Sickness an Effect; Sin the Cause
By W. S. Sadler
THE MISSION OF PAIN AND THE LANGUAGE OF DISEASE. NO. 10.
Sickness an Effect; Sin the Cause.
MANY entertain the idea that sickness and sin are one and the same thing. The Scriptures teach that when we desire to obtain forgiveness of sin, all we have to do is to confess our sins, and the Lord is “faithful and just to forgive us our sins,” and that settles the matter. So some seek to teach that if we would be healed of our diseases and recover from our sicknesses, all we have to do is, in like manner to confess our wrongs, and then we shall always be instantly healed of our diseases and immediately delivered from our sufferings. This reasoning seems very plausible on its face, if we overlook the fact that the premises are altogether wrong. Sickness and sin are not synonymous; they are not one and the same thing. Sin is the cause while sickness is the effect. Sin is a transgression, and sickness is the result of that transgression. The devil was in the cause, the transgression; but God is in the effect, the sickness, speaking to the soul of man, endeavoring to show him the folly and peril of disobedience, and thus to turn him from his purpose of transgression into the paths of harmony and obedience to the laws of health and grace. Repentance and confession secures the immediate and absolute forgiveness of the sin that was the cause of our affliction; but the affliction itself, which is the heaven-sent correction of sin, is not always instantly removed upon our repenting of the sin that produced it. The cause of affliction—the sowing—may, when recognized as wrong, be instantly stopped; but the effects—the reaping—may often continue for some time. And even then, the briers of wrong-doing may be removed from our experience only as the result of much painstaking toil and effort. To illustrate: You may sow thorns and brier bushes in your garden, and next year you may heartily repent of your misdeed; and so you confess your wrong to God, and you are forgiven then and there. But the thorns and the briers are still in the garden. Your record in heaven is clear; your case is right with God; but the garden spot is still cumbered by the result of your wrong sowing. And so you will have to bring forth fruits meet for repentance. Go into the garden and pull up those evidences of your misconduct; and then—and not till then—will the last vestige of your transgression disappear. It must be clear that while God instantly removes the guilt of sin when it is recognized and confessed, the getting rid of the consequences of past wrong-doing often demands the persevering co-operation of the wrong-doer himself. Sickness and sin bear to each other the relation of sowing and reaping, cause and effect. Causes may be wrong, but effects are always right; for they proceed from God, are controlled by Him, and have for their purpose the correction of the wrongs that called them forth.