Only the Sick need a Physician: Contraception and the Purpose of Medicine

Jesus told the Pharisees in Matthew 9:12, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” It was a stinging rebuke to the self-righteous laymen of Judaism, and a striking reminder of Christ’s purpose in coming to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance (v. 13). The parabolic statement of the “physician” and the “sick” was easily understood by Christ’s audience then and now. Sick people need physicians to heal them. People who are well do not.

Interestingly enough, contemporary evangelicalism might be losing their grip on this timeless truth. What was once a clear understanding of the role and purpose of medicine in a biblical worldview has now been replaced with a troublesome mixture of pragmatic humanism.  Those are hefty words, so let’s see if the issue we are approaching can bear the weight.

Medicine, simply defined, is a substance used in treating disease. No one disagrees on that. For our purposes here, we may even go so far as to say that it can be understood and used to prevent disease (thus including vitamins, minerals, etc. in the defintion).

Birth control, simply defined, is a substance that is used to prevent pregnancy. No one disagrees on that either.

This leads one to believe, however, that pregnancy is then a disease, since it is treated (i.e. prevented) with the help of medicine!

The problems (both philosophical and theological) with that conclusion should be quite obvious. As Christians, we know that pregnancy is not a product of the Fall, nor is it a precursor to death in the form of sickness or disease — therefore its prevention is not a proper ends for medicine. For those outside of the Christian worldview, the idea that pregnancy is something other than “health” is the very argument that is being used promote the morality of abortion. If we begin treating pregnancy as if it is a disease that women are to be protected from, we will very quickly come to the kind of rhetoric used by Professor Eileen McDonagh where she argues “that a fetus is, in effect, a criminal — a “powerful intruder” guilty of “kidnapping” a woman and holding her hostage for nine months — and thus could be dispatched like any violent assailant.”

In layman’s terms, medicine is meant to declare war on disease within our bodies; and the physician’s role of healing is meant to treat sickness. So the questions that we are then confronted with is, what is the picture we get in Scripture of the state of pregnancy? Is the conception of an image-bearer of the Triune God a disease? It is a sickness? Is the unification of egg and sperm a product of the Fall?

As Paul might say, “By no means!” Pregnancy in Scripture is anything but disease-ridden; rather it is life-giving! The testimony of our Createdness echoes the undeniable truth that women were, in a very real sense, meant to conceive and bear children! God fashioned Eve (and all her daughters after her) in such a way that they provide the perfect conditions for life to spring forth — in health, not in sickness. The curse of the Fall has indeed led to pain and sorrow in childbirth, but make no doubt, the conception and birth of a child is not part of the curse; in fact, the birth of One child in particular was the very remedy for it!

Away then with treating pregnancy as a product of the Fall! Away with treating what God calls a “gift” and a “heritage” from Him as we would treat a virus and disease! Away with using the gift of medicine to reject the gift of children as if children were the curse and contraception the remedy! My dear brothers and sisters, know ye not that “only the sick need a physician”…?

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There is a balm in Gilead

To make the wounded whole;

There is a balm in Gilead

To heal the sin sick soul.

Our ultimate sickness, friends, is borne out of sin, and our only and ultimate cure is the healing touch of the Great Physician. There is, indeed, a balm in Gilead — and His name is Jesus Christ. May He show us today what he calls well and what he calls sick, and may we seek to be made well in Him.

Sola gratia -

‘BH