In a story about learning to cope with not having answers about why a child is disabled, a newsletter pictured a father in an empty assembly room. In a posture like a bride being carried, this father held his son, who was nearly limp across his lap. We don't know what he was thinking in that alone time, many years ago at a church conference someplace in Africa; but we know, from his conversation with someone there, that he had struggled with "why": And, while at the conference, he had come to terms with it being his calling to safeguard his son in Christ.
Here in the U.S., many families make that same choice, to lovingly care for loved ones who are living but who are vegetative. Not everyone here can do so, but some do.
Among those who are not able to or called to, there tends to be help from extended church family. Many make the choice to entrust their loved ones to nursing homes in the United States, some faithfully knowing that nursing staff members are answering a true calling.
Some families may even recognize how, in ancient Israel, the child Samuel was among those who were dedicated to heavenly service. When he was a small child, Samuel was given to the care of Hebrew elders at the temple, because that was God's calling for him.
That is to say that, when Christians leave loved ones in care of the church, the expectation is often faithful and pure. That being the case, we know it's wrong for the disabled, in care of one type of home or another, to be abused, and that conjugal relations in such settings isn't right by Heaven.
That's not difficult to understand, if your heart is with Christ. But to make that a little more clear, let's think it through in Bible terms:
2 Corinthians 3:3 tells us that God's law is written in the way we live as Christians, that we are Heaven's living word, that God's law lives not on paper or stone but in our hearts.
That being the case, we know that the purpose of a great many Christian lives has been to patiently wait for the time of Jesus's return.
For many of us, including widows, nuns, and people who are statutorily children (1 Corinthians 7:8, 7:28), for example, God's purpose is often only for us to live spiritually cleansed: to make living cleansed in Jesus our "reasonable service" while we wait for that time in life when Heaven takes home the bride of Christ — that bride who, through the covering of the blood of Christ, is without blemish or blame.
That bride is the church, a bride not through acts of flesh but an unmolested body that belongs to God through His Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13).
We are a spiritual bride in body, a baptized church with many members, all with different gifts (1 Corinthians 7:7), including the gift or miracle of seeing (John 14:9, 1 Corinthians 12:17-19), "so that there would be no division [or difference in vision] in the body," but members would honor one another through being concerned about one another's well-being (1 Corinthians 12:25, paraphrased by the editor and quoted from the Holman Christian Standard Bible, HCSB).
Some members of the body of Christ are naturally more dependent on other members of the body than others. But the New Testament of the Bible makes both dependent and independent members free to live well. In Jesus, we're free from the burden of Old Testament demands of men, and we're wedded in heart, instead, to the covenant commandments given directly from Heaven to Moses and then embodied by God through Jesus. And those commands that should be written on our hearts as Christians say there is no law against repentance and self-control (Galatians 5:19-21).
"Do not covet your neighbor's ... maid; ox or donkey; or anything that is your neighbor's." (Exodus 20:17) ... "Do not commit adultery." (Exodus 20:14) ... "If you love me, obey my commandments." (John 14:15).
In Jesus, we serve a church that asks us to correct one another (Matthew 18:15-18); to humbly correct one another but also to guard our hearts against falling into wrongdoing in the process of correcting (Galatians 6:1).
Christ, and the disciple James, even warn that allowing lawlessness only leads to more and more lawlessness after a while in life (Matthew 24:12, James 1:15).
People become debtors to the law — answerable to punishment under law — when they insist on testing the law of the love of Christ, a love that isn't based upon what may seem right to mankind in the natural.
In Christ, there's a spiritual reality that's different from anyone's concept of natural marriage. In Christ, some members of the church (a church that's married to Heaven) are members whose lives are a testimony against the wrong ways that men treat one another (1 Corinthians 6:9-10), and the wrong ways men treat the church (Matthew 3:2).
In Christ, some members are spiritual eye-witnesses to the fact that this world just doesn't understand how the love of Jesus has us behave toward one another, that the love of Jesus doesn't want us to commit adultery against our covenant with Heaven, that we're supposed to care for one another without molestation.
When people cleansed feet during the time Jesus walked among us, there was a sanctity about it, a sinlessness, signifying a departure from the dust and hardship of this world and a preparation for Heaven instead.
Often, people who live against "life in the Spirit" don't grow to understand that; so, there are crimes against the body: crimes the church is more often, now, fleeing (Daniel 7:25, Revelation 12:6).
Yet, wrongs can be righted, thanks to the grace of Heaven that we find in Jesus.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 says those who abuse the body aren't on a path to Heaven. But grace says that even an abuser can be cleansed if he or she repents. And God gives a great many people (everyone!) opportunity to repent. ... Heaven is sometimes almost infinitely patient with mankind.
... Abusers test the love of the law in Jesus, and "so did some of you," the Apostle Paul said. But after the abuser grows to see the love and sanctity of Christ, he can be baptized in the Holy Spirit (just like one of the thieves who were crucified with Jesus). And that repentance and baptism make the offender "justified" — not justified in having raped or offended, but justified in knowing he did wrong, and justified in wanting to go to Heaven, because of his belief in the forgiveness of Jesus (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
"What then? Should we sin because" we've become part of the born-again church? "By no means," Paul says. (Romans 6:15, paraphrased by the editor)
"For just as you offered the parts of yourselves as slaves to moral impurity, and to greater and greater lawlessness, so now offer [yourselves] as slaves to righteousness ... ." (Romans 6:19, HCSB)
"For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23, KJV)
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