I am currently undergoing a common but unpleasant experience. A couple of years ago Laurie began to encourage me urgently to see an optometrist. She was concerned when I misread street signs, especially at night. I would read a sign as we traveled out loud stating something like ‘Exit 439 East ’ or something and she would say ‘No, it said Exit 489 West.’ A big difference! Ever so slowly over the years I have become more and more near sighted. Everything is fuzzy to me at a distance and I stand in need now of a more powerful lens. Without my glasses the back of this room is fuzzy, but with them I can see quite well.
One of the most important aspects of our Christian discipleship is learning to think biblically about all of life. We are exhorted to be renewed in the spirit of your minds (Ephesians 4:23). This involves learning to think biblically, to interpret our world through a biblical lens. Apart from the Bible our world, our problems, our pain, seems fuzzy, we don’t understand it as we ought, but with the Bible to help us see we can have much greater clarity.
We need the truth of the Bible in order to see, interpret, and understand our world clearly. This is true about every walk of life from how we spend our money, to how we educate our children, or to what we eat. But when it comes to something like cancer, developing a biblical worldview is especially urgent. Cancer threatens us. It can take our life or the life of our loved one. If it doesn’t kill us, it might very well cause us great suffering.
The American Cancer Society reports the following statistics regarding cancer.
· over 10 million living Americans have had cancer of some kind
· an estimated 1.5 million new cancer cases in the United States in 2008
· almost 1 out of every 2 men in America will develop cancer
· about 1 in 3 women in America will develop cancer
· cancer cost over $200 billion in 2007
· about 565,000 Americans will die of cancer this year
· over 1,500 a day
When we think about this awful disease we call cancer we need Scripture to help us understand it. Cancer exists in our world. Why is it here? How do we face it? Is there hope of a world without it? The following takes the six foundational pillars for understanding the gospel and applies them to cancer. This is designed to give you the big picture from a biblical perspective for understanding and dealing with cancer.
1. God created a good world without cancer.
Few dreams for planet earth are more utopian than a world without cancer. Multiplies millions of dollars are given each year for cancer research in the hopes of finding a cure. It does exist in our world, but it important to remember that it has not always existed. There was a time when cancer was not. Genesis 1:31 says And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. It was not a part of the original world. Before the Fall in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had no fear of catching a cold, much less of discovery that they had cancer.
2. Cancer finds its origin in the curse brought on by man’s sin.
God warned Adam in Genesis 2:17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. We might be tempted to think that Adam did not die on that day, but he certainly did. He was separated from God spiritually and the process of decay and death began in his body from that day.
Genesis 3:17-19 says And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Here is the introduction of every disease into the world. God sent death and disease into the world because of man’s sin. This is a judgment and a mercy. God could have put Adam in hell immediately, but in love he allowed him to live and procreate for His own glory. Even now God could put us all away forever, but God gives us life and opportunity to turn to Him.
3. God punishes sin with death and judgment.
As awful as cancer is, it is only a result of something much more awful. Sin is more awful and is the ultimate reason that cancer exists in the world. God hates sin and cannot tolerate it. God will punish every sinner with his wrath. Perhaps nothing is more dreaded than the fear of being told that you have inoperable cancer with a limited time to live.
No one in my immediately family has died of cancer. I’ve seen two uncles and one aunt die of cancer who were relatively close. One uncle was told he had six months to live and he lived about four. Another uncle fought for years and finally succumbed. My aunt overcame breast cancer once, was cancer free for around ten years, went into remission and ultimately died. These were hard, painful experiences for my extended family. Cancer is an awful disease that very often results in a painful death.
As such, therefore, cancer can serve as a reminder to us that death is in the world because of man’s initial sin and rebellion. God can even use diseases like cancer as instruments to compel sinners to turn to Him. Cancer reminds us that we our fallen and frail creatures, our lives are very short, we will someday face death and after that the judgment. Cancer is awful, but it is not as awful as sin. Cancer can take our earthly life, but sin will take our spiritual life forever.
