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Sickness – Where Does it Come From?
Posted on June 26th, 2008 in Faith, From the Word by Fred McKinnon
Hey Everyone,
So hope you’ve enjoyed the incredible interview and video about the song “Healer” that was on the Planetshakers album, and will soon be on the upcoming Hillsongs CD+DVD.
It’s a powerful song, declaring “I believe You’re my Healer” … which made me want a discussion on sickness and disease. I guess the whole thought really came back to the surface during a planning meeting at church where we were discussing a testimony of how God used cancer to radically intervene in someone’s life, drawing them deeper to Him. My concern was that we expressed that clearly, and didn’t allow it to come across as “God gave me this cancer/trial so I could experience this”. My thoughts were “God used this to ..” are WAY DIFFERENT than “God DID this to …”.
I realize this will probably be “one of those blogs” … we’ll all comment, and we’ve all decided what we believe, so nobody is going to get their mind changed here. With that in mind, let’s discuss your thoughts, your reasons, and as always, using Scripture is a plus.
Sickness – where does it come from?
Some say it’s from God … that He punishes or disciplines with it. Or that He uses it as a “trial” to teach us something. That since He is Sovereign, it must come from Him. (oddly enough, I cant’ stand the Sovereign stuff … just because someone is Sovereign, the Authority, the Supreme Ruler, doesn’t mean that everything that happens in their kingdom is the will of the Sovereign Ruler … )
Some say it’s from the Devil – it’s bad, sin, and it’s from the hand of Satan.
Some say it’s from neither – it’s the result of living in a sinful, fallen world. A consequence of sin – either vicariously, or from our own rebellion and disobedience.
Granted … you cannot read the Old Testament without seeing God Himself directly involved in sending plagues, sickness, disease, etc., usually as punishment to sin. I wish that weren’t the case … it makes me not like the OT God so much, but I don’t know how else to read that stuff.
However, I’d like to keep our discussion limited to the NEW COVENANT, meaning our promise and covenant with God that has resulted from the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, His work on the cross, and His being raised from the dead.
I live and learn daily, and always seek for God to give me ongoing revelation and wisdom. But for me, I believe that under the New Covenant, our punishment for sin was put on Jesus … our substitute. I believe that healing of our disease and sickness is as much a part of the New Covenant and sacrifice that Christ made on the cross as is the forgiveness of our sins.
To suggest that God “puts sickness” on somebody seems completely against the reason He sent His Son into the world to be our substitute. Just as Jesus came to deliver us from sin, He came to deliver us from sickness. Would God “put sin” on us?
Of course, we still have sickness. We still have sin. People obviously will DIE. Many times, they die of sickness. God’s Word is clear that our earthly bodies are decaying.
In the New Testament, I’ve never really seen any Biblical reference where someone came to Christ in faith, asking to be healed, and where He said “no, I’m not willing”. On the contrary, He said “I am willing” and the passages that relate to Christ and healing indicate “he healed them all”.
Lastly, I would find it very difficult to have faith to pray for someone to be delivered from sickness and disease if I was thinking “maybe God wants them to have this”. As a natural father (which I understand is no comparison to our Heavenly Father), I cannot comprehend ever putting sickness on my children to teach them anything. When my children are sick, my heart and soul is broken and consumed with seeing them recover and be well. I don’t care how much they’ve misbehaved. I don’t care what lesson they could learn in the midst of their sickness. I want them healed and whole. There is not one single fiber of my being that would want anything less.
Can God be glorified in the midst of sickness? Yes – absolutely. My wife was very sick with leukemia. God healed her, praise God. But in the midst of the sickness, God was still glorified by her response, by her faith, by her tenacity to cling to God and His Word.
But … where does it come from?
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18 Responses to “Sickness – Where Does it Come From?”
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Great post! You’ve done a good job of presenting your case, with which I agree. I am not a “complicated” person; rather, fairly simple. Consequently, I love the simplicity that’s in the gospel. And Jesus put it pretty simply when He said in John 10:10; “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abunduntly.” So… seems to me that sickness and infirmity does nothing but steal, kill and destroy. Therefore, ……
Great thought, Dad. (ya’ll, I just think it’s totally cool that my dad comments on my blog!).
