Let us begin by asking a very important question: “How did sickness enter this world?”
Our answer is found in Romans 5:12, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”.
Then physical death and all that produces it are the direct results of sin.
But how came man to sin? Read Genesis 2:17 and Genesis 3:1-19, and you will find that it was Satan who caused our first parents to disobey God. Then Satan is the real originator of sin, sickness, and death.
Many deny this and say that God Himself is the real author of sickness and death because He said to Adam (Genesis 2:17), “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eat thereof thou shalt surely die”. But who caused Adam and Eve to disobey?
God’s command and so bring sin, sickness, and death into this world? Satan. Then Satan, and not God, is the real author of sin, sickness, and death.
This explains why Christ said to the man whom He cured at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:14), “Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee”. His sickness had come as the result of sin.
This explains also Christ’s words in Mark 2:9-11, “Whether it is easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house”.
The people would not believe that Christ had power to forgive this man’s sins, so He says to them, in effect, “I will now prove to you that I have the power to forgive sins by curing this palsy, which is one of the consequences of sin. When you see that I can cure or take away this sin-produced disease, then you will know for a certainty that I also can take away sin itself”.
Yes, every sickness, disease, and deformity which Christ cured while on earth was the result of sin, Satan’s work. Read Acts 10:38, “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him”. Then all Christ cured, while on earth, were oppressed of the devil. This included also Lazarus’ sickness, even though Christ declares (John 11:4), “This sickness is … for the glory of God”.
In Mark 9:25, we find that Satan also has “deaf and dumb” spirits: “When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him {note – these evil spirits are persons}, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him”.
Then, in addition to “spirits of sickness”, Satan also has “deaf and dumb” spirits to afflict mankind.
In Mark 1:23 we read, “And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean {unwashed, dirty, foul} spirit”.
Then Satan also has spirits who are specialists in polluting men’s minds and imaginations, making them immoral.
In Acts 16:16 we read of a girl who was “possessed with a spirit of divination” {literally, a spirit of Python – G4436 Πύθων puthōn}. This was an evil spirit which gave her the ability to foretell things.
Satan, then, has all kinds of evil spirits, and thousands of these belong to that group designated as “the spirits of sickness”. No wonder we read in Ephesians 6:12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places”.
Yes, Satan is not only the originator of sickness and disease, but he is the propagator of the same by means of these many evil spirits who obey his every command.
Author:- Dr. T. J. McCrossan, noted pastor, author, Bible teacher, and highly respected Greek and Hebrew scholar, taught Greek and Hebrew languages in the Manitoba University, Manitoba, Canada, before entering the ministry.
