What is spiritual sickness? What does it mean to be spiritually sick?

Our Lord's words in Luke 5:31-32 are familiar to all: "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Man is here shown to be both diseased and criminal. As the former, he needs healing; as the latter, he needs pardon. The Son of God is both Physician and Saviour, and beside Him there is no other.

to God’s mercy never reaches His ear. Mark, salvation is not so simple as that. Salvation will cost you nothing, that is true, but you will never be saved until you repent. And let me tell you there is no saving value in repentance, but it is that condition of soul which is necessary before the sinner is ready to appropriate the precious blood of Christ to himself or herself. We have told you before, that repentance is something like a man who gets ill. The feeling ill does not make him well, but it makes him send for a doctor; and so repentance of soul is the finding out by a sinner that he is a lost, hell-bound rebel, vile, and worthless, and strengthless, that he cannot move hand nor foot for himself. He learns that God is good, and that he is vile, and sinful, and lost, and that none can save but Christ. That is it. The soul is spiritually ill, and wretched, and sends for the Great Physician, who never loses a patient, and never charges a fee—salvation is without money and without price. “Have I repented enough?” is the sorrowful question of many an anxious sinner. You need just enough repentance to lead you to Christ. Do you feel your need of Him? That is enough.

First, he was sick. He says, "Three days agone I fell sick" (ver. 13). He was just like you, my unsaved friend. You are sick with an awful disease. It is sin. And it ends in eternal death. "The wages of sin is death." The poison of sin is in your soul and doing its deadly work. You are like the people in the desert, dying of the serpent-bite. You commit sin. "And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death" (James 1:15). This is more than the death of the body. It is eternal death in the lake of fire.

In the next four verses, we find the extent and character of the salvation needed. Here the psalmist begins with the corruption of origin; as to which Job asks the solemn question, "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" This is often pleaded as in large measure an excuse; as we well know; though an awakened conscience cannot satisfy itself with this. Here it comes in to show how great is the salvation needed. Just as in Romans the apostle begins with personal sins and judgment in view of these, not of the fall of Adam; but afterwards; where he enters upon the subject of the completeness of the remedy, then he begins with Adam and the corruption of our nature (Rom. 5:12; sq.). So here we shall find it: "Behold," says David, "in perversity was I born," — with a moral twist "and in sin did my mother conceive me" — not inside Paradise, but outside. Thus sin is a leprosy, a communicable disease; — so to speak, in the blood; and needing a remedy of corresponding energy to meet it. God turns it to corresponding blessing. The "inward parts" are the reins, the kidneys; — hidden in the centre of the body and enveloped in fat, — the very type of excretory organs; for this is their whole function. In them we have going on continually the purification of the blood from what; if retained, would destroy life. Their special relation is to the processes of nutrition and disassimilation; and thus their work presents to us the plainest analogy to that work of moral discrimination and rejection of the evil which goes on under the oversight of the conscience in the quiet chambers of meditation within the inner man. There God desires "truth" or steadfast fidelity; and in the hidden part makes us to know "wisdom" (chokhma), the word used being one "applied to the discrimination of good and evil" (Wilson).

(2) The second sign is that of sin and its cleansing; for that is, above all, what marks the condition of man. Leprosy is the Old Testament type of sin in its loathsomeness and malignity, and power to spread. It is shown us in it as no mere accident, or local thing, but a virulent, growing, contagious evil, deeper than the surface, not to be measured by the outward appearance, and absolutely fatal, unless God come in to save. In Moses' case it is strikingly pictured as that which from the heart affects the hand, not from the hand the heart. The clean hand placed in the bosom is drawn out leprous — white as death. "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." Be sure, if the hand be leprous, the heart is not better, but worse: it is the seat of the whole disease. And cleansing must begin accordingly, not with the hand, but with the heart.

We now come to the subject of leprosy, which is treated at length. As the most inveterate and loathsome of diseases, so slight in its beginnings, so sure in its retentive hold and in its power to spread both within and around the unhappy subject of it, so awful in its end, it is used as the fit type of the corruption of sin. God Himself therefore takes it into His own hand, as indeed the only One competent to deal with it, and with whom alone its cure was found. All researches into its nature, which have been many, have proved of singularly little help in the interpretation of the Word, which is (as ever,) sufficient for itself. The spiritual meaning is really the whole thing — what even for Israel God had in mind always; and now fully opened — or lying open — to us, "upon whom the ends of the ages are come." Thus, if there is no natural remedy given or hinted at for this disease, for the spiritual malady we shall surely find it in the ordained means for cleansing the leper.

