Sin a Disease
I. The instinct that there is a connection between sin and penalty is universal and from God. The grossest forms of sacrifice that have made the name of religion horrible had their root in a true instinct. The revelation of God in Christ came not to uproot this belief, but to interpret it, to guide it, to lead it to bear fruit. Bodily sickness is to a certain extent the lot of all, and we may not show ourselves anxious to connect it with the notion of punishment for specific acts. We have learned, too, since the days of the first Christians, something more of the laws of health than they were acquainted with, and this knowledge tends to reduce within narrower limits the afflictions which we designate as judgments. But the tendency to view sin and punishment as different things and the connection between them as arbitrary, is unhappily not less strong in the full light of the nineteenth century than in the glimmering dawn in which the first Christians walked.
II. Jesus said, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents." We are to understand this answer with reference to the question which provoked it. The man had, we are sure, been a sinner and his parents also. But there was no special unrighteousness, either in the parents or the child, which had brought on them this sad calamity.
The worksof God were to be made manifest in this man not one workonly; therefore not the miracle of a sudden restoration to sight by itself. The miracle is a sign a witness, that is, of the nature of Him who wrought it. The incident which opened the eyes of the poor vagrant is one of those which have let in light upon a sin-blinded world.
III. In all evil, in disease and in disorder, is a work of God made manifest; because we see these things to be evil through the light which is His. That sin is seen to be sin; that disease and death are recognised as the enemies of a Divine order; that we are aware, as St. Paul became aware, of a body of death to which we are bound prisoners; that, in fine, we feel the punishment of sin is matter for profound thankfulness. That we know our degradation is, at least, to know the height from which we have fallen. Sin is inextricably bound up with punishment, and if the thought is terrible, there is one more terrible still, and that is the thought of sin without punishment.
A. Ainger, Sermons in the Temple Church.
References: John 9:1-3, S. Cox, Expositions,p. 153, 4th series, p. 163; Homilist,vol. iv., p. 397. John 9:1-7. Homiletic Magazine,vol. xv., p. 349. John 9:1-8. Homilist,new series, vol. v., p. 136. John 9:1-41. Contemporary Pulpit,vol. x., p. 301.