Objection: Having a Disease Isn’t a Sin, So Jesus Didn’t Need to Atone for Our Sicknesses

I agree with this objection!  It isn’t a sin to have a disease, and Jesus did not “atone for our sicknesses.”

The problem is just a misunderstanding of what “healing in the atonement” is about.  Jesus was not PUNISHED for our sicknesses, rather SICKNESS was laid on Him as part of His atonement as PUNISHMENT for our SINS.

So Jesus atoned for our SINS.  While He was doing that, He took our sicknesses, bearing them in a substitutionary manner to relieve us from having to do so.

Now it is interesting that Leviticus 15:13-15 actually DOES describe an atonement for a man with an “issue” who had by definition become ceremonially unclean because of an illness.  However, no Gentile has ever been expected to be “ceremonially clean,” so Jesus did not need to atone for our ceremonial uncleanness.

If being sick were a sin, Jesus would have commanded all the sick people to repent.  He clearly didn’t do that and neither did any of His followers.

I don’t know anyone who actually teaches that Jesus “atoned for our sicknesses” in the sense that He was punished for the times that we were sick, so this is an objection that tries to knock down a “straw man” argument that no one teaches anyway!