Why does God allow sickness?

The disciples, with their Jewish prejudices, thought that the blindness might have been inflicted anticipatively for some sin foreseen by God or as the result of the sin of his parents. In His reply the Lord shows that God can use affliction to make manifest the works of God. A life-long sickness is not necessarily the outcome of a specific sin, but may be allowed for the display of the grace of God.

The devil would seek to use our trials to raise murmuring and dishonouring thoughts of God: the Lord would use them to draw out our confidence in Himself, and as an occasion for manifesting His love in such tender fashion that He is glorified, while we are blessed.

"This sickness is not unto death (said He) but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby." He waited as ever for divine direction.

Human love would have gone at once; human prudence would never have gone at all. Whether in His tarrying or in His going, Jesus acts, not according to the thoughts of nature, but in dependence upon and according to the will of the Father. … Herein will be found the solution of many a strange passage in our lives. We, it may be, thinking only of our present comfort, wonder at some strange combination of circumstances, or question why an illness overtakes us, or why a trial is allowed to continue. Had we the glory of the Father more distinctly before us, we might better understand these apparently strange providences.

Sickness, as well as death, came in by sin; and we find it now throughout the whole course of man's history. But a sparrow falls not to the ground without God our Father, as the Lord says, and although these ills now belong to the natural condition of man, yet God uses them for the correction of His children. "He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous," Job 36:7. In either case, whether as ills natural to humanity, or the direct chastisement of God, God now makes use of sickness, when the heart, instead of considering all that happens to it with indifference, draws near to God, who thinks upon the sufferings of His own, and has respect to the submission and to the cry of those whom He chastens.

When it is said, "if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him," it means, that when such a brother has come to himself, owning the hand of God, if sins have drawn upon him the chastisement of God, and have hindered the healing of the sickness, they shall be forgiven as regards the discipline of God in His government. This discipline had manifested itself in the chastening, that is to say, in the sickness: if this is removed, the discipline is ended, the sins are remitted.

"For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that WE SHOULD NOT BE CONDEMNED WITH THE WORLD" (1 Cor. 11:27-32).

Here is a wonderful blending of the mighty grace of God that saves once and for ever, and a loving discipline that would go to extremest lengths to maintain this grace on the side of their earthly life as Christians.

This leads him to reveal the fact that when he resumed his active life in this world he came under a special disciplinary dealing on God's part, of a kind that was designed to deliver him from dangers that threatened. The flesh in Paul was unchanged as to its evil tendencies even after such an experience as this. How easy for him to be lifted up with pride and self-exaltation, and thus invite a sorrowful fall. So the thorn in flesh was given to act as a kind of counterpoise.

The thorn in the flesh, then, worked good in two ways. First, it checked that tendency to pride that otherwise might have overcome Paul and wrought such mischief. Second, it cast him so fully upon the Lord that it became a medium through which abundant supplies of grace were received by him.

In the light of the New Testament, chastening may be sent for retribution, as we see in 1 Corinthians 11:30. But on the other hand it may not be, as we see in Paul's case — 2 Corinthians 12:7 — where the thorn in the flesh was preventive; lest he should be puffed up and fall. Yet again, it may be neither retributive nor preventive but educational, as Hebrews 12 shows. The Father trains and disciplines His children, and even scourges them; but all is in pursuance of His objective — "that we might be partakers of His holiness."

In that direction Job was led, as we have seen. In that direction we too are being led in all the Father's dealings with us. Let us ever remember this, and praise God that it is so.

By drawing near to God in affliction, the will is subdued, and the heart consoled and encouraged. God Himself is revealed to the soul, and works by His grace; and in the sense of His presence we say, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted."