Was Jesus ever sick?

Really been wrestling through this question with a brother.

I know that Jesus subjected Himself to all the limitations of the human body and cam eto live in a fallen world, i know He subjected Himself to pain and suffering on the cross, but was He ever sick in His life? Would He have been a fit substitute and a pure lamb if he was? On the other hand would He be a fit High Priest to those who are sick if He Himself was never sick.

Did He in subjecting Himself to live as a man in our fallen world experience headaches and did he wake up some days with a cold? Thats what i want to know. Any thoughts gratefully received!

Here's a related question: The Bible says that as a child, Jesus grew in stature and wisdom. So, what do we make of the transition between boyhood to manhood every human male goes through via adolesence? Did Jesus go through puberty complete with acne, nocturnal emission and his voice breaking along with the emotional changes associated? If he did not, then by the age of 30, he would have looked like a very unusual man.

by dorcas on 2008/4/17 9:40:52

Hi intrecssr83,

I would suggest you have asked an improper question, to which I wish to suggest this reply.

Why would He not have developed normally, and perfectly?

That is, He had not a fallen nature. Thus, those attributes of fallenness about which you enquire, could not have applied to Him.

Exactly the point I was trying to make! :-) 8-)

Katy-did wrote:
I actually believe Jesus did get sick

and tired of the Pharisees! :-P

Katy

Hey if thats the case he might still be getting sick from time to time, there is still a lot of them in the Church today. :-P

Katy-did wrote:
I actually believe Jesus did get sick

and tired of the Pharisees! :-P

Katy

LOL man it's good to see people have a sense of humor on this forum.

Do you guys think that Adam and Eve would be subject to sickness if they never sinned?

"The soul that sins shall die" - Ezekiel
"The wage of sin is death"

Did Jesus ever get sick?

This is a question many people ask, especially in circles where sickness is directly associated with sin. It is a sad fact that I know a man whose sister-in-law was expelled from her church for prolonged sickness, which they assumed to mean she was in secret sin. What a terrible and unfortunate misunderstanding of the scriptures! Let us begin with this passage from John's gospel, 9:1-3:

"And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."

A common idea is that sickness is a by-product or consequence of sin-nature, a sort of punishment for being sinful. Because Jesus had no sin nature, one may reason, he would not have been exposed to sickness. I must disagree with this line of thought. I believe Jesus was subjected to sickness without having a sin nature, just as animals, which have no sin, are subject to sickness.

It is true, animals sometimes inconvenience or even endanger humans, but this is not sin. If it were, God himself would be a sinner! Sin is the violation of God's law. [1 John 3:4] Animals have no sin because no law was given to them. Where there is no law, sin is not imputed. [Romans 5:13] Why then do sinless creatures endure weakness and suffering?

When the world was first created God granted Adam authority to subdue and represent it. Adam was the federal head of earthly creation. When he sinned all of the physical creation which he represented was cast into the temporal repercussions of suffering with him. The creation now looks forward, as it were, to being set free from these effects of the fall.

"The creation itself shall also be set free from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. " [Romans 8:22]

Sickness is neither sinful, nor a necessary repercussion of personal sin, or else animals would be necessarily sinners. I assure you, my dog will not be at the judgment seat awaiting his sentence, but this very night he is sick with an infection in the eyes. His sickness comes as the effect of Adam's sin. Though animals are not sinners, they are federally subjected to the temporal consequences which their and our original head, Adam, brought upon the creation.

For this same reason Christ, though born of a virgin and thereby free from spiritual corruption, was birthed into the physical weakness of his mother. He dealt with the same temporal repercussions of sin in the world which animals face. He hungered after fasting [Luke 4:2], his capillaries burst under stress [Luke 22:44], and he thirsted on the cross [John 19:28-29].

The people who said of Jesus, "isn't this the carpenter, the son of Joseph?" probably remembered him pricking his finger on a splinter and quickly drawing it to his mouth. How could a normal person be God? Yet Jesus Christ was fully God, and fully man, sin excepted. In order to perfectly represent broken men, Christ had to come as a broken man. The author of Hebrews explains why.

