In His Earthly Life, Did Jesus Get Sick?

About four years ago, I had been feeling ill all day. Realizing that I had neglected to schedule a devotional here, but still wanting to prove that I had a vestige of my sense of humor,  I asked myself, “Did Jesus ever get sick?”

(When we say Jesus, just to be 100% clear, we’re referring to Christ incarnate, though how it would apply otherwise I can’t imagine!)

A possible go-to verse on this would be Hebrews 4:15

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet he did not sin.  (NIV)

Some will want to argue that this verse is to be interpreted solely with respect to temptation. So let’s keep going. Philippians 2: 7-8 reads,

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. (7 NLT)

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (8, ESV)

So far we’re making the argument that in his earthly body, he would have known what it meant to experience illness.

But then, about 40 years ago, an elder in the church I was attending proposed that Jesus had leprosy. He based this on Isaiah 53: 2b-4

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. (NIV)

At this one, I draw the line and say, “No!” (And yes, they c0ntinued to allow him to be an elder. For a little while, anyway.)

The reason I reject that one is that in the scripture leprosy is a type of sin. (See this article for an explanation of Biblical typing.) Jesus was without sin. End of discussion. Jesus identified fully with the human condition when he “took on flesh,” and leprosy was common in that time and place, but where something has another layer of meaning, I think it goes too far to suggest something with such a strong sin-identification.

So, back to the question which forms today’s title…

A ‘yes’ at Culture Watch:

Second, as already mentioned, we are arguing from silence here. Very little is actually known about the earthly life of Jesus. As has been rightly stated, the gospels are basically extended introductions to the passion narratives. The last week of Jesus on earth receives most of the attention in the gospels, while his first thirty or so years of earthly life are largely passed over. Indeed, Paul seems to glory in not knowing Christ “after the flesh” (2 Cor. 5:16 KJV).

But even so, can we in fact know that Jesus never experienced illness? One way to approach this issue is to simply ask a number of questions about the life of Jesus on earth. Did Jesus ever:

Have nappy rash?
Have croup?
Cry as a baby?
Have a runny nose?
Have a headache?
Lose a tooth?
Have indigestion?
Throw up?
Have insomnia?
Have mosquito bites?
Get sunburn?
Suffer physical exhaustion?

True, not all of these conditions have to do with actual illness as such, but they help make my point. Just how exempt was Jesus from the common ailments and ordinary frailties of life? We do know of some human frailties experienced by Jesus: he was tired (John 4:6); he was thirsty (John 19:28); and he was hungry (Matt. 4:2).

We can tease all this out even further: Did Jesus ever fall as a boy and scrape his knee? If so, did that scrape get infected? Or did it heal instantly? These kinds of questions have to do with just how we are to understand Jesus and his full humanity.

A ‘no’ at this Protestant Reformed site:

First, Matthew 26:38 and Romans 8:10 make clear that sin makes the body weak, in fact, dead. But Christ’s body was neither dead nor weak.

Second, Jesus did not defeat, and did not know illness; He only commanded illness in others to depart. What sense would it make for Him to be sick, if He needed only say a word in order to be healed?

Third, the lamb for the sacrifices in Israel had to be without blemish. This pointed to Jesus (I Pet. 1:19). If He had His own weaknesses and sickness, then it would have been good for Him to take care of His own blemishes.

A “third way” answer at New Life Church:

“Did Jesus ever get sick?” The Bible never recorded he did. In fact, whenever Jesus touched the sick, instead of them contaminating him, he “infected” them, if you will, with his own cleanness. He actually touched lepers whose terrible skin disease was considered unclean (Luke 5:12-15; 17:11-19). He himself was touched by a woman who had been hemorrhaging blood for twelve years (Matt 9:20-22; Luke 8:43-48). No doctor could heal her. No medicine could help her. Jesus was declared unclean by the laws of Leviticus, yet this woman was healed when she touched the fringe of his garments.

When Jesus felt a cold coming on (or the nasty flu that was going around) did he zap himself with healing power? Great Physician, heal thyself (Luke 4:23). Was he the only little boy who never had to wash his hands because of germs? Many scholars say, “No! Jesus never got sick.” They claim he had a perfect human body like Adam and Eve before the Fall. In fact, Jesus would not have even suffered and died unless he submitted himself to death. His genetics were uncorrupted since he never sinned and did not have a human father to tie him back to Adam’s sin. Surely, he suffered human weakness like hunger and thirst and tiredness, but he did not need to suffer illness. Yet although did not need to suffer, I like to think that Jesus chose to suffer illness. After all, he had a human body and he was “one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15b). (italics added)

Jesus eventually suffered the final human weakness by his death on our behalf. And if he submitted his perfect body to a human death, then certainly he could submit his body to sickness, yet without sin.

