Gospel, Disease, and Theistic Evolution

Abstract

Through the cross, Christ established the kingdom of God, which set in motion a process that will bring about not only the restoration of God’s people but the renovation of the entire cosmos. A key part of this restoration is the reversal of death and disease, mourning and pain, of which Jesus’ healings and revivifications in the Gospels are a confirmation and foretaste. If Jesus died to bear every illness and disease of those who place their faith in him, then all human disease must come as a result of the fall. Thus, sickness and disease are, from the Bible’s perspective, related to the fall. If, however, sickness and disease were already a part of the human experience prior to the fall, then the Gospel is compromised.