Coronavirus and God

I will say to the Lord, “My refuge, my fortress, my God in whom I trust.” (Psalm 91:2)

Thank you, Lord, that we can trust you in the good times and the bad.

Who would have thought a few months ago that a virus would run rampant through the entire world, killing where it went, instilling fear in entire populations, and shutting down the economies of virtually every nation on the globe?  I never would have dreamed this.  You read a lot of news about this virus, but the people who tell the news, by and large, have no heavenly perspective on what they are talking about.  Thus, it is easy for the Christian to overdose on the news and start believing things contrary to God’s Word.  What I want to do is give a theological perspective on the events surrounding us.  So here are some thoughts:

Coronavirus is the result of the Fall

When God created the world, He said it was very good, but when Adam and Eve fell, they brought calamity to God’s very good world.  When they sinned, they corrupted the entire human race and the world system we live in.  Here on Earth everything is now broken.  The calamity that sin brought includes problems like sickness and death, pain and suffering, emptiness and sorrow.  The current coronavirus is merely one small result of that Fall. 

Coronavirus is God’s reminder that this world is not and never will be the utopia we want it to be.  Coronavirus is God’s reminder that this Earth is broken and if you live for Earth, you get only brokenness in the end.  Coronavirus is God’s reminder that this world is not our home. 

God gave consequences for the Fall, and those consequences exist