There are other views as well, but at the end of the day, the Bible doesn’t really answer this question.

 

 

 

Healing as the Reversal of Sickness

Is it “health and wealth gospel” or “prosperity gospel” to believe that God never wants you to be sick, even for a day? How you answer that question says as much about your belief about God than it does about your take on particular doctrines. I am well aware that the realities of life come crowding in on us constantly, but I also find it helpful, hopeful and inspiring to be reminded of the spiritual realities of various infirmities, and the way scripture views sickness in an overall, general sense.

So while this may be a bit too Charismatic for some of you, I hope you’ll take the time to let it speak to you. Oshea Davis is today’s writer, and clicking the header which follows will take you to where it first appeared.

Think On These Things: Think on Healing & Miracles

“Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are right, whatever things are pure, whatever things are pleasing, whatever things are commendable, if there is any excellence of character and if anything, praiseworthy, think about these things. And the things which you have learned and received and heard about and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you,”
Philippians 4:8-9 LEB.

Thoughts of sickness are a lie against the promise of God; thoughts of sickness are not honorable, not right and they are not pure of heart. Thoughts of sickness are not pleasing, and not commendable. They are not excellence of character and or praiseworthy.

Thoughts of Healing are an agreement that the promises of God are true. They are honorable. Thoughts of healing are right, are pure and pleasing. Thoughts of healing are commendable, and they are excellence of character. Thoughts of healing are praiseworthy.

Does this sound strange to you? If it does you are out of touch with reality; you do not know God, the gospel or scripture.

Healing is part of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, (Isaiah 53:4, Matthew 8:17); it is by biblical definition part of the gospel. The gospel is good, it is trustworthy, praiseworthy, excellent, and so forth.

Sin is not good, not praiseworthy, not excellent and so forth. For a Christian forgiveness of all their sins by Jesus’ finished work is a stepping stone; a doorway into the next life. To stay at this doorway, means you do not believe you are forgiven, which is why you never enter into or believe the gospel. The only correct way for a Christian to think of sin, is being already judged and buried in Jesus’ death. Sin, death and judgment are behind the Christian. Value, unmerited favor and joy is before the Christian.

Hebrews 10:2-3 says that the Old Testament yearly sacrifices reminded the minds and thoughts of the practitioners of their sin. The writer of Hebrews says this was not a good thing for the mind to be reminded of our sins. To be reminded of ones sins, if you are indeed forgiven, is not excellent or praiseworthy. They were reminded of their sins, because Christ had not yet come. Hebrews later states that Jesus once and for all removes our sins from us. The pragmatic implication is that our minds and thoughts are not reminded about or sins; rather, we are reminded of our new identity in Christ.

We are the righteousness of God and co-heirs with Jesus. By His great love we are children of God.  Thus, it is not a good thing to be mindful and dwell on your sins. You are to be renewed by thinking about Jesus, and who are “presently” in Him. This is praiseworthy and excellent.

Paul says in Romans 6 we are to assent that we were buried in Jesus’ death. Our sin, by His atonement, was dealt with and buried. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, that we at one time knew Jesus from a human point of view, but we do NOT know Him this way any longer.  He is on the throne, ruling and pouring out the baptism of the Spirit. Our thoughts are to be on this present reality of Jesus. Paul extends this to us. The old man is gone, with all our sin and judgment for that sin. Our new creation is our present reality, and this is where our thoughts ought to be. Thus to “think on these things,” is not thinking about our sin, but how righteous God sees us as. God interacts with us, as the righteousness of God.

The pragmatic application is if your circumstances or Satan tries to remind you of your sins, you are not indulge this temptation by thinking about your sins; rather, you are put off this old-man way of thinking, and put on the new-man, who thinks about how completely forgiven he is and how boldly he can march into the throne room of God and ask and receive.

