On occasion it becomes necessary to write concerning a particular doctrine of scripture that is misunderstood by many people. Yesterday I received a comment from a Christian who said I stated that children are afflicted with cancer because they have sinned. Of course this is not true, and no place in the Bible does God say that anyone gets cancer or any other disease, simply because they have sinned. The Bible does say that sickness and death were caused by the fall of man through Adam.

There Are Three Causes Of Disease And Sickness In The World:

1. The genetic defect in our cell structure cause by the fall of Adam.
2. The particular lifestyle of people that causes poor health.
3. The personal choices of people who continuing in sin.

The Bible teaches that all sickness, suffering, and death, are caused by Adam’s rebellion against God, which brought sin into the world: “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.” ~Romans 5:12

God created Adam perfect and without any defect. It was by his choice to rebel against the commandment of God that sin, the defect of imperfection, came into Adam’s life. Every person who is descended from Adam inherited his defect of a sin nature. If we think it is unfair that we are called sinners because of Adam’s error, we must consider that each of us have made our own choice to also sin.

Moral perfection consists of obedience to the fundamental laws of God

1. Worship only God.
2. Make no images of God.
3. Do not use the name of God without regard to His Holiness.
4. Rest one day of the week.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. Do not murder.
7. Do not commit adultery.
8. Do not steal.
9. Do not lie.
10. Do not covet what others have.

Every one of these laws are good, righteous, Holy, and perfect. God alone should be worshipped because only He is worthy of our worship. By His Eternal existence as the only perfect Being, possessing perfect love, justice, righteousness, and kindness, He is the only true God that exists. Making images of God is the first step in forgetting that our God is Spirit and has no form. We don’t need an image of God, we can worship Him anytime in our Spirit and according to the truth of who He is, as revealed in the texts of the Bible. Whenever we use the name of God it should be with deep reverence and respect, honoring Him in every way when we speak of Him.

Only God Is Perfect

Not one human being, other than Christ, has ever kept all of these laws. Jesus later clarified that even if we do not commit the physical act, we may still break these laws in our heart, and thus be guilty of breaking all these laws listed above (Matthew 5:28). James said that the standard God established for keeping His law is perfection. If we have broken even one of these laws, we are guilty of breaking them all (James 2:10).

Even before the 10 laws of God were given by God, people still died, because they had broken the law of sin and death. Born with a nature to sin, we are already guilty at birth. David said that we are conceived in sin and this is our nature even in the womb (Psalms 51:5).

The law of sin a death are the cause of our physical death, and our estrangement from God because of our sin. “Ezekiel 18:4: “Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; the soul who sins shall die.” Genesis 2:17 “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

It wasn’t the fruit Adam ate that cause his death; it was his desire to know evil by experience, that caused his death. Before that moment Adam had no knowledge of evil; after his decision to disobey God’s command, evil and sin, became a part of Adam’s fundamental nature. For the rest of his life he would be infected with the defect of sin and pass this on to every person born after him.

When Sickness, Disease And Death Came To Mankind

Before Adam sinned against God there was no sickness or death. It was his single act of disobedience that caused Adam to die spiritually, and in his body—physically, over a period of time. This is the reason that God hates sin so much; it deprives us as persons made in His image, of the perfect and eternal life God intended we all have.

In the New Testament we find that the friend of Jesus, Lazarus, had died and was buried four days in his tomb. When Jesus came to Bethany where the sisters of Lazarus lived, Mary and Martha, Jesus went to the tomb of Lazarus. There Jesus looked around and saw the great sorrow of Mary and Martha and the people who were also grieving over the death of Lazarus.

The text says that when Jesus saw this, He was angry. Why was Jesus angry? He created us to live forever without the scourge of sin and death, and there before Him, the effects of sin and death were on public display in all of its horror and deprivation.

Jesus was angry because of what sin and death have done to us. Jesus came into the world to end sin and death by giving His life on the cross to pay the penalty of sin and death, and eliminate it forever.

The Texts of the Bible Teach That All Human Beings Are Born With A Sin Nature

In Psalms 51, David is grieving over his sin and confessing what he has done before God. At verse 5 David states that he and all humans were born into the world in sin, and our nature as fallen beings is because of the sin that exists in us, even at our conception:

Psalms 51:1-5 “Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just. For I was born a sinner—yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.”

