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T h e
May 1927
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
The Body of Humiliation B y H arold F. G. C ole
W HY are some of the Lord’s people sometimes sick? It is being widely taught today that their sickness is the result of sin, that they are out of communion with God, that the state of their bodies is an indication of, and the result of, the state of their souls. There are those who teach that it is not the will of the Lord that any of His people should be sick, that all sick ness is the work of Satan, that a Christian will not fall sick unless he sins, and that he will not remain sick unless he is unrepentant and unbelieving. The following and other similar questions; have been asked :4p ' “Are human imperfections of any sort, be they physical or moral, God’s will or are they man’s mis take ?” “Since the church is the body of Christ, does God want the body of Christ sick?” “Since ‘the body is for the Lord,’ a living sacri fice unto God, would He not rather have a well body . than a wrecked one?” (From Mr. F. F. Bosworth’s. widely-advertised 31 questions,).? The following and other similar statements have been made:— Ay?/?'? “God meets us at the very threshold of our pilgrimage with the covenant of healing, declaring that asywe walk in holy and loving obedience, we shall be kept from sick ness, which belongs to the old life of bondage we have left behind us forever. Sickness belongs to the Egyptians, not to the people of God, and only as we return spiritually to Egypt do we return to its malarias and perils.” “He healed all that were sick . . . and if He did’ not still do so, He would not be, ‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.’ These, healings ■ were not occasional, but continual; not exceptional, but universal.” “He has borne all our bodily liabilities for sin, and our bodies are set free. That one cruel ‘stripe’ of His . . . summed up in it all the aches and pains, of a suffering world; and there is no longer need that we should suffer whát He" has sufficiently borne. Thus our healing becomes a great redemption right, which we simply claim as oiir purchased inheritance through the blood of His Cross.” “The promise is fulness of life and health and strength, up to the measure of our natural life, and until our life- work is done” (From Dr. A. B. Simpson’s book, “The Gospel of Healing,” pages 8 , 13, 32 and 43). “Infirmities and sickness are in no sense due to God . . . Sickness is never the result of failure on the part of God to sustain life, neither does He ever send poverty or sickness as a means of working spiritual good.” “The release of the spirit from its earthly dwell ing-place‘through physical disease or violent death cannot, except with difficulty, be reconciled with the will of a loving Father.” (From pages 11 and 24 of “The Sacrament of Healing,” by Rev. John Maillard, Warden, Divine Healing Fellowship). D evout B ed -R iddén S aints *This sort of doctrine about sickness is being widely taught today. But is it true? It is not. If a brother in the Lord falls sick, is it always because he has sinned? No. Does his sickness prove that he is out of harmony with the will of God? It does not. Does his sickness continue only because he is unrepentant and unbelieving? Certainly not. There is abundant evidence, both in the
Word of God and in the experience of His people, to disprove such a theory. Many are the bed-ridden and suffering saints whose holy lives, sweet communion with their Lord, and im plicit confidence and trust in their heavenly Father, are a continual help and inspiration to all the Lord’s people who know them, and are also a complete contradiction of the theory that sick saints are out of harmony with the will of God. The evidence of the Word of God is equally clear. Epaphroditus fell sick; “indeed he was sick nigh unto death.” What reason is given for it in the Word? “For the work of Christ he was nigh unto death.” Was he out of harmony with the divine will, and is his sickness men tioned as a warning to us ? On the contrary, the Word bids us “hold such in reputation.” (Phil. 2:25-30). Again, Gaius was evidently not in good health when the Apostle John wrote to him, although his soul was prospering, and he was walking in the truth, and was doing faithfully whatsoever he did to the brethren and to Strangers, and was commended for his love. The Apos tle has recorded his earnest desire that the physical health of Gaius might be equal to the prosperity of his soul. “Beloved,” he wrote, “ I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul pros- pereth.” (3 Jno. 2). One other example must suffice. We read in 2 Kings 13 :14, “Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died/’ We see, from verses 15 to 25 of the chapter, how closely he was in touch with the mind of God, at this time, and how clearly he could make known the pur pose of God, although he was then ill, and although he was not healed, for he was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died. There is much sickness amongst the Lord’s dear peo ple which cannot possibly be accounted for by the unset tling, unsympathetic un-Scriptural theory which has been mentioned; and it behooves us now to consider whether the true explanation of. such sickness can be found in the Word of God. M ortality A n I mperfect S tate At the root of the whole matter lies the fact that every saint in the world is still in the mortal body. When men, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, are born again, born from above, born of the Spirit, born of God, they verily receive a new life, the life eternal; they are made partakers of the divine nature, they become the children of God. No greater change, no more vital change, than this is possible in the history of any indi vidual, for it is the beginning of a new and entirely dif ferent life* a life moreover which shall never cease. When a guilty sinner puts his trust in the Lord Jesus as his Saviour, the Lord bestows upon him forgiveness of sins and the life everlasting, but He does not there and then bestow upon him a new body. Of course, He could do so, if He so willed, but He does not. The imperfections of the body remain; the man who loses a limb before conversion does not receive a new one when he becomes a Christian ; the man whose eyesight was
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