The same is true for healing and sickness. Sickness is part of curses of Adam and of the Law (Deut. 28). Jesus, by substitutionary atonement, became our curses. Jesus was nailed to our curses of sickness. Even when leapers who needed to be healed, under the Law, a blood sacrifice was given. Healing is shown under the Law, that a substitutionary sacrifice is needed. Jesus was our substitutionary sacrifice to redeem us from all sickness.  Isaiah 53:4 says Jesus “bore” (same word for the substitution atonement for the escape goat in Lev. 16) sickness and pains.[1]

Curses are not honorable, excellence, praiseworthy, etc. And yet, sickness is a curse.

Sickness is a curse; it is not excellent.
Sickness is a curse; it is not praiseworthy.
Sickness is a curse; it is not honorable.
Sickness is a curse; it is not “true” regarding what God has promised.

When tempted by circumstances and the devil to keep rehearsing your sickness over and over in your mind, do not sin by doing this; rather, be obedient and put on the new-man who thinks on the finished work of Jesus who bore all your sickness and pains, who was nailed to your sickness and how these died with Him, on His body, so that you are freed and released from all of them. God is for your body, so much so, He made it part of the gospel. He is the God who heals you.

To indulge on thoughts of your sins or sickness is in direct disobedience of the Scripture commanding us to “think on these things.” Rejoice! You are commanded to think on righteousness, healing, blessings, miracles, peace with God, Joy and unending unmerited favor upon you.  Rejoice.

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[1] For more see, Christ our Healer. FF Bosworth.

Sickness Follows Us from Birth to Death: This is Temporary

Today we’re introducing to you another writer just discovered. Most days Michael Wilson does several shorter posts at Jesus Quotes and God Thoughts. I thought this one on healing was a balanced look at the subject. Click the header below, read the article there, and then explore some of the other topics recently covered.

Is God’s plan for us one of healing and restoration?

Jesus didn’t cause anyone to be lame. It was never about character building. There was no lesson to be learned. No patience needed.

People came to Jesus. All the time. Jesus always healed them.

Jesus didn’t give crutches to the lame. Jesus commanded them to stand.

They did at His word. Now that is stunning.

His goal for us is that we be whole and complete. He wants us to walk. He doesn’t give us crutches and wheelchairs.

What an amazing God we serve. He makes us whole again. God is great.

         the lame came to Him in the temple , and He healed them. Matthew 21:14

God has a plan for us. What is it? Healing and restoration.

Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Hebrews 12:12-13

We go through a lot as a part of our human existence. I get sick. Sickness follows me from birth to death. One day I will die. Sickness will cause that to happen. God gives the courage to go through it all. I have been healed of a number of things. Others I have not.

The good news is that this is temporary. Our years here are just a sliver of our eternal lives. A billion years from now we will have a hard time remembering it even happened.

There is no pain or suffering in heaven. We are a people of hope.

Thank God for His amazing plan for our eternal life in Jesus.

• Revelation 21:4 (NASB) —And He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
• Romans 8:18 —For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
• Revelation 22:2 — In the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

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For more clarity, check out this author’s post from September, Does Jesus Bring Healing and Wholeness Into Our Lives?

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Michael divides his writing into several sections. Readers here should check out the section of Teachings.

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It was customary at the church in the country to have a time for people to “come forward” at the conclusion of the evening service to mark their decision to follow Christ. The Pastor’s wife was not feeling well so she had stayed home at the parsonage next door to the church. When her husband returns she asked if anyone had walked forward for the invitation at the end of the service.

“Yes;” he said; “We had 2½ responses.”

She looked at him strangely. “You mean 2 adults and one child?”

He said, “No, one adult and two children.”

The investment that you make this Christmas in a child can change the trajectory — spiritually and in other spin-off ways — of their life. Do the kids in your sphere of influence have an age-appropriate Bible?  Don’t risk this important purchase with an uninformed online buy. Check out the Bible carefully before you decide.

God’s Loving Empathy

We have four women in our lives who lost their mothers in the weeks leading up to, and during the Christmas holidays. In a couple of those cases, I mentioned to them a book which released a few years ago, A Decembered Grief. The premise is that it’s hard to mourn at a time of year when everyone is programmed for celebration. There are bright lights and gifts and you start to wonder how people can offer sympathy when they’re caught up in all the “joy-to-the-world” of the holidays. Or to put it another way, it’s hard to mourn when everybody around wants to party.

That’s why we chose this devotional. It’s been six months since our last visit, and we’re back at Before the Cross. The writer this time is Mike Mobley.

