. 4-6)
Jesus’ words came straight from Isaiah 35. He was saying to John that his healing miracles were evidence that he is God’s special king, God’s Christ. Not only did Jesus heal the blind, the lame, the deaf and the dumb, he also cured lepers and raised the dead, going far beyond the promise stated in Isaiah 35. And not only did Jesus restore their bodies, he made their spirits alive as well. So in Matthew 20:30-34, for example, when the two blind men received their sight, they also received spiritual sight as well, and they began to follow Jesus. In Jesus we see “the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God” (Isa 35:2b) as he smashes the power of sin and restores people’s bodies to wholeness.
6. Jesus is the perfect priest who brings us salvation
But sin’s hold on God’s creatures can only be broken by a perfect priest who offers the perfect sacrifice. The passage I quoted earlier in Leviticus 21 isn’t mainly about the connection between disabilities and sin; it’s about preventing the disabled sons of Aaron from serving as priests in the tabernacle/temple. Talk about discrimination! The Equal Opportunity Commission would have had a field day! But who is the one doing the discriminating? In verse 16, it is clear it’s the Lord. It’s bad enough that we live in a world where people are discriminated against all the time; why does God do it here in the Bible?
The answer is in verse 23: “… he shall not go through the veil or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries, for I am the Lord who sanctifies them”. God discriminated against the disabled sons of Aaron so that our sins could be forgiven. God is holy and we are not. He cannot tolerate imperfection because of his holiness. In the Old Testament sacrificial system, God was teaching his people that we can only approach him through a perfect priest who offers a perfect sacrifice. That perfect priest could only be Jesus. So the Old Testament priests could not have any physical blemishes as they were foreshadowing Jesus, the perfect priest. The writer of Hebrews says of him,
For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever. (Heb 7:26-28)
As the father of a disabled daughter, you can probably understand my dislike of discrimination. But I rejoice in and am glad about the fact that God discriminated against the disabled so that our sins could be forgiven and we could come into a relationship with him.
7. God has given us his Holy Spirit as a guarantee of our restoration
We still look forward to the day when our weak mortal bodies will be transformed into heavenly bodies, fit for the new heavens and new earth. But until that day, where do we stand? The Apostle Paul says that if we belong to Christ, we are already part of the new creation (2 Cor 5:17). We still have our fallen bodies, but because we have put our trust in Christ, we have the Holy Spirit—the guarantee that our bodies will be made new (2 Cor 5:1-5). All believers in Christ will have new bodies, not just the physically disabled. So Paul encourages us in Romans 8:22-25 with these words:
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
One day we will see the blind, the deaf, the lame and the dumb healed and part of the great gathering of God’s people. What will the blind man be looking at? His eyes will be on his Lord and he’ll see him face to face. The lame man will have new legs that will allow him to leap for joy. The deaf man will be able to hear the people of God rejoicing in God’s goodness, mercy and salvation. And the dumb man, with his new voice, will enter the gates of the heavenly city with the rest of God’s people, singing praises with all his might.
8. We are to love the people with disabilities
Given everything I’ve just said, the most important thing disabled people need is to hear the good news about Jesus. People with disabilities need all kinds of physical and emotional support, but their need to hear the good news of forgiveness of sins is more important, just like it is for everyone else. Their physical needs can sometimes be so overwhelming that we forget that their greatest need is to hear the gospel, and receive forgiveness of sins and relationship with God through Jesus.
Furthermore, disabled Christians are an indispensable part of the body of Christ, his church. As God’s people, we must see ourselves not only connected to Jesus, but vitally connected to each other. The seemingly unimpressive gatherings that meet each week in our church buildings are part of God’s new creation. You may never have thought of church like that (as we don’t look like we’re heavenly, what with all our warts) but Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:14-22 and 1 Corinthians 12:12-26 that all of us—individuals of different backgrounds, interests and cultures—have been knitted together into one body in Christ through the gospel. Christians with disabilities are part of that body, and they have a unique and special contribution to make to our fellowship.
We have many brothers and sisters in Christ who struggle with a whole range of disabilities—some more obvious than others. Some have frail bodies because of their age. Some suffer from mental illness. Some have physical disabilities, for example, blindness and deafness, which make participating in church hard. It’s not easy for many who struggle. We must learn humility, patience, gentleness, and genuine love and care. Sometimes we will need to be firm. That’s exactly what Leah needs when she wants to jump fully clothed into a bath full of water. Sometimes we will need to sit with someone and listen to them for a long time, rather than rush off to do something we want to do. Sometimes we will need to plan a visit to help with the mowing or the other jobs that our brothers and sisters cannot do. Sometimes we will need to open our homes to offer hospitality and friendship. Whatever we do in our fellowship, our weakest members must never be forgotten. They must always be included in everything, and encouraged to see that they have something unique to offer.
Finally, there is one word that sums up Jesus’ attitude when he was confronted with the enormous needs of a broken world: ‘compassion’. It’s a beautiful word and it literally means ‘a gut reaction’. In this digital and technological age, we have become desensitized to the needs of others. But when Jesus was confronted with sickness, disease, death, the spiritually poor and the disabled, his heart went out to them because they had no-one to help them. They were like sheep without a shepherd (Matt 9:36). God had compassion toward you and me in his death on the cross, and he wants us to show that same gut reaction to each other here in our fellowship.
It won’t always be easy. But the lessons we learn together as a church—in caring, supporting and serving each other—are lessons that are preparing us for eternity. We have a unique opportunity to show that we are different to the world in the way that we treat our weakest members. Governments can pass laws to protect people with special needs, but laws can’t change people’s hearts. May God enable us to act in compassion and patience with each other in the same way that he acted towards us, as we await that glorious day when everything will be set right—the day when Jesus is glorified and given all the praise and honour due to his name.