John 10:10 does make it clear what Jesus wanted to accomplish.
We often hear about the fact that Jesus promises we’ll have tribulations and trials … and yes, even sufferings. In a fallen world, we will have these things. He came to help us get OUT of that.
Yes – we are suffering. YES – He is there to lift us OUT of our suffering, and into that abundant life He’s promised for us.
I would say that part of sickness is from the fall. People way back in the OT lived so long, but sin and humanity has created so many diseases. Slowly but surely throughout the OT people started living shorter and shorter lives. It is only in this modern or postmodern era that people are living longer than their predecessors. So while God is obviously involved in a way I cannot fully comprehend, I do think sickness is part of our mortality.
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Good blog, Fred! Very good blog!
I want to address one quote, then your question…you said, “just because someone is Sovereign, the Authority, the Supreme Ruler, doesn’t mean that everything that happens in their kingdom is the will of the Sovereign Ruler” and my response is ‘yes and no’. You’ll have to remember that when Christians use the word “Sovereign” we aren’t using it in the mere earthly sense, but are trying to find an earthly word that can fit – as best as possible – a Biblical concept. So, what you way is absolutely true… of people. But, and I don’t want to derail this whole convo, but you brought it up – when one is absolutely sovereign (which only God CAN be) – in other words, they have ‘veto rights’ and awareness of everything that happens – in a sense there is a ‘will’-ing that takes place for ANYTHING that happens, whether it’s permitting (permissive will) it (which is hopefully for a reason) or choosing to directly cause it.
Back to your primary topic, though;
Sickness is initially a result of the Fall, so it is the result of Sin – the one absolutely ‘free’ choice that man ever made (Adam was sinless, and had no ‘sin nature’, so he truly chose it of his free – and it was fully free – will). Sickness is also the will of God, in some sense, as He knowingly allowed the Fall to occur, knowing before He even made man that the ultimate plan was not for us to be saved by our obedience, but by Christ, that way God would get the glory – in that sense, sickness is generally part of the permissive will of God. It is also at times the will of God in another sense, which you already mentioned – He sometimes punishes, disciplines, and tries us with & through it indeed. There are specific instances of all three, and though usually (not always, though) in these cases the sickness itself it ‘delivered’ by the Devil, even then the Bible makes it clear that the Devil, as Martin Luther used to say, is “God’s devil” and can do no more than what God Himself allows in his will. Clearly, sickness in ALL of it’s forms is also in some sense from the Devil, as He is the tempter who deceived Eve, which led Adam to choose sin in the first place, and He & his co-laborers (other fallen angels like him) bring illness in the Scriptures. And, all wrapped up in this is your final choice: sickness happens because we live – at least partially – in a world tainted by the fall, and though the Kingdom has come in our hearts, it is not yet fully here, so the ‘perfect will of God’ is not yet playing out ‘on earth as it is in Heaven’. That’s just to say, my response is “Check Z.) ALL OF THE ABOVE”
I think the important thing to note, however, is that we are indeed to pray for healing (I’ve prayed, and seen people healed, so I know that God does it in even otherwise hopeless situations), and we are to be walking in the Kingdom and praying and living the prayer that God’s will be “done on earth as it is in Heaven”. Is there sickness in Heaven? Then we should pray that there not be sickness here, as well.
Yet we are living in the New Covenant – not yet in ‘Heaven’ or the New Earth where the Kingdom will come in fullness: even Jesus didn’t heal everyone while here. In John 5:3 Jesus sees a great multitude of sick folk, yet only approaches one among them, and heals him – alone. Mark 1:34 & 6:13 points to yet other occasions where Jesus healed “many” but not necesarilly all who were present – a reason is not given as to why, so it may be suggested that the reason is that those who weren’t healed “lacked faith”, but the man in John 5 didn’t even know who Jesus was, so he clearly had no faith either, so I think jumping to such a conclusion is really reading something into the text which is not necessarily there. Paul clearly had faith to be healed, as he healed others, and after many prayers, was told specifically by God that his infirmity was not going to be healed as it was for his own good to keep his humble. God’s answer to Paul’s prayer for healing was “my power is made perfect in weakness.” Though some have argued that Paul’s condition was not an illness, I think the case is clear because 1.) all of the early church fathers, many of whom were discipled by the 12, believed it was a physical illness, 2.) it clearly was something about “the flesh” (his body) and not merely something tormenting him spiritually, 3.) it left him physically “weak”. Given that the Galatians – for some reason – said they’d gladly pluck out their eyes (Gal 4:16) to give them to him, he likely was plagued with some degree of eye problems, possibly going back to when he was entirely blinded by God on the road to Damascus.