Hebrew scholar, Paul, confirmed that it was Adam’s sin and rebellion against God, that caused each of us who came after Adam, to inherit his sin nature:

Romans 5:12 “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.”

From the beginning, in the Hebrew scriptures, starting with the Pentateuch and continuing throughout the entire body of texts in the Bible, the basic nature of all human beings is that of a sinner. We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners by nature. It is our fundamental nature as fallen beings descended from Adam, that our tendency is towards sin continually.

It was the sinless life of Jesus as a man, with the very Spirit of God living in Him; and the giving of His perfect life, with the power of an endless life as the Eternal God, to pay for all sin, that freed all those who believe, from the power of sin and death.

Romans 5:17-19 “For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ. Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous.”

Understanding that the origin of all disease, sickness, suffering, and death, was the sin that Adam brought into human life, we can understand the reason we become sick and die.

There was a defect that came into the genetic makeup of Adam that ceased the eternal life he was given at his creation. It is sin that causes sickness and death, as is proven by the fact that no one became sick or died prior to Adam’s sin.

As Adam’s spiritual structure was corrupted by the sin he committed against God, this also altered his genetic structure and those of all human beings who came after him. Since the creation of Adam, and his fall, the DNA of all human beings has been gradually deteriorating with an increasing number of cell defects. As this process continues, more people get disease and become sick and die.

Children are born with defects in their cell structure and often acquire cancer and other diseases. The sin of the particular child did not necessarily cause them to get sick, but the defective cells they were born with, caused the disease to spread in their body. The root cause of this genetic defect began with Adam, when he sinned. and passed the sin nature and the physical defects it causes, to all of us.

Genetic Entropy

The study of genetic entropy, reveals a profound problem. Most geneticists acknowledge this problem; that bad mutations accumulate in the human genome. This is the condition that Adam’s sin caused in all humans born after him.

This entropy in cell degradation is best illustrated by simply considering these things on a personal level. Our bodies have about three new mutations every time our cells divide. This is the reason that we all die. It is the reason we get old. As we age all of our systems begin to break down.

It is because of this mutational process, an accumulation of bad mutations in our genome. This genetic entropy was not present in Adam until he committed sin against God. It is sin that caused the genetic entropy in his body, and this condition spread to all of us.

A 60 year old man has experienced up to 40,000 mutations per skin cell. The total mutations number in the trillions. It is for this reason that we have an upper lifespan

We all know that we are mortal, but we also transmit a certain fraction of our mutations to our children. As they age, they add more mutations; they pass their mutations on to their children. Each generation adds many more mutations to the next generation.

Logically, the human race is devolving, not evolving. The entire genome of all human beings is degenerating. Eventually it will wear out and natural selection cannot solve this problem.\

This Genetic Entropy Is An Impeaching Evidence Against Darwinian Natural Selection

If we take an entire room of people and kill only those with the worst mutations, we still have a room full of people that have from 60 to 100 more mutations than their parents.

Every generation of people are more mutated than those who came before. Natural selection can only slow down the degeneration by killing off the worst of those degenerating, but it cannot stop the mutations from increasing in the total population over time.

The implications of this reality is that genetic entropy is profound. This is not only because of how it impacts all human beings, but also that it demonstrates that natural selection does not cause evolution, but devolution.

How Sin Is Imputed

According to Hebrew tradition, it is through the father that sin is transmitted to a baby, not through the mother.⁠[1] If God were to implant the Seed of His own Son in the body of a human being, that Seed would be the Son of God. The Messiah would be both God and Man together in a single human body.

Early church Theologian and Philosopher, Augustine, wrote that sin passed to a baby through the father.⁠[2]

Today, medical science confirms that a fetus does not receive its blood supply from the mother but from the father. An ovum begins to produce its own blood supply immediately after the father’s sperm penetrates the egg held in the body of the woman. An unfertilized ovum can never develop blood, since the egg of the female does not contain the elements necessary for the production of blood.[⁠3]

According to the Bible, sin is transferred to the child through the father, not the mother.

“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.”[4]

In this, we understand the importance of God imputing to Mary the Seed that would cause the birth of Jesus. If Joseph or any other man were Jesus’ father, this seed would pass the defect of sin to Jesus, and He could not be the Savior of the world. By Jesus’ conception through the Holy Spirit, He was born sinless. If He could maintain this sinless life for all of His life, He could offer Himself for the sins of the world.

