Why did Jesus affirm someone afflicted has sin that caused it?

By Jeff Ward

You’re afflicted because you sinned!

The entire book of Job is on a certain theme. Starting with Job 2:11, Job’s “friends” come to “comfort” him. They observe the horror of his afflictions. They all determine in unison that his condition was related to his sin. For forty painful chapters, multiple friends of Job join in, each affirming his affliction was because of some sin they could not identify.

Finally, in Job 42:7-42:9, Yehovah rebukes the friends for this false presumption, and in Job 42:10-17 restores the blessings to Job.

The lesson: Automatically relating a person’s affliction to their behavior is a reckless practice.

Same story, different century

The story of the “Healing of the paralytic” is found in four places:

  • Matthew 9:1-8
  • Mark 2:1-12
  • Luke 5:17-26
  • John 5:8-9

The setting is the same. The theme is the same. We learn of the relationship between sin and affliction. However, in this case, there is a reversal.

  • Instead of the “friends” associating his affliction with sin, they make no accusations whatsoever. They instead make themselves busy helping him fix it.
  • Instead of Jesus opposing the perception that man’s affliction is a product of sin, he affirms it. His method of dealing with the affliction is to forgive the sin that apparently caused it.

Though they disagree on whether Jesus has the power to forgive, they agreed that this man’s affliction was related to his sin, and was thus remedied when that sin was removed. Not only is it startling that Jesus and the Pharisees agree, it’s also startling to find them both in the role together just like the “friends” of Job. They both presumed automatically that the man was afflicted because he had done something to deserve it.

🙋❓Why do we find God disputing an automatic relationship between sin and affliction, punishing those that promote it, yet Jesus affirming an automatic relationship?