God Sees You And Hears You

Sometimes when we are going through a difficult trial in life we are tempted to believe God isn’t with us. Maybe He just really isn’t good? Maybe He is blind to what is really going on in our lives? Maybe He really doesn’t care? Maybe He doesn’t understand just how hard things are for us?

This is incredibly challenging for those of us who follow Christ and this is exactly where faith comes in.

Everything in us wants to be delivered out of the trials we find ourselves in.

• We don’t want to lose a family member.
• We don’t want to have to stay in our jobs that we don’t like.
• We don’t want to have to deal with relational conflicts around us.
• We don’t want to have to handle money problems.
• We don’t want to have physical or mental health issues.

I was recently reading through Exodus and noticed something for the first time when reading over Exodus 4. I’ve read through this countless times and I love when God always shows me something new in Scripture.

The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt for over 400 years…..400 years! Imagine going through a trial that lasted 400 years. You, your children, their children, and so on…all suffered under the same trial. To the point that if you were living in this time period, you would believe that is all that existed. You would believe you were intended to be a slave. Imagine how hard to it would be to have hope that God would deliver you when you know it hasn’t happened in over 400 years?!

So long story short, as Moses and Aaron are going along and telling the people what God wanted them to say as He was preparing to deliver them out of captivity, I stumbled upon this:

“And the people believed; and when they heard that the LORD had visited the people of Israel and that He had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.” – Exodus 4:31

Noticed the people’s reaction. They bowed their heads and worshiped. Why? Because God had seen them. Because God had heard them. The reality hit them that this same God, creator of the heavens and the earth, had heard their cries and seen their tears.

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I found this image in our files and decided to use it again. Originally, it was used in the context of a discussion as to whether or not healing is provided for in the atonement. You can read that devotional at this link. We know that the cross made our salvation possible and demonstrated victory over death. The debate is over whether physical healing is healing is included, because of the phrase, “by his stripes we are healed.”

Unfortunately, I think that in this context we lose sight of the first few words, “He has carried our griefs and carried our sorrows.” We covered that a few days ago in this devotional, and also at this article. While translators have sometimes used ‘griefs’ to be sicknesses and infirmities, there is the whole category of ‘pain’ included in this prophetic description of God’s atoning work.

The Lord Cares for the Poor

Last year at this time, we introduced you to Neil White, a Lutheran (ELCA) Pastor, currently Senior Pastor for Rejoice Lutheran in Frisco, Texas. His blog is called Sign of the Rose. We returned for a visit only to find him in the middle of a series on Revelation. Rather than jump into one of those at random, we sourced this item from last summer. Click to read at source.

Psalm 41 The One Who Cares for the Poor

<To the leader. A Psalm of David.>
¹ Happy are those who consider the poor; the LORD delivers them in the day of trouble.
² The LORD protects them and keeps them alive; they are called happy in the land. You do not give them up to the will of their enemies.
³ The LORD sustains them on their sickbed; in their illness you heal all their infirmities.
⁴ As for me, I said, “O LORD, be gracious to me; heal me, for I have sinned against you.”
⁵ My enemies wonder in malice when I will die, and my name perish.
⁶ And when they come to see me, they utter empty words, while their hearts gather mischief; when they go out, they tell it abroad.
⁷ All who hate me whisper together about me; they imagine the worst for me.
⁸ They think that a deadly thing has fastened on me, that I will not rise again from where I lie.
⁹ Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted the heel against me.
¹⁰ But you, O LORD, be gracious to me, and raise me up, that I may repay them.
¹¹ By this I know that you are pleased with me; because my enemy has not triumphed over me.
¹² But you have upheld me because of my integrity, and set me in your presence forever.
¹³ Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.

The final psalm in the first book of the psalter (Psalms 1-41) begins with a beatitude (Happy/blessed are…) just like the first psalm in this collection. Psalm 1 begins by stating “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked…but their delight is in the law of the LORD” and now closing this section of the book of psalms we hear, “Happy are those who consider the poor.” The structure of the book of psalms wants to encourage us to hear the connection hear between a life that avoids the way of the wicked and delights in the law of the LORD with a life that considers the poor. Looking back at the previous forty psalms that comprise this first section of the psalter it becomes clear that one of the central messages is that God hears those who have been oppressed or isolated from their community and so the one who considers the poor models their path after the God who hears the cries of the poor and neglected of the world. This psalm begins with the one who considers the poor being able to count upon the LORD’s deliverance in their own time of trouble. A life that is blessed is one that in following the law of the LORD hears the way in which they are to be a community which cares for the weak, the widow, the orphan, the alien and all the others who are vulnerable in society.