The Need for a Savior

All those who are born into this world are lost and in desperate need of a Savior. This was the purpose for which Jesus came into the world as the Messiah. As the sons and daughters of Adam, we are born into the world with a natural tendency towards sin. The Pharisees believed that because they were the descendants of Abraham, they were righteous. Jesus makes it clear that only those who experience a second spiritual rebirth, known in the third chapter of John’s gospel as “born again,” are the children of God.⁠[5]

Jesus Said That Some People Who Sin, Cause Sickness In Their Bodies

As we now understand that sickness and disease are caused by a fundamental defect in our DNA, originated from the sin of Adam, we also learn that wilful sin by a person, can also cause them to become sick and die (James 5:13-16).

In John chapter 5, Jesus heals a man who had been sick and paralyzed for 38 years. We don’t know the source of this affliction, but we do learn that Jesus healed him and then warned the man not to sin after he had been healed, or, “something even worse may happen to you.”

John 5:1-15 1 Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”

 “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”

Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!” But he replied, “The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’” “Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded.

The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.“

It is possible for a person to sin and then become sick because of the sin. This is not to say that all sickness is caused by a person sin by someone, but that some sins are a direct result of personal sin.

It would be wrong to attribute the sickness or disease of every person to their personal sin. It would be equally wrong to deny that sin is the cause of some sickness for a particular person.

In every instance where a person has become sick, the first action that should take place is an person examination of ourselves to see if we are practicing a sin that should be ended. If it is found that this is true, a genuine repentance of this sin, may result in a healing of the condition we are suffering from.

“That is why many of you are weak and sick and some have even died. But if we would examine ourselves, we would not be judged by God in this way. Yet when we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned along with the world.” ~1 Corinthians 11:30-32

In the case of a child who acquires a disease like cancer, it is highly unlikely that a personal sin has cause their disease. We cannot attribute all sickness to personal sin; but we also cannot exclude personal sin as a cause of sickness.

The plan of salvation that is revealed in the Bible, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, provides a way that any person can end sickness, suffering and death, in their own life. God created us to live in a perfect world. The way that He has chosen to make this possible is by our choice to join Him in His kingdom of perfection, or reject His offer. When God has offered all those He has chosen to hear and respond, and their choices have been made, this present world will end and the new world He planned from the beginning of creation, will begin.

You are invited to join all of us sinners who are saved by the marvelous grace and kindness of our God.

• Why Jesus Died For Us
• Jesus Bore All Sickness While Paying For Our Sins on the Cross
• The Fundamentals Of Salvation: God’s Responsibility; Our Responsibility
• The Prophecy Of Good News: All Sins Are Forgiven, There Is New Life In Jesus

NOTES:

[1] Shaul Magid (2008). From Metaphysics to Midrash: Myth, History, and the Interpretation of Scripture in Lurianic Kabbala. Indiana University Press. p. 238.
[2]  Saint Augustine of Hippo, (De civitate Dei, XIV, 16; CCL 48, 438-439 [1-10]). See also: Schmitt, É. (1983). Le mariage chrétien dans l’oeuvre de Saint Augustin. Une théologie baptismale de la vie conjugale. Études Augustiniennes. Paris. p. 97.. See also Augustine’s: De continentia, 8.21; PL 40, 363; Contra Iulianum VI, 19.60; PL 44, 859; ibid. IV, 14.65, z.2, s. 62; PL 44, 770; De Trinitate, XII, 9. 14; CCL 50, 368 [verse: IX 1-8]; De Genesi contra Manicheos, II, 9.12, s. 60 ; CSEL 91, 133 [v.31-35])
[3] Howell’s Textbook of Physiology, Second Edition, pages 885 and 886
[4] Romans 5:12
[5] John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Categories: Children who die, God is Eternal, God Is Holy, God is perfect, God's Sovereignty, His Compassion, How Salvation Occurs, Justification, Religion vs. Relationship, Robert Clifton Robinson, Salvation, Salvation is a free gift, Suffering and Trials, The Suffering of Jesus, Those Who Have Never Heard, Understanding Suffering, We must repent, Why God Allows Evil, Why Jesus Suffered

Tags: All have sinned, God punished Jesus for our sins, How serious sin is to God, Is sickness a result of sin?, No sickness or death in heaven, The Purpose of Suffering, Why God allows suffering