Why does God allow sickness?
Sickness is one of the places where faith gets tested hardest: a good God has the power to heal, yet leaves His own people on sick beds. The Bible does not treat illness as random, but it also refuses to reduce every case to punishment — so the real question is what God is doing through it.
Where Sickness Came From
Illness is not part of the world as God first made it. Commentators trace it back to the entrance of sin, which left the whole created order damaged and mortal.
William KellyThrough one man, says the great apostle, sin entered into the world, and death through sin. When man fell, "dying you shall die" began... The race is a fallen one. Physical maladies are the symptoms and evidence of the mortality that is the portion of every child of Adam.
So sickness belongs to the ordinary condition of humanity now. That is the background against which God works.
Sometimes His Correcting Hand
Scripture does show God using illness to discipline His children — with the clear note that this is correction, not condemnation. Writing on the Corinthians, who were being dealt with over their careless ways, one commentator points out what these dealings are not:
W. W. FeredaySometimes perplexed souls ask, "what is the particular sin that is to death?" No particular sin at all. Two believers may possibly go wrong in the same way, yet the Lord, taking into account all the circumstances, may lay one on a sick bed, and take the other out of the world. There is no question of the salvation of the soul in these dealings; it is divine chastening. But "if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world."
But Not Every Illness Is Punishment
The mistake of Job's friends — assuming that great suffering proves great sin — is still made today. Commentators list a whole range of other reasons God permits it:
The Bible TreasuryIt ought not to be supposed, however, that illness, or indeed other afflictions, are always chastisements... God allowed Job to be afflicted with painful and humiliating ills for his ultimate blessing, and so He does with many a saint today. He may send sickness, bereavements, setbacks, to break down the flesh, to wean us from the world, to produce brokenness of our wills, and spirituality, or to give warning to the believer where there is lack of carefulness in walk.
Jesus said the same thing directly when His disciples asked whose sin had caused a man's lifelong blindness. On that answer, one writer comments:
Hamilton SmithA life-long sickness is not necessarily the outcome of a specific sin, but may be allowed for the display of the grace of God.
When The Answer Is No
Paul asked three times for his "thorn in the flesh" to go, and it stayed. The reply he received reframes what an unanswered prayer for healing actually means:
C. H. MackintoshAt the first, Paul longed to be rid of the thorn in the flesh, whatever it was. He begged the Lord three times that it might depart from him. But the thorn in the flesh was better than pride in the heart. It was better far to be afflicted than puffed up — better to have Christ's sympathy with him in his trial than the power of His hand in delivering him out of it.
Trusting More Than His Power
It is easy to believe God can heal. The harder and better thing is to trust the wisdom behind whether He does.
The Bible TreasurySome people think the grand thing is to have faith in God's power. He has only to speak, and the worst disease can be healed easily; but He is training us. Sometimes sickness is sent as a preventive, sometimes as a corrective; we ought to have faith in His love as well as in His power, and in His wisdom too. Have faith in God, not simply in His power.
What To Do When You Are Ill
Prayer for recovery is right, but commentators press a prior question — and warn against making the body's health the first goal.
Samuel RidoutGod may, and doubtless often does, heal in answer to prayer, and without the use of medicines, just as He often blesses the means that are used. But the point of importance is that recovery is not the first object. What would God have us learn in our sickness?... How foolish to expect or want recovery to bodily health before the soul is healed.
And no one bears it alone. Christ's compassion for the sick was not distant sympathy:
The Christian's FriendHe went down in spirit under the load of the sorrow of those who sought His aid; then He bore it up on His own heart before God, and finally took it away.
Summary
- Cause. Sickness entered with sin; it is now the common condition of every child of Adam, not a special verdict on you.
- Hand. Yet nothing is accident — sometimes it is the Lord's correcting hand, and chastening is the opposite of condemnation.
- Caution. Job's friends were wrong; illness can also be preventive, purifying, or an occasion for God's grace to be displayed.
- Grace. When the thorn stays, the answer is not power removing it but grace sufficient in it — better afflicted than puffed up.
- Question. Ask what God would have you learn before you ask to be well; the soul's healing comes first, and Christ carries the sorrow with you.