Spiritual Significance of Mental Illness

[Published February 17, 2008]

Hello the team,

I enjoy” is, was and will be” very much; in fact I am reading and listening to “is, was and will be” the unknown character of Christ and his word almost daily. The question I have concerns MENTAL ILLNESS.  Could you give some information on mental illness, the spiritual significance of mental illness.

E____

Hi E____,

Thank you for your question. You ask: What is the spiritual significance of mental illness?

When we look at the example of Christ’s healings in scripture, the example of the epileptic stands out as a very clear case of mental illness.  Look at what is said about that healing:

Mat 17:14  And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a [certain] man, kneeling down to him, and saying,
Mat 17:15  Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water.
Mat 17:16  And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.
Mat 17:17  Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.
Mat 17:18  And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.
Mat 17:19  Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?
Mat 17:20  And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Mat 17:21  Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

Here is this same story in Mark:

Mar 9:24  And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
Mar 9:25  When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him.
Mar 9:26  And [the spirit] cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead.
Mar 9:27  But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose.

According to this and many other scriptures, all diseases are really nothing more or less than evil spirits which are sent by God to do what they are doing. Just witness this story:

Joh 9:1  And as [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man which was blind from [his] birth.
Joh 9:2  And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
Joh 9:3  Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
Joh 9:4  I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
Joh 9:5  As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
Joh 9:6  When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,
Joh 9:7  And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

“Which by interpretations is sent” tells us that this entire story, as with every story in the Bible, happens because God sends spirits to cause His will to be done in all things:

Eph 1:11  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

Anyone in whom dwells the spirit of promise takes great comfort in those words. He does not complain about the things he cannot immediately understand, simply because he has been given the faith to believe that verse and all the other verses of God’s Word which witness to its Truth.

Isa 45:7  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things].

1Sa 16:14  But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.
1Sa 16:15  And Saul’s servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee.
1Sa 16:16  Let our lord now command thy servants, [which are] before thee, to seek out a man, [who is] a cunning player on an harp: and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well.

Since Christ is the Truth through whom His Father does all things, it is actually Christ who is doing all things for His Father just as Joseph did all things for Pharaoh.

Christ actually gives us this warning about casting out demons:

Mat 12:43  When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
Mat 12:44  Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.
Mat 12:45  Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last [state] of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.

“Empty [but] swept and garnished” is the condition of all who first come to Christ. That is the condition of us all when the beast receives a deadly wound within us. If we refuse to “leave the principles of the doctrine of Christ and go on unto perfection,” then the “sincere milk” itself becomes a poison which will retard our growth in Christ.

The scriptures do not allow us to remain on a plateau indefinitely. Yes, there is night and day, there is summer and winter, but there must be growth through it all. If there is no growth “then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.

1Pe 2:2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:

We have all lived these words by virtue of being so long in Babylon. It is only by God’s sovereign grace that any of us are ‘chosen’ out of the ‘many [deceived] called’ to have our “swept and garnished” house, again cleansed and filled with the fire of God’s spirit, His Word. Peter is not encouraging us to remain babes in Christ. To the contrary, he is warning us against remaining a babe in Christ: “That you may grow thereby…”

Your question is:

“Could you give some information on mental illness, the spiritual significance of mental illness.”

Christ tells us plainly that mental illness, as with all illnesses, is the work of an “unclean spirit.” Christ also tells us that His Words “are spirit.”

Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life.

However, just as Christ’s Words and His doctrines are His spirit, He has also created and sent out an Adversary to those words and doctrines:

1Jn 4:1  Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets [unclean spirits] are gone out into the world.

So the answer to your question is that mental illness in scripture, just like any other disease in scripture, is spiritual illness, or false prophets. Mental illness, spiritually, signifies spiritual lunacy, the hardest disease from which we must all be purged:

Mar 9:28  And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out?
Mar 9:29  And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.

Read our paper on “The Fast That I Have Chosen…” It is not “the fast” which “this wicked generation” of orthodox Christianity is practicing with all of their efforts to “lay on heavy burdens” by raising money to further all their lunatic doctrines which “cast us all into the fire [of God’s purging Word] and water [of His baptism].

Isa 58:5  Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? [is it] to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?
Isa 58:6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
Isa 58:7  [Is it] not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
Isa 58:8  Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward.
Isa 58:9  Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I [am]. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;

Mat 3:11  I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:

Luk 12:49  I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?
Luk 12:50  But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!

The holy spirit, the fire and the baptism are all one and the same thing. They all are God’s Words:

Joh 12:48  He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken , the same shall judge him in the last day.

“The last day” is already upon the house of God:

1Pe 4:12  Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
1Pe 4:13  But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

1Pe 4:17  For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

Those judging, purging, cleansing, fiery words are already judging God’s elect:

1Co 11:31  For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
1Co 11:32  But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.

All of God’s Words are designed to be lived by all men through the judgment of all men:

Mat 4:4  But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Isa 26:9  With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

Each of us is “the earth.” When Christ’s judging words are in us, then we will learn righteousness and the lunacy of all of the false doctrines of Babylon will be burned out of us.

I hope that answers your question, and I hope you can see that mental illness, or lunacy, spiritually stands for the hardest false doctrines from which we must be delivered. They cannot be cast out by unconverted, “yet carnal… babes in Christ.” They cannot be cast out by disciples who think they are converted just because many of the spirits are subject to them and they have seen people healed of other diseases.

Mental illness is a spiritual type of strong delusion. Be sure to read Will God’s Strong Delusion Deceive You? I hope you see that false doctrines must be replaced by the Truth before seven other false doctrines, worse than the first, come and take up residence upon the throne of Christ within us all.

Mike