4. Christ dealt with sin on the cross (and ultimately cancer).
We must never forget Jesus died on the cross for sin. Jesus lived a righteous life for sinners. Jesus took the penalty of death for sinners. Jesus came to save us from sin. Christ, through His gospel, is the cure for the disease of sin and this is more important than finding a cure for cancer. Jesus dealt with sin on the cross therefore God forgives sinners. Psalm 103:2-3a Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,who forgives all your iniquity. This is the believer’s greatest hope, the forgiveness of sins, but this verse goes on to say something else. Psalm 103:3b who heals all your diseases. What are we to make of this? The cross deals with sin directly and cancer indirectly.
5. Christ conquered sin and all of it consequences through the resurrection.
We must never forget that Christ rose from the dead bodily. The body of Christ was beaten, bruised, and killed, was raised up, healed, forever. Christ lives today in His body as a man and He never grows old, never gets sick, and will never die (He will never get cancer or a cold). This was done by the power of God in the resurrection and the promise for the believer is that God will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself (Philippians 3:21). Through the cross and the resurrection, Jesus has purchased the forgiveness of our sins and also a world in which we will be free from sin and all its consequences including cancer!
Our hope as believers, therefore, is not that in this world we will never get cancer and die. Our hope as believers is that we will someday live in a new world in which there will be no cancer, nor the very possibility of the existence of cancer. This is so because cancer, like all other disease, finds its roots in the fall of man (and sin), in the new world sin will be completely annihilated forever. There will no longer be a curse in the New Earth and that is the cure for cancer.
Listen to this picture of the New Earth in Revelation 22. Revelation 22:1-3 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.
Friends, that is a picture of the destination of believers in Jesus Christ. We are destined for the New Earth in which God dwells and Christ dwells bodily. It will be heaven because Jesus is there! We are destined for a world in which we will eat fruit and will be healed forever of every consequence of sin. We are destined for a world in which nothing accursed will ever exist.
There will no longer be allergic reactions, there will no longer be temptations to lust or jealousy, there will no longer be depression, there will no longer be shaken baby syndrome, and there will no longer be cancer, nor any other affliction; nothing accursed will be there. Does that bring you hope and joy? It brings great joy to me. I can hardly wait to get there, but where does it leave us while we are here? I think these biblical truths are critical, especially in light of the fact that God will not heal many of our loved ones in this life.
6. We must make real and important choices in this world, while hoping for the next.
How are we to respond to cancer with this biblical reality in mind?
1. We should make responsible choices. If there are reasonable ways to reduce the risk of cancer, then should heed those. It might be wise to put on sunscreen or stop smoking.
It is important to remember, however, that some cancers just seem to strike. We will never eliminate the risk of cancer, so we don’t want to live in a constant state of paranoia. Cancer must not be our ultimate fear. Our ultimate fear must be God and His wrath, which was taken on the cross by Christ. Fearing God sets us free from the tyranny of fear of cancer or any other thing in this world.
2. We should support and work to find a cure for cancer. We are taught by Christ to love our neighbors as ourselves. We can love our neighbor’s with cancer, by caring for them. We can work as nurses. We can raise money to fund research through Relay for Life and other organizations. We can become Physicians and Researchers as a way of devoting our life’s work to fighting cancer. We can provide biblical counseling to help people face cancer with hope. We can do many things to fight cancer in this world and we should.
3. We should teach people to hope in the gospel. Fighting cancer or engaging in any other social good can never be our highest goal. We may never find a cure for cancer. Even if we do, there will always be some other cause of suffering, loss, and pain in this fallen world in which we live. There will always be suffering and death here in this fallen world! But there will be no suffering or death there in that perfect world, on the New Earth.
We must help people to see that our only true hope is to live in that wonderful world. We must help people to see past this world to the next. This is the greatest work in which Christians can and must be engaged. When your family member gets cancer, they need the hope of the gospel. When you get cancer, you will need the hope of the gospel. Therefore, the work of preaching the gospel in this church is vital to the fight against cancer.
Christ came, lived, died, rose again, and will come again. In the meantime, He is saving sinners by removing their hearts of sin, like an invasive surgery removing a malignant tumor. Christ then works to prepare us for His return and recreation of the cosmos. Christ makes us ready for the New Earth through His gospel and by trusting in the gospel, by trusting in Him, we have assurance that some sweet and glorious Day we will see Him and live with Him forever, free from sin, free from the curse, free from cancer.
