Blake Long

The other day our youngest, Piper, got sick. Anytime someone in my family gets sick—whether it’s my kids or wife—I immediately want to make sure they’re okay. But then there’s another part of me—a sinful one—that immediately resorts to anxiety. Hopefully it’s not contagious, I think. I hate vomiting.

I inevitably make the situation all about me. Of course, I’m concerned for my child. She’s pitiful when sick and you never want to see that. My fear of sickness doesn’t supersede my concern and care to clean my child up. Don’t get me wrong—it’s gross. But I’ll help clean up any way I can.

But then I stress, fret, and my mind spirals out of control. I begin to worry about when the stomach bug is going to reach me, and when I will start to feel nauseous. In the process of stressing, I subconsciously make myself nauseous. Many times, I’m nauseous not because I ate something wrong or have a stomach bug, but because I worry myself into it.

It’s exhausting.

I say all that to say this: I know it’s sinful of me to constantly worry about getting sick (when others around me are sick). Nobody wants to vomit — and I’m sorry you’re reading a blog post about it — but I get overly anxious about being sick and think act like it’s the end of the world. I’ve prayed and repented many times for my anxiety about this, but yet I still continue to worry for too much about whether or not I’ll come down with a bug.

With that said, this predicament caused me to think the other day about a question I’ve never thought of before: Did Jesus ever get sick?

Weirdly enough, there’s not a great deal of information about this specific question online — depending on the source. And it’s not necessarily a question that needs answered, but it’s certainly an interesting one to ponder. Did Jesus ever vomit? Could the Son of God have gotten a common cold? Was it possible for the Messiah to have a sinus infection?

Let’s talk about both sides of the argument.

Yes, He Did

When I first began to ponder this question, I immediately said, “Yes, of course He did.” I was quick to answer that because, well, Jesus was truly human. Jesus got tired (John 4:6), cold as an infant (Luke 2:12), hungry (Luke 4:2), slept (Mark 4:38), and so on. There are myriad verses indicating the true, genuine humanity of Jesus—a humanity just like you and me.

When Jesus descended to earth as God in human flesh, He came down as just that—human flesh. To be sure, He was truly God as well (which we will get to), but He was a real human being just like us.

Even more, if Jesus died a real death, surely He was able to get sick, right? Though His death was on His own accord for a specific reason (John 10:17-18), He still, nevertheless, died.

No, He Didn’t

The more I thought about it, the more I pondered Jesus as God. He was—and still is—human, but He was also God in the flesh. And He was born of a virgin, by the Holy Spirit. This means Jesus was not tainted or marred by original sin—the effects of the fall of man in the garden of Eden.

Because He was not effected by original sin (and therefore not a sinner), we could reasonably conclude He never got sick. Why? Because all sickness is the result of original sin. The only reason our physical bodies get sick is because of sin. Sin, as we know, has spiritually damaging consequences. It also has physical consequences, for we know “the wages of sin is death” (Roman 6:23).

Since His physical body was not effected by original sin, how could He ever get sick? Again, the only reason He died was because He chose to lay down His life for us. Also, Jesus came in close contact with a leper — an extremely contagious disease. Yet He didn’t get leprosy from that. This is where we have to confirm, again and again, that as God, Jesus had the power over sickness and disease.

So, did Jesus ever get sick or not?

My Answer

As of now—and I’m willing to be proven wrong—I believe Jesus did get sick during His life on earth. Or, at the very least, I believe He was able to get sick. “Jesus was exempt from no aspect of our human condition, except for our rebellion,” Russell Moore wrote. “He was not exempt from something as common as sickness.”

We must make something crystal clear: the Bible never records Jesus being sick. It records Him behind hungry, thirsty, tired, etc., but never says a thing about Him being sick.

That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Scripture tells us repeatedly that Jesus was a human like us, and went through human things—yet without sin. So, I believe it follows that He could also get sick, just like us. At the very least, I think you could argue that He voluntarily allowed Himself to get sick.

Thomas Schreiner wrote in his commentary on Romans:

The Son did not merely resemble human flesh but participated fully in sinful flesh. This does not mean that the Son himself sinned … but that he participated fully in the old age of the flesh, and that his body was not immune to the powers of the old age: sickness and death.

Schreiner puts it beautifully here. Though Jesus was not a sinner Himself, He “participated” in human flesh just like we do. What a mystery—and what grace!—it is that the Son of God became a man, resided in real, human flesh, and dwelt among us. And while He did so, He voluntarily allowed Himself to endure things we endure because of sin.

More practically, I believe He was able to get sick so He could sympathize with us more. So the next time you catch a stomach bug, have a cold, or whatever it is, you can understand that Jesus went through it as well. And I’ll leave you with these words, again, from Russell Moore that I found encouraging:

I hope you don’t get a stomach virus this year, or the flu or the fever or a cold. But, if you do, I hope you remember, just for a minute, in your discomfort that Jesus has passed through everything you’ll ever face. He might have been racked with nausea or chills or aches, just as you are. And then he faced far, far worse.

But, as you lie there, remember the gospel of incarnation and substitution, a gospel that comes, as the old song says, to make his blessings known “far as the curse is found.”