The similarity between the beginning of this psalm and the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5: 3 (or Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6:20) is just one of many places of resonance between the psalms and the message of Jesus. Jesus vision of the kingdom of God reflects the law of the LORD which imagines a society where the wicked no longer take advantage of the weak. The psalms, along with the law and prophets, the gospels and the letters of Paul as well as the rest of the bible attempt to imagine for the world a different kind of community. I’m reminded of a story that the New Testament scholar Mark Allan Powell shares about the parable of the prodigal son in Luke’s gospel.

He asked his American student why the son who goes to a foreign country ends up starving and they almost all point to him squandering what he had, the son’s life was his own responsibility. When he had the opportunity to ask students in Russia the majority pointed to the reality that in the story there is a famine in the land, that the person’s peril was due to external conditions in the environment. Perhaps most interestingly for the reflection on this psalm was the answer he received when he was in Tanzania about why the son was in danger of starvation: “Because no one gave him anything to eat!” and they went on to explain that:

The boy was in a far country. Immigrants often lose their money. They don’t know how things work—they might spend all their money when they shouldn’t because they don’t know about the famines that come. People think they are fools just because they don’t know how to live in that country. But the Bible commands us to care for the stranger and alien in our midst. It is a lack of hospitality not to do so. This story, the Tanzanians told me, is less about personal repentance than it is about society. Specifically, it is about the kingdom of God. (Powell, 2007, p. 27)

This is the type of society that this psalm attempts to help us imagine, a world where the poor are considered and cared for, but the psalmist doesn’t live in that world. Just because the poet believes that God delivers those who care for the vulnerable they also are honest that attempting to live righteously does not exclude them from the challenges of life or from feeling the exclusion that the poor often feel.

The poet spends most of this psalm reflection on how their own community was not a blessing to them in their time of trouble. The LORD sustains those who care for the poor on their sickbed, but now the psalmist community has only the LORD to call to for healing on their own sickbed. Perhaps their community believes that the illness is a judgment from God and therefore they are justified in their exclusion of this one. It may also be that the illness demonstrates the true nature of the community. The community seems to be a place where only those who can actively contribute are valued and where people are actively waiting on the death of the psalmist to inherit his property. At a time where the community was needed the most for the poet, they found themselves a member of an unjust society that does not consider the vulnerable and weak. The community of the speaker has become warped and close friendships revealed as fading and shallow. Yet, the LORD can bring the one who has a deadly thing fastened to him back to life.

Like in Psalm 38 the psalmist wrestles again with a connection between sin and sickness. On the one hand many modern Christians too quickly dismiss any connection when there are times when one suffers because of one’s own actions or choices. Yet, there are other times where both people too quickly and tightly assume a connection. As Rolf Jacobson shares from his own life:

Even modern agnostics or atheists prove themselves capable of making this assumption when they assume that a person’s poor health is automatically the result of poor lifestyle choices. In my own life, when I was diagnosed with cancer as a teenager, a well-meaning but misguided neighbor remarked to my mother that it was a shame she had not been feeding her family the proper, high anti-oxidant diet, or her son would not have developed cancer. Besides being incredibly unhelpful, this comment was simply wrong—the type of cancer I had is not lifestyle dependent. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 390)

Regardless of whether a person’s plight is caused by personal actions and choices or whether they simply find themselves among the weak, sick, injured, poor, or otherwise vulnerable the psalms imagine a community that can respond differently than what the writer of Psalm 41 discovers in their community.

The psalmist asks to be able to ‘repay’ those who have not acted as a supportive community in their plight and unfortunately in English we lose the double meaning of this phrase. On the one had the psalmist does desire that their health would be restored so that those waiting on their death to claim their payment from their property would have no inheritance because the psalmist continues to live. But the word translated to repay comes from the noun shalom and has the connotation of making complete, restoring, to recompense or reward. (Brueggeman, 2014, p. 200) The poet may also be pointing to being a person who can demonstrate what a righteous life looks like by in the future caring for those who failed to care for them in the present.

The LORD has cared for the one who has cared for the poor. The righteous one can point to their own life as a witness to the LORD’s action on their behalf. Even when their community failed them God proved to be faithful. And they end this psalm and this portion of the psalter with a blessing to the God who has avoided the way of the wicked, who has delighted in the law of the LORD, and who has cared for the poor.