"Therefore since the children [for whom Christ died] are made out of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; so that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil... For this reason he [Jesus Christ] had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people." [Hebrews 2:14-15, 17]

For these reasons I believe Jesus was prone to sickness. So, the next time you feel a cold coming on, lift your prayers to Christ who was himself tempted to complain and become discouraged, yet never succumbed to the temptation. He is merciful and compassionate toward all his children whom he represents as a perfect priest before the Father. He may desire to heal you now or, like the blind man in John 9:1-3, to use your patient endurance of illness as a means to manifest God's glory. My prayer is that you saints would be "strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness." [Colossians 1:11]

Thank you Michael Spotts! I rather like your answer!

Its the best answer iv had so far.

What a Saviour Christ is! To think that the sinless one would subject Himself to the limitations, weaknesses and probably ailments of our flesh, and then suffer and die, bearing our curse. Hallelujah, What a Saviour! And What a High Priest!

'Compliments' What do you mean when you say:

Oh yes, He "LOOKED" like a man, as it is written, "He came in the similitude of sinful flesh".

Jesus Christ a man, God became flesh (John 1:14) and He was a human descendent of David (Romans 1:3). He didnt just look like a man, He was a man, He is a man, there a man still at the right hand of God, the Son of God is forever in our flesh!

I agree totally that His blood was unique, spotless, without defilment, precious, containing the life and soul of the Son of God, and yet He was a real man in every way like unto us yet without sin (Heb 4:15). So Does the fact that He was sinless and His blood undefiled by sin, mean that He did not subject Himself to sickness, as part of the fallen world in which He came to dwell, and from which He came to save us?

Dorcas, you say Christ did not subject Himself to the curse of the fallen world but He died, that was the curse, he suffered pain. God cannot die and suffer pain, but Christ took on a body that He might, so does all that mean that He did not get sick?

Could people still not have bene healed by touching the Son of God, even though that Son of God was carrying a cold at the exact time?
Did not Paul with His terrible eyes, raise the dead while indwelt by the Spirit and power of Christ?

May the Lord forgive me if i am wrong, and make worng assumptions here. I am open to being shown i am wrong on this.

Christ is glorious to me either way, and sinless either way!

Just a few thoughts to ponder:

Jesus Christ identified with us as close as He could have:

The Child who needed no atonement offering had one made in the temple.

He needed not to be circumcised--the cutting of the flesh symbolizing the cutting away of sin--yet He was.

He needed no baptism, yet He was baptized.

He needed no death, yet He died.

Jesus Christ did not identify with Adam before his fall but after.

He was a descendant in the flesh of Adam through king David through the virgin birth.

His blood was human blood offered for fallen humans. His blood was not magical or mystical. What made it special was the perfect life that He lived and that made it acceptable to God.

Jesus Christ the man was in every way human like you and I, only without sin. However He did not come to us in an unfallen body but a fallen one, not fallen morally, rather, but fallen physically in that Jesus Christ was subject to death. That's what Paul meant when he said that Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh-not pre-fall, but post-fall flesh.

And by the death He died he defeated death and won eternal life for all who put their trust in Him.

So could He have become sick. I suppose so. They asked when He was on the cross, "He saved others, can He not save Himself?" Just my opinion.

[i]EDIT[/i] I think an important question to ask here would be, "Do you think that if He became physically sick that it would have hindered His mission on Earth?"

Wordizlife wrote:
LOL man it's good to see people have a sense of humor on this forum.

Amen! Amen! Amen! on that it's rare here, hey can I get another Amen. :-P

Some good thoughts Hulsey!

Katy-did, what i meant by saying that the Son of God is in our flesh now is that He is still in a body, a human body, a body of flesh. The incarnation was not for 33 years only, it was forever. Therefore He is not ashamed to call us Brethren!!! O what a Saviour!!!

Of course His body is a glorfied body, and so in that way different from hours, but it is a glorified resurrected human body of flesh, and we shall one day have a body like His!!!

