664 The Spiritual Man
under revelation speaks of the Lord’s healing ministry, he declares
that He “went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed
by the devil” (Acts 10.38). Sin and sickness are as intimately
associated as are our soul and ‘body. Forgiveness and healing
complement each other.
The Chastisement of GodHaving seen something of the Lord’s thought regarding sickness,
we now turn our attention to the causes of the sickness of believers.
“That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
But if we judged ourselves truly, we should not be judged. But when
we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened so that we may not be
condemned along with the world” (1 Cor. 11.30-32). Paul explains
here that sickness is one type of the Lord’s chastening. Owing to
their having erred before the Lord, believers are chastened with
illness to prompt them to judge themselves and eliminate their
mistakes. In chastening His children God deals graciously towards
them that they may not be condemned with the world. If Christians
repent of their faults God will no longer chasten them. Can we not
then avoid sickness through self-judgment?
We often conclude sickness to be merely a physical problem and
to have no relation to God’s righteousness, holiness and judgment.
But the Apostle tells us quite plainly in this passage that sickness is
an effect of sin and a chastisement of God. Christians like to cite the
story of the blind man in John 9 to support the contention that their
sickness is not God’s chastisement due to sin. Yet the Lord Jesus has
not said there that sin and sickness are unrelated; He simply is
warning His disciples not to condemn each and every sick person. If
Adam had not sinned, that man in John 9 would never have been
blind. Moreover, that particular man was born blind, so the nature of
his illness is quite unlike that of a believer’s sickness. The infirmities
of those who are born infirm are perhaps not due to their own sins;