GOD’S CARE FOR THE SICK
Biblical Theology
“I was sick and you looked after me.”
Matthew 25:36
AS CHRISTIANS, WE VIEW OUR LIVES through the lens of the Bible because it is the foundation of who we are and all that we know about God. Misunderstandings about God and his purposes can be directly linked to a failure to know the full story line of the Bible. If we wish to correctly interpret the Bible for our individual lives, we must learn to read and understand the Bible in its full context of redemptive history.
The aim of this chapter is to help you understand God’s purposes as they unfold in the story line of the Bible, particularly in relation to sickness, disease, and suffering. The reality that we live in a world marred by sickness and disease is evident throughout Scripture. Yet we need to know more than just a collection of verses in the Bible on this subject. We need to grasp how God is working out his purposes through sickness, disease, and suffering, all for the good of his people and his own glory. The progression of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation contains an unfolding story line that reveals two key themes: God is sovereign over sickness and healing, and God calls his people to care for the needy and afflicted.
Creation
The Bible begins its historical narrative with a world that is foreign to us today. We read that God created the heavens, the earth, and all the living creatures (Genesis 1 – 2). He also created man and woman in his image (Genesis 1:27) and “saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). God placed the man and woman in the Garden of Eden, where they were given the task of ruling over his creation and told to be fruitful and increase in number. The garden was beautiful, and in it there flowed a river to water the garden and a tree of life that was good for food (Genesis 2:9 – 10). This was a world that was perfectly made — man was created in the image of God, man enjoyed unhindered fellowship with God, and man ruled over the creation while fully submitting to God’s rule over them.
In this world there was an absence of sickness, pain, disease, suffering, and affliction. No cancer preyed on these first human bodies. No aches and pains plagued them. There were no diseases to be healed, nor any sickness that needed to be cured. Most significantly, there was no death. All was good, perfect, and right, as God intended for his creation.
Fall
This world, the world of Genesis 1 – 2, is not the same world we live in today. There is one significant difference. Today we experience sickness, disease, and death. There is clearly something really wrong with the world we live in and with those who were made in God’s image. The changes we find in our world today can be traced back to Genesis 3, where we see that Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God’s word in eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and suffered the consequences (Genesis 3:6). God had told Adam and Eve not to eat from this tree or they would die (Genesis 2:17). Satan tempted Eve, and she ate from the tree and gave some of its fruit to her husband (Genesis 3:6). Instead of obeying God’s command, they rebelled against him. They wanted to rule rather than be ruled by God’s commands and boundaries.
As a result of man’s sin and rebellion, the curse of death that God warned of came on them and all of his creation. On that day, sin and its consequences entered the world. Adam and Eve were removed from the garden and barred from access to the tree of life, whose fruit would grant them eternal life (Genesis 3:22). Now there would be pain in childbirth (Genesis 3:16). Man’s task to work and rule over the creation became hard and painful. There now existed a great separation from their once-unhindered fellowship with God. Most significantly, death entered the world with their sin, and as a result, man would suffer not just physical death but also the effects of death — old age, pain, and suffering.
Here we learn that sickness and disease are part of the curse, the result of human disobedience and sin. Today you can find many scientific explanations for what sickness is and why it exists in our world. But the Bible offers a simple and straightforward answer. Sickness, disease, pain, suffering, affliction, and death are all undeniable evidences that we have rebelled against God and fallen from our original calling. They reveal our desperate need for redemption. We quickly learn from the narrative that only a sovereign, eternal God can intervene to save the creation from this curse. The hope of the gospel, which includes the promise of physical resurrection, begins to unfold in a glorious work of redemption, one that will culminate in the death and resurrection of God’s own Son, Jesus Christ.
The Life of Israel
Thankfully, the story is far from over at this point. God plans to redeem mankind through a chosen nation that will be his people among all the other nations of the earth. This nation was promised to Abraham (Genesis 12) through a child, Isaac, who would be born in Abraham’s old age (Genesis 21). From this child, the nation of Israel (Jacob, Isaac’s child) would begin. With Isaac’s grandson, Joseph, the nation of Israel relocated to Egypt, where they multiplied greatly (Exodus 1:7), eventually becoming enslaved to the Egyptians. Again, we see God’s sovereign purpose at work. Hundreds of years before their enslavement, God promised (Genesis 15:13 – 14) that he would deliver his people from their oppression and judge the nation holding them captive. Through the events of this deliverance, God uses sickness and disease to save his people and reveal his glory.