1 Timothy 5:23, 2 Timothy 4:2 & Philippians 2:25-30 are all other New Testament examples of praying saints who were not delivered from their illnesses.
That’s just to say, the Kingdom hasn’t come in it’s fullness, and sometimes God simply doesn’t heal (well, He does, but sometimes that healing comes in it’s fullness in the afterlife, and not the here & now), and we don’t always know why.
Anyway, I’m sure there will be much discussion on this, but I’d also like to direct anyone interested into a series of blogs I’ve been writing that speak on some of these very same issues – they’re all linked from this one, so far, but there are many more to come:
http://heatlight.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/reflections-on-suffering-the-sovereignty-of-god-discussions/
Unless God speaks to me like He did Paul, I’m going to pray for the sick to be healed, as God is still a healer. I’ll trust Him in the case I don’t see the healing I expect, but I’ll also continue to petition Him for what is eventually promised: that we’ll see His Kingdom worked out here like it is there… I know we at least have this promise – we will be healed. The temptation is to be disappointed if it is not now, but eventually we’ll all be whole and in His presence. Any healing we are granted today is only temporary – that healing and wholeness will be forever!
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yes.
the fall. enter less-than-eternal life. enter death. enter sickness.
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[...] to edit it into essay form to blog for some time now. My interest was rekindled after reading Fred’s fascinating blog on Sickness yesterday, hoping to balance some of the other writing I’ve been doing on the subject in my [...]
How do you fit John 9:1-5 into this discussion? When asked whose sin caused the man’s blindness, Jesus doesn’t refer to original sin as I would have expected, but instead says, “this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. ”
I’ve always struggled with this, but when it comes to sickness, I fall back on a few thoughts:
1 – God knows I am sick.
2 – God is a good Father who wants good things for me.
3 – God can heal me.
When sickness exists and healing does not come, I look to see if God is using it for something else. When my son was 1, he had a 20 minute febrile seizure. The doctors told us it could be cancer, epilepsy, meningitis, etc. etc. We went through a long year and a half without God providing a miraculous healing. But my son eventually grew out of it, suffered no long term effects, and I can’t tell you how many people I have been able to witness to because of the experience we had. Did God allow the illness or did it just occur as a result of the fall, I don’t know, but I do know that Romans 8:28 has definitely been fulfilled in this situation.
keep blogging!
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I wondered when/if the “thorn” thing would come up (thanks Shannon) and the man born blind (thanks Bay)
As for the thorn, I’ve always been hesitant to form doctrine off speculation … there really isn’t any definite Scripture that tells us the thorn was a sickness … and there is also no Scripture to say he was never delivered from it … it was just not done at the moment (or maybe it was never done, I’m just saying that leaves lots of questions)
Bay … regarding the man born blind:
1 – ultimately, how was God glorified? THROUGH HIS HEALING. I believe the context here shows that God allowed this sickness in his life to a point where the man COULD BE HEALED. It was his HEALING and DELIVERANCE that brought the glory to God.
But, again … God can use sickness (or whatever else) and we can bring glory to God through it, maybe by our response, by our faith, by our commitment to believe, etc …. but it doesn’t really deal w/ the “where did it come from”.
Even if God was glorified during it, it doesn’t necessarily mean that God “put it on him”. Just my $.02.
Bay,
You’ve caught me off guard. And I like the way you did it. Isn’t it amazing how a simple question can open up a man’s heart to ask further ones?
As far as where does sickness come from . . . . God wants us to walk in HEALTH. That’s all that matters to me. When I’m not walking in health, I can usually look and see the things that opened a door to sickness.
There are certain laws in the universe. Accidentally fall off a ten story building and gravity kills you. Not God.
