The Spiritual Origins of Disease - Part 1
One of the primary impediments to healing is the lack of understanding that disease is spiritual, not physical, in origin. As human beings living and breathing in a material world, it is often difficult for us understand the spiritual underpinnings of what appears to be just a natural phenomenon; the average Christian mind fails to appreciate the cause-and-effect relationship between the spiritual order and the natural world. Consequently, disease remains a mysterious killer and if it is “spiritualized” at all, God is ultimately held accountable for atrocities that even Hitler didn’t fathom. The Word demonstrates, in no uncertain terms, that disease is both an enemy of God and of man. It emanates from the spiritual state of sin and it was set in motion into mankind by Adam’s treason.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. (Genesis 3:6-7)
In the beginning, God created Adam sinless with an eternal body. He gave him just one command and that was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam deliberately defied God and ate of the tree. By this act, the earth became cursed (Genesis 3:17) and Satan, a wicked spiritual personality, became the “god of this world.” (2 Cor. 4:4). Adam not only ceded authority to Satan (Acts 26:16-18), but his very own nature became infused with death. (Eph. 2:2).
For this cause, Just as through one man sin into the world entered, And through sin, death, And so unto all men death [penetrated] (Romans 5:12, Rotherham)
Adam, subjugating himself to sin, opened his own spiritual nature to Satan’s corruption. Sin was the medium by which death penetrated through to Adam. Disease, being incipient death, consequently had its entry into mankind through a spiritual, not physical, root. Since the root of disease is spiritual, its remedy must also be spiritual. As one leading physician put it,
In back of all disease lies a cause which no remedy can reach. (Yeomans, Lillian, His Healing Power at 32)
The Word demonstrates that Jesus obliterated disease in his earthly ministry because all of his healings originated in the Spirit; He never provided a natural cure to those seeking healing.
How God anointed him with Holy Spirit and with power, Who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the adversary, because God was with him. (Acts 10:38, Rotherham).
In this verse, the word “oppressed” is a compound word in the Greek of κατα (kata) which means down” or “under” and δυναστευομενος (dunasteuomenos) which means “I hold power”or “I dominate.”(also in James 2:6) The word form is a present tense participle that is better translated “being continuously dominated.” Herein we understand that all the diseases cured by Christ involved some kind of oppression or domination by Satan, a spiritual personality. Jesus met each and every disease He encountered with the spiritual remedies of [the] Holy Spirit and power (δυναμις - dunamis). These realities apply to healings such as blind Bartimaeus who was told only “Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole” and Lazarus whose healing account has been mishandled by those who state that his sickness came upon him “for the glory of God.”
Surely he hath borne our sicknesses, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his bruise we are healed . All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath made to light on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6, RV, marg.)
At the end of Jesus’s ministry, He was crucified on the cross. Over 600 years before Jesus came into the world, Isaiah was given revelation of the crucifixion. Isaiah’s revelation, however, did not deal with the wooden cross, the Roman guards, or even Jesus’s words on the cross — the physical aspects of the crucifixion. Rather, his was a revelation of the spiritual realities behind. He saw that Jesus would be “wounded for our transgressions” and “bruised for our iniquities,” all of which concern sin, a spiritual thing. In Isaiah 53:4, in the same breath he speaks of Jesus bearing our “sicknesses.” It was not by the physical “stripes” on His back, but by the “bruise” (singular) He sustained in the spirit that we are healed. Consistent with Genesis and lockstep with Jesus’s own ministry, Isaiah’s revelation demonstrates to us that sickness and disease are the true spiritual offspring of sin. His revelation also declares that Jesus bore them away in his redemptive work on the cross and the resurrection.
He sent His Word (Jesus) and healed them. (Psalm 107:1)
The Word establishes that disease’s entry into man was through the means of sin, specifically Adam’s transgression. Sin’s cure is our redemption of Christ in his death, burial and resurrection. Disease’s cure is likewise the same.
“Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same; that through death he might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.” Hebrews 2:14 (RV)