That is what i meant. That our Great Priest is a man at the right hand of God. Our Great High Priest is God and Man, glorified, yes, but man yes!!! He forevermore wears and shares in our nature! Again I say what a Saviour!!!!

Sister Dorcas, this is a really interesting discussion. (It has to be these days to get me involved!!!).

You said:

it is impossible to forget that it was an intrinsic part of His being, to bring health to people who were sick.

I agree, and Christ's ministry was and is most importantly to bring cleansing to those who are sinners. But how did He dod this? By becoming sin, by bearing their sin. It was Him taking our sin that brings us cleansing, spiritually it was His bearing our sin that brings us health. So why not sickness too? And why not sickness in His life and not just as part of the atonment on the cross?

I also dont agree with the comment that Jesus did not have to bear "one tiny bit of death or the effect of sin, until the cross".

He was called "a man of sorrows, and aquainted with grief". Now that is the effect of sin, and yet He was aquainted with that all of His life.

And if Jesus in His body as a man had the ability to feel bain and bleed, and suffer (as upon the cross) why would not also have the ability to feel pain and suffer in sickness in life?

With love in Christ, seeking truth,

George

I believe it is dangerous teaching to say that Jesus could not get sick. I think it brings a separation between us and Him that God never intended our High Priest [i]not[/i] to identify with. The very fact that He aged and grew and perspired and could bleed and get physically tired and experience hunger and thirst and weep shows undoubtedly our High Priest had all the physiological faculties and needs of man. And yet spiritually He was without sin; the prince of this world came and indeed found nothing to lay to His charge. The teaching, again, that is prevailing here is not good and should be addressed because I fear it is a distant cousin to gnosticism. God the Son came in the flesh, through pains of childbirth and placenta, and later exhibited all the weaknesses of man, including the possibility of yielding to tempation. The sickless, perfection-in-human-constitution assertion being put forth here is fueled by biased fancy and, again, the wresting of scripture to fit a personal and preconceived notion. All scripture points to the frailty and humanity of the Son of Man, and physiological factors are demonstrated to the utmost, including hunger pains and weariness of muscle fatigue.

The greatest pain Jesus had was because of our unbelief.

John 11:33-40 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.

Jesus wept.

Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?

Quote: "Here4Him, thank you for your clarification. We know the nail prints are still there!"

Yet He did not weep. And, Mar 15:34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

For us.

"Jesus wept." because of unbelief.

In Christ: Phillip

ps. if bubbaguy praising your writing puts you in a bad light among SI folks, then i change my mind, and your language skills are as rotton eggs! stinks!

I think I can manage putting myself in a bad light well enough on my own, actually :) It appears I've lost some friends on here as of late, and it saddens me in spirit. The Christian life is made up of seasons; times of growth, times of quiet, times of fire, times of correction, times of introspection, and times of exponential mirth in the heart. Just another season, another storm to weather, and God is greater than our hearts.

1Pe 2:24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

He healed us from the greatest sickness of all mankind, the sin of unbelief and headed for Hell and damnation.

This sickness He took upon Himself, that by His stripes we were healed.

If we take away from the humanity of Jesus Christ, we also take away the reason for His complete Deity as the Son of God and the last Adam.

Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

Infirmities:

Strong's Greek Dictionary
769. astheneia
Search for G769 in KJVSL
asqeneia astheneia as-then'-i-ah
from 772; feebleness (of mind or body); by implication, malady; morally, frailty:--disease, infirmity, sickness, weakness.

This is a rhetorical question in the first place, He could and did heal all the sickness He came in contact with. Why would there be a need for Him to heal if He did not know the whole of what He was healing.

In Christ: Phillip

We could insert here the words, "Scriptural Silence" as there is nothing to prove that he ever got the flu, had a cold, even a bowel movement.

This is totally offensive to me. People from all over the globe are reading this. The threads, the posts are getting more and more and more apostate and perverse. The images are becoming more and more disgusting and demonic. The teachings more and more unsound.