Sickness 679
the cross, but He does not allow the sick to remain ill for long. He
tells them how they should suffer for Him but never says they should
be sick for Him. The Lord foretells we shall have tribulation in the
world, yet He does not view illness as tribulation. How truly He
suffered while on earth, yet never was He sick. Moreover, on every
occasion when He met a sick person He healed him. He avows that
sickness comes from sin and the devil.
We must differentiate suffering from sickness. “Many are the
afflictions of the righteous,” notes the psalmist, “but the Lord
delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones; not one of them
is broken” (Ps. 34.19-20). “Is anyone among you suffering?” asks
James. Then “let him pray” that he may obtain grace and strength;
but, the Apostle continues, “is any among you sick? Let him call for
the elders of the church” that he may be healed (5.13-14).
1 Corinthians 11.30-32 deals with the relationship of believers to
sickness most comprehensively. Sickness is the chastening of God. If
a Christian is willing to judge himself, God shall withdraw the
illness. God never desires His own to persist long in it. No
chastisement is permanent Once the cause of it is removed, the
chastisement itself will follow suit. “For the moment all discipline
seems painful rather than pleasant; later.. .”—believers tend to
forget God’s “later”—“it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to
those who have been trained by it” (Heb.12.11). Thus we find
chastisement is only momentary; afterwards it will produce the most
excellent fruit of righteousness. Do not let us misconstrue the
discipline of God as being punishment. Strictly speaking, believers
are no longer judged. The passage of 1 Corinthians 11.31 supports
this statement. The concept of law should no longer be with us as
though sin must always be answered with a corresponding degree of
punishment. What we have here is not a judicial, but a family,
problem.