Moses goes to Pharaoh and demands that he free God’s people from their enslavement. Pharaoh refuses, which leads to a series of judgments on the Egyptians. Several of these judgments involve diseases that fall on the livestock and painful sores on the people (Exodus 9). The ultimate judgment that falls on Pharaoh is the death of all firstborn children (Exodus 12). God inflicts disease as judgment on the Egyptians and uses it to protect his people, Israel. This use of disease as judgment on sin helps us understand why God later says to his people, “If you listen carefully to the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you” (Exodus 15:26). God shows his faithfulness and love for the Israelites by protecting them from sickness and healing their diseases.
Tragically, however, the story line of Scripture shows us that Israel did not obey the covenant that God made with them (Exodus 19). Under the covenant at Sinai, God promised blessing for obedience and cursing for disobedience. A significant number of the curses that came from disobedience to God’s law were related to sickness and disease. Ceremonial uncleanness to the law is also identified by leprosy, infection, and other sicknesses (Leviticus 13 – 14). Moses lists the consequences of disobedience to the law in Deuteronomy 28 — diseases, wasting disease, fever, boils, tumors, festering sores, madness, blindness, hunger, thirst, severe and lingering illnesses, and plagues. All of these curses would fall on God’s people for failing to obey all of his commands and decrees (Deuteronomy 28:15). These examples were given to reveal God’s use of sickness and disease as judgment, as well as to point to his power to heal when the people returned to him in repentance and cried out for healing and deliverance.
We see God showing mercy, for example, in healing Miriam from leprosy after she had been afflicted with the disease for her disobedience (Numbers 12:9 – 15). We see that Miriam’s healing came about because of Aaron’s burden and concern as he pleads with Moses to ask God for mercy on her behalf. God shows compassion and care, honoring Aaron’s heartfelt request and showing his compassionate heart toward Miriam by healing her in her affliction.
God’s use of sickness and disease in both judgment and healing continues as Israel enters the Promised Land and human kings are established to rule over them. King David’s son becomes sick and dies because of David’s adultery (2 Samuel 12:14 – 18). King Asa becomes diseased in his feet, and though his disease is severe, he wrongly seeks physicians instead of the Lord and dies as a result (2 Chronicles 16:12 – 13). Despite these signs of judgment, we also see God’s powerful hand of healing. God heals King Hezekiah, who was mortally ill and had been told he would die (2 Kings 20:1 – 11). God brings healing to a little boy through Elijah as a result of the mother’s plea to the Lord (1 Kings 17:17 – 24). Though God brings sickness on people as judgment for their disobedience, God also shows his kindness to many by healing them.
The clear picture that develops through the story line of Scripture is that even though sickness and disease are signs of judgment and evidence of the curse, God brings relief and hope from the curse as well. During Israel’s time of exile, the prophets bring hope of redemption through the figurative use of sickness/healing. The prophet Jeremiah speaks of the heart that is “beyond cure” (Jeremiah 17:9), yet it is the Lord who is our hope (Jeremiah 17:13), who will heal and save (Jeremiah 17:14). The prophet Isaiah inspires hope in the Redeemer, the Messiah, who is to be pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, and wounded for our healing (Isaiah 53:5). These references to the healing of sickness from the prophets ultimately describe God’s saving work and his forgiveness of sins. The psalmist writes of his hope in God, the one who forgives all our sins and heals all our diseases (Psalm 103:3). The prophets point to redemption by means of a spiritual healing by a sovereign God who heals and saves from spiritual sickness through the coming Messiah.
God’s unfolding story line of redemption also reveals his call on his people to care for those who suffer from sickness and disease. God, through the prophet Ezekiel, chastises the shepherds of Israel for neglecting their flock. Though the leaders of Israel were neglecting the people of God in several ways, one in particular was failing to care for the sick. Ezekiel writes, “You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally” (Ezekiel 34:4). Ezekiel’s concern was that the shepherds’ neglect in caring for the sick would lead the people to neglect them as well.
