Sin is a chronic, progressive, and eternally lethal disease that attacks the human soul.
It affects our minds as well as our hearts:
“The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds.”
The effects of sin are continual and without respite:
“Sickness and wounds are ever before me.”
And worse still, there is no naturally occurring cure for it among mankind:
“When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to the great king. But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound.”
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
As Micah said of Jerusalem, so it may be said of us:
“Her wound is incurable.”
But Jesus, the Great Physician, came to this sin-sick earth to procure a permanent and glorious cure to our incurable wound. Although He had no sin of His own,
“He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”
Jesus is the only doctor who ever healed His patients by taking their diseases upon Himself, and dying so as to remove their disease from off the earth.
He is only the physician who chose not to heal Himself, but gave Himself up for us all. That is why we need Him!
Let us daily apply the healing balm of Gilead to our sinful souls, for
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”