Get hit by a truck when you fall asleep at the wheel and ease into oncoming traffic? Intertia kills you (and maybe some stupidity). Not God.
Play in the rain on a cold and windy day, and your body is weakened trying to prevent things from happening, opening up a door for germs and such. Just part of the natural universe that came from the fall.
So my answer? When I’m not walking in health, my God is merciful to heal. When the healing doesn’t come? . . . . . .
Sorry, can’t answer that one. I don’t think there is one answer for it. It all depends on the circumstances.
Just my thoughts
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Wow, I love these kind of discussions.
Here’s a few observations / thoughts / opinions…
I don’t think sickness is from God. I believe it’s the result of the sin-filled, broken, messed-up world we live in. We’re promised that when Jesus returns and brings a new heaven and new earth that there will no longer be any tears, sickness or death.
Can God use sickness? ABSOLUTELY! God uses everything – good and bad – for His Glory. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that ALL things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.”
Can God heal? Or, the better question, does God still heal today. Again, my reply would be, ABSOLUTELY. The same God that healed the sick and opened blind eyes can do the same today.
Great post, great discussion!!
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I don’t think there is an easy answer to this question, but as I’ve never been much of an “either/or” kind of guy, I have to say that I think they answer is both yes and no.
Yes, in a way, sickness did come from God. Genesis 3 clearly paints the picture of the fall of man and God’s judgement of “do not eat of this tree or you will surely DIE.” The Hebrew word for die there is “muwth,” which means “to die prematurely” or “the process of death” as opposed to the traditionally used “maveth,” which is the literal state of death.
In short, God was saying that if they ate of the tree, then Adam and Eve would begin the process of dying. Obviously, we share this condition. Sickness is simply the consequences of living in an imperfect body. Sickness in and of itself (to me) is neither evil nor good, it’s simply a consequence of our imperfect bodies.
We are mortal and frail, therefore we are vulnerable to sickness.
This, however, is where the “no” comes in. Is sickness a malevolent blight from God on humanity? No. It is a justified consequence of the presence of sin in the world, and just as Jesus blood offers protection from spiritual death, the healing virtue of the Holy Spirit can nullify the naturally-occurring consequence of sickness.
Just because He is the executor of the curse known as sickness, does not mean that God is not good. On the contrary, as A.W. Tozer says:
“That God is good is taught or implied on every page of the Bible and must be received as an article of faith as impregnable as the throne of God. It is a foundation stone for all sound thought about God and is necessary to moral sanity. To allow that God could be other than good is to deny the validity of all thought and end ill the negation of every moral judgment. If God is not good, then there can be no distinction between kindness and cruelty, and heaven can be hell and hell, heaven.”
Just some blurry thoughts…
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Ben, those thoughts are not at ALL blurry. A top notch response! And Tozer is always worthy of a quote, I might add!
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Fred, I agree with everything that you have said. A great summary of a sometimes contentious topic in the body of Christ. I think the thing people have a great deal of difficulty coming to terms with is when someone prays and believes and does not seem to be receiving their healing. Or when 2 people seem to be believing the same and when gets healed, the other does not. But the wisdom that I have been taught is that not to ask why of God in these situations, but to ask God what to do, and He will. Good work.
David,
Agreed .. that’s aways tough, and impossible to explain. I think we just pray, believe, do what God’s Word instructs us to do, and then leave it up to God … all the while, humbly asking Him if there is anything we are missing to prevent our receiving what He’s done for us.
Fred
My son is 30 years old and has RA. He got very sick in a time of his life that he was very young and living and experimenting with every type of sin he could get into. Since then God has saved him and has worked many mircles in his life but, he has not been healed physically. I had hoped God would heal him when he got saved but he has not. His mind soul and spirit has been healed but physically no. He holds no resentments and seems perfectly happy but in great pain and in a crippling state. This has taken such a tole on my husband and myself.
Marilyn
Thanks for stopping by and leaving your comment. I can only imagine how difficult that must be to watch your own son suffer in physical ailments. I know how I feel when one of my four just has fever for a few days. I agree with your prayers for healing for your son as well, and we rejoice that we know one day, he will be totally healed, like all of us!