Throughout Israel’s history, we see that God had a divine design to use sickness, disease, and affliction to achieve his purposes. The Old Testament ends with the prophets declaring that though God’s people are scattered, disobedient, and discouraged, they should continue to wait in hope for the promised redeemer and healer. Despite a tragic history of God’s people living in disobedience, God is faithful to the covenant he made with his people. The time will come when he will send a redeemer who will usher in the long-awaited kingdom of God.
The Life of Christ
After many years of silence, God eventually broke through the despair and suffering with a voice calling in the wilderness to prepare the way for the Lord (Mark 1:3). The voice belonged to a man named John the Baptist, and he was the forerunner who would prepare others for the coming of the Redeemer. All four gospels identify Jesus as this Redeemer, the long-awaited Messiah who was to save his people from their sins and usher in the kingdom of God. Mark points us to Jesus Christ as the Redeemer in Jesus’ first recorded words in Mark’s account: “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15). Jesus brings the kingdom of God near, making it accessible to rebellious, disobedient people.
Mark’s account of the good news about Jesus gives evidence that Jesus came in the authority of God as the Son of God (Mark 1:1). One of the primary evidences is his authority over sickness, disease, and death. In fact, all of the gospel writers remind the reader of this reality in what becomes a constant summary pattern: “News about [Jesus] spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them” (Matthew 4:24). Time after time, we see Jesus healing people, fulfilling the words of the prophet.
We see this in John’s gospel as well when he writes of a blind man from birth who encounters Jesus (John 9:1 – 7). In verse 2, the disciples ask a question that assumes the common understanding of God’s purposes in sickness — that sickness is the result of God’s judgment on sin: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus’ response indicates that there is a transition under way from Israel’s bondage to the coming kingdom in which Jesus is King: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (verse 3). John points to a purpose beyond the healing, to the display of God’s work of redemption through the work of his Son.
The authority of Jesus and the coming kingdom are most clearly seen, however, when Jesus raises the dead. Jesus revives the synagogue leader’s little girl who had died (Mark 5:41 – 42). He raises Lazarus from the dead after his body has been lying for several days in the tomb (John 11:44). Ultimately, these actions point to his own physical resurrection from the dead three days after dying on the cross. In the Messiah’s own resurrection, his followers are not only promised eternal life through repentance and faith in him; they are promised a physical resurrection on the final day: “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5). In the resurrection of Jesus, we see confirmation of the promise of our own resurrection and the ultimate defeat of the curse of sin, sickness, and death.
God’s sovereign power over sickness and disease in Jesus’ authority is undeniable throughout the gospel accounts, but we must not miss the call that Jesus gives to his followers to care for those who are afflicted. The clearest example is in Matthew 25, where Jesus teaches his disciples a parable about kingdom living in caring for others in his name: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me” (Matthew 25:35 – 36). Jesus powerfully teaches that in those moments when the disciples care for their least brother, they are also offering care to the King (verse 40). Here we see that Jesus closely identifies himself with his suffering people. He ends his teaching by warning that judgment will fall on the wicked — those who do not care for him by neglecting to care for others (verses 41 – 46).
In the Gospels, we learn that Jesus ushers in the kingdom of God, and a primary evidence that redemption has come is that the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the sick and diseased are healed, and the dead are raised. We also learn from the teaching of Jesus that God has designed his people to care for one another as a powerful representation of his compassion for the weak and needy. And as the story continues to unfold in the birth and life of Christ’s church, we see further evidences that the kingdom of God has arrived in the person of Jesus as his followers await the fulfillment of God’s promises in his future return.
The Life of the Church
When Jesus sent out his disciples, he commanded them to “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons” (Matthew 10:8). This work continues as the church is birthed at Pentecost (Acts 2) and as the apostles go out to be Christ’s witnesses to the world (Acts 1:8). In the story of the apostles and the early church we again see God’s sovereign power to judge, as well as to heal. Ananias and Sapphira receive divine judgment in death because they pretended to give the full portion of the proceeds from their sold property to the apostles (Acts 5:1 – 11). God also shows his hand of healing as a measure of compassion on Tabitha and on those who loved her; after Tabitha fell sick and died, Peter raised her from the dead (Acts 9:36 – 43).
