TEWKESBURY. Will you explain 1 Corinthians 11:30,30For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. (1 Corinthians 11:30) please? Is it bodily sickness that is meant, or spiritual sickness; and does it apply literally today?
IN this verse sickness and death of the body are alluded to, for the word “sleep,” here as elsewhere, means death. The previous verse tells us that to eat and drink the supper of the Lord in an unworthy manner brings upon us judgment from the Lord in the course of His governmental dealings with us. The form that judgment took with the Corinthians was sickness and even death. Had they but judged themselves, which would have at once led to the correction of the evil, they would not have been thus judged. But being judged they had to recognize it as a chastening from the Lord’s hand sent so that they might at once come under the divine dealings and not have their judgment postponed to the great day of reckoning that awaits the world.
It unquestionably applies today. The Lord still deals with us in chastisement if and when necessary. He may not send it in the form of sickness or death, but in other forms. That is as seems best to Him. Not all the sins of a Christian are “a sin unto death.” (1 John 5:16, 1716If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. 17All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death. (1 John 5:16‑17)). Nor is all chastisement that may come upon us necessarily in retribution for sins committed. Chastisement may be preventive (See 2 Cor. 12:77And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. (2 Corinthians 12:7)) or educational (See Heb. 12:5-95And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 7If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 8But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 9Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? (Hebrews 12:5‑9)).
Happy is that believer who learns to habitually judge himself and who consequently walks in obedience and avoids the things that would call for the chastisement of the Lord.