Friend, the plague is deeper than the skin. (Leviticus 13:3.) It is not only a surface trouble with you. No, the real trouble is far deeper. It is in our heart, and the Priest pronounces it "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Jeremiah 17:9. And He adds, "Who can know it? I the Lord search the heart." v.10. He knows well you do not know your own heart. Only the Lord knows how bad you really are. He knows well that you are not willing to believe that your case is so desperate! He knows well that you are not able to know that your leprosy is so terribly bad that it is "incurable." (See Jeremiah 17:9 J.N.D. Trans.) But this is the truth. This is your condition.

The next incident, that of the man with a palsy (the paralytic) differs from the leper, in the aspect now considered, only in the fact that he represents, not the guilty, but the helpless sinner. He could not come therefore to Christ, but had to be brought, for he was "without strength." But though brought, yea, because of this (for it was "their faith," as will be seen, that secured the blessing) he learns, equally with the leper, the healing, cleansing power of Christ. Taking then the two together, we learn that if Christ reveals the state of the sinner, He is able also to meet his need and condition. Blessed Saviour! thou art equal to all our needs.. There is not a sinner upon the face of the globe, whatever his state or guilt, whose case thou canst not meet. Thy precious blood cleanseth from all sin.

Divine power is here fully manifested. In Luke the Scribes and Pharisees say, "Who is able to forgive sins but God alone?" (Luke 5:21). Indeed, if He who spoke the word of comfort and gave the paralytic the assurance of forgiveness is not Jehovah, anything less than He, the accusations of the scribes would have been well founded. He then shows that He has the power to forgive sins by healing the body of the paralytic, who rises up and carries away the bed upon which he was brought. The paralytic is a type of the sinner in his helpless condition. In the Old Testament we have a beautiful type of this in Mephibosheth, who was lame on both of his feet and who had to be brought to King David. So this one is brought. But why did they bring him? No question, healing of the body was all which they desired for their helpless friend and what he himself expected. But our Lord goes deeper to that which is the fountain of all disease and pain -- sin. He knew the guilt of sins resting upon the paralytic, and before he could rise and walk, before he could be delivered out of his helpless condition, the sins had first to be forgiven. The conscience, burdened more than the crippled, paralyzed body was by disease, had first to be relieved. The lessons here are clear. It foreshadows that which He, who gave Himself for us and who was raised on account of our justification, gives to every one who believes in Him. He has removed completely the guilt of sin and we have the assurance of the forgiveness of sins: the blessedness of the man "whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered" is ours through and in Christ. He also has given us a new life. He has delivered us from the power of sin and spoken the word "Rise up and walk." All this is so familiar that we will not enlarge upon it. We should not forget that the spiritual application of "Rise up" is not the first meaning. The paralytic received healing for his body and the miserable body was delivered from the paralysis which held it down. So the body of the believer has been redeemed and there will be a "rising up" from the grave and from the earth, changed in the twinkling of an eye.

In the first passage we read (Mark 2:1-12), the miracle of the man sick with the palsy who was lowered through the roof by four men, the Lord told him first 'Thy sins are forgiven thee. When He healed him, it was not the first action, but a proof, or evidence that He had the power to forgive sins. This first passage introduces the fact that Jesus Christ came here not only with a doctrine, and salvation for men, but with something totally new. This is a matter for us also: we need to realise that we have not just a further doctrine in Christianity - not just an improved doctrine over previous ones - but new resources, a new source of efficient blessing and working of divine power whatever our weakness and misery. We also reed to realise that all these blessings are closely connected with the relationship that should exist between us and our Lord and Saviour. This is well summarised in 2:17 when Jesus said to His listeners, `They that are strong have not need of a physician, but those who are ill. I have not come call righteous men, but sinners.' From this verse and from this healing of the man sick with the palsy, we should realise that it is not simply an issue of the salvation of each of us, but the important matter of a new relationship between us and God the Father and the Lord Jesus. Let us ask ourselves this question: "Do we really feel that we have the need for the intervention, action, and healing of our Lord and Saviour?'

It is clear from this story that the first issue was the need of the man sick with the palsy to get rid Of his sins - how to get salvation - not the issue of his physical health. For us also the first issue is not so much the health of our body, but the health or the condition, of our soul and spirit. Our Lord has this in mind first of all. The key point in this gospel, and what our Lord Jesus was presenting and which was new, was that Fie was not simply coming with a teaching or a doctrine, but with power and might and that He was able to satisfy the need of the people. Furthermore, the people who were really getting the benefit of His intervention were those who felt their need and who were prepared to pray the Lord, to ask Him, for direct action, or intervention. This is an important point.