In the letters of the apostles we gain further insight into God’s sovereign redemptive purposes in sickness and suffering. Paul refers to “a thorn” in his flesh that was given to him so the power of Christ would be powerfully displayed in his weakness (2 Corinthians 12:8 – 9). Sickness and death were used by God as a means to warn the church against abusing the Lord’s Table (1 Corinthians 11:30). Peter urged Christians who suffer according to the will of God to see their suffering as an opportunity to commit their souls to their faithful Creator (1 Peter 4:19). Throughout the story of the early church we see God using sickness, pain, disease, and suffering as a way of sanctifying his kingdom people and magnifying the worth of Christ.
Just as clearly, however, there is a call for those in the church to care sacrificially for the afflicted in order to achieve these redemptive purposes. A powerful example is found in the book of Acts when several Christians sell their properties and lay the proceeds at the apostles’ feet to be used to serve those in need (Acts 4:34 – 37). Paul refers to the sickness of Epaphroditus as he writes to the church in Philippi, and the care and concern of Paul and the church for this man are evident (Philippians 2:25 – 27). James exhorts Christians to call on the elders to pray for the sick (James 5:14). John prays for the Christians: “I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well” (3 John 2).
In these examples there is evidence that the early followers of Christ showed sympathy for the sick and needy and felt called to sacrificial action by serving those in need. We find a confidence in the face of sickness that God’s sovereign design can be accomplished through it. Both individual Christians and local church bodies are called to care for those in the church who are sick, hurting, afflicted, and suffering until Jesus returns for his church and consummates his kingdom.
New Creation
At some point in the future, the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan for creation will come to fulfillment. That final destination for those who follow Christ is not a disembodied existence of life after death. When Jesus returns, he will come for his bride, judge the nations, punish the wicked, and fully consummate his kingdom in the new heaven and new earth. This state is commonly referred to as the new creation — a time when the curse of sin is fully and permanently reversed. God’s kingdom people will not just experience physical resurrection from the dead; they will enjoy eternal fellowship with Jesus in a world free from sin, sickness, and death.
A wonderful hope is that we will have physically whole bodies that are not cursed. In Revelation, John paints a vivid picture of a world in which sickness, disease, pain, suffering, affliction, and death are no more: God “will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4). Reminiscent of the Garden of Eden where the first humans lived (Genesis 2), John speaks of a centrally located river and a tree of life whose leaves are for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:1 – 2). This is an indication that the curse has been reversed and those who belong to the kingdom of God through the cross of Christ will experience what God intended in the Garden of Eden.
Understanding the unfolding story line of the Bible is essential if we are to grasp God’s design and plan for his creation, and it is necessary to comprehend God’s eternal purposes for sickness, disease, pain, and affliction in our world. Despite the sickness or affliction that someone in our church may be currently experiencing, we have the glorious privilege of pointing them to a greater, divine, and more significant reality than the pain of their physical circumstances. We can remind them that sickness and affliction are results of the fall and that our dying bodies are reminders of our birth into sin. Some may need reminders that sickness was a means for God to discipline his chosen people and to teach them to long for a redeemer. We can rejoice in the healings and restorations that are signs of the coming of God’s kingdom and the authority of the Son of God, given to us as a foretaste of what we will fully experience when Jesus returns and resurrection becomes a reality.
The Bible’s teaching on sickness and disease should also move us to respond in worship to our great, eternal, and sovereign God who controls sickness and healing in his infinite wisdom for the good of his people and his own glory. We should respond with a great passion to care for those who are sick, afflicted, and needy in light of the biblical responsibility set before us as followers of Christ. May these considerations of biblical truth prepare you, not only for your own afflictions (that are certain to come), but as you sacrificially care for people in your church — people who long to experience the fellowship of Jesus in their affliction. Know that as you do this you fulfill the words of Christ: “ ‘When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’ ” (Matthew 25:39 – 40). May we be faithful to do likewise!