Healing 3
Notes
Transcript
Does God Cause Sickness?
Does God Cause Sickness?
This may be one of the most difficult topics to deal with.
As we talked a little about last week, it would be so much easier to form a simple theology of yes, he does cause sickness or, no, He never causes sickness.
Unfortunately, I don’t think it is that simple.
And, honestly, this questions tugs on deeper questions like:
Does God cause everything that happens to happen?
Most people don’t believe that, but some certainly do.
If you answer yes to that question, then God would be the cause of the fall. And, if God is the cause of the fall, He is the cause of all evil. And, if God causes all evil, then is it seems like His death on the cross wouldn’t be necessary.
Also, in my view, if God causes all evil, than He Himself would have to be evil.
Think about it. You create beings who have no choice or ability to make decisions. You cause them to sin, and you punish them for eternity because of their sin.
Sounds pretty evil to me!
If this were thinking were true, then, other things like evangelism and christian disciplines seems pointless.
Nonetheless, some believe that way and teach that way.
For the rest, and most of christiandum, we don’t believe God causes evil, but He certainly allows it.
We believe that being free agents is God’s way of demonstrating love.
After all, you can’t actually love people that you are forced to love.
And so, if we don’t believe God causes all evil, then we can look at the question of sickness.
As I unpacked a couple of weeks ago, sickness was not apart of God’s original plan, Jesus came to defeat the work of the enemy, including sickness, and when God makes all things new, He will eradicate sickness indefinitely!
So, it doesn’t seem like it is God’s plan for sickness.
But, that doesn’t settle the question: does God cause sickness.
I think that the answer is no, He doesn’t cause sickness, but He does allow it, obviously.
Which, another note to think about is God allows everything that happens to happen.
If God didn’t allow it to happen, He wouldn’t be sovereign.
God is sovereign, and my definition of that is He has all the power and authority, He can create whatever He wants, whenever He wants, and however He wants.
And, He can intervene in a created world whenever and however He wants to.
My view of sovereignty is not that He is a chess player or puppet master. But He has the power and authority to be if He were to choose to be.
So, it doesn’t seem like God was the initial cause of sickness, but He certainly allows it and can use it.
Btw, this topic is really difficult. I am going to share as much scripture as I can to help us, but it would take a looong time and lots of books to fully answer this question. Here at the end, I will recommend a few books if you’re interested in reading some.
Also, just know, I have bias and a leaning, I hope my is closest to scripture. But, not matter the stance you have, there are difficult scriptures that you have to reconcile that seemingly go against your view.
If anyone says there isn’t I would challenge them!
Let’s look at some scripture to see what we think about God causing sickness.
The first instance that we have of possible sickness is in Genesis.
Remember when Abram and Sarai went to Egypt and Abram was worried that because Sarai was beautiful that the egyptians would kill him so that they can have sarai.
So, he told Sarai that they would pretend she is his sister
Well, they get there, she is beautiful they tell Pharaoh and he takes her into his home.
17 But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai.
NIV translates the hebrew word as a serious disease, but other translation just use the world plague. It can literally be translated as a wound on the skin.
That being said, we are not certain as to what the plague was, but more than likely, it was something to do with the skin.
So, as we are attempting to answer the question of whether God causes sickness, we have an example here of where He does.
Notice though, it is a sign of judgment.
Now, before we stop there, we will keep looking at some scripture.
14 or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth.
25 Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you,
21 “ ‘If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve.
33 But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague.
15 The Lord will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you.
59 the Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. 60 He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. 61 The Lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.
15 After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill.
14 So now the Lord is about to strike your people, your sons, your wives and everything that is yours, with a heavy blow. 15 You yourself will be very ill with a lingering disease of the bowels, until the disease causes your bowels to come out.’ ”
18 After all this, the Lord afflicted Jehoram with an incurable disease of the bowels.
13 “So also I will make you sick, striking you down, Desolating you because of your sins.
15 So he gave them what they asked for, but sent a wasting disease among them.
A couple things to note:
All of the scripture that I read is in the Old Testament - there may be an instance or two in the new testament, but we will get there in a minute
Each time god caused it, it was a form of judgment
Noting these things is important because some will quote OT to say that God causes sickness.
Yes, God can and has caused sickness, but notice it was tied to judgment in the OT.
When Christ came, He always stood against sickness.
We are going look more at that in the coming weeks.
So, it would be error to say that God never causes sickness, but it would also certainly be error to say that God causes all sickness.
And, when God did cause it, most of the time it wasn’t without warning and it was always because of rebellion against Him.
Let’s look at a few NT examples to see if this was just an OT thing or a NT thing as well!
The first instance, we have Zechariah, who is the father of John the baptist…kind of an important person…
The angel visits Zechariah tells him his wife will bear a son, he will be pretty great and Zechariah doubts because Elizabeth is of old age
19 The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. 20 And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”
And just a bit later he is born goes to be circumcised and give him a name, Elizabeth says John they say none is called that in their family and
63 He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.” 64 Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God.
So, we have an extreme circumstance, involving a very important person and a temporary muteness
God did cause a “sickness” but with these caveats
The next instance in the NT is a bit arguable and causes great debate in the Church.
In Acts 5 we have Ananias and Sapphira who sell some land as many were and kept back some of the money for themselves. We see that the core of their demise was a lie:
4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”
5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened.
Here we don’t have a direct mention of sickness or what exactly happened. Some will say it was because of great grief, there was a physical response such as a heart attack.
Some say it was God who struck them dead.
Since we don’t know for sure, I think we have to leave room that the Lord cause them to pass. But we also can’t say definitively that He did!
So, it’s a maybe, maybe not.
The next possible time that God caused sickness is our friend Pauls in Acts 9.
Most of us are familiar with Saul’s conversion, he’s on the road to Damascus, he is blinded by a light and Jesus speaks to him…
8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus.
He goes to find Ananias, different from the one we just read about…
17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
So, here, we have the Lord making him blind for a distinct purpose.
Notice the extremity of these events. Saul is blind, hears Jesus clearly, is given specific instructions, and is prayed for and healed, and was temporary.
So, yes, we have God causing a temporary blindness, but it was clear, directive, and short lived!
Similar to Zechariah.
And, not to mention, it was Paul who went on to be possibly the greatest apostle, leading many to Christ, writing half of the NT, and dying for the sake of Christ.
If anyone wants to sign up for that, I am okay with the Lord temporarily blinding you!
And, that is it that we know of God causing any sickness in the NT.
So, why so much in the OT and not in the NT.
It seems like maybe in the new covenant, God does things a bit differently.
It seems like the judgment was put on Christ on the cross.
Now, there will be a final judgment after the return of Christ, but it seems in this time and age, sickness is no longer a form of judgment.
Maybe, this was Jesus’ point after healing the blind man in
1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
So, maybe in the new covenant sickness is not tied to judgment.
So, where do we land? Maybe that God can cause sickness, but may He doesn’t now as Christ went to the cross as a judgment.
Next week we are going to look at how Jesus viewed sickness and disease. Hold your hats, there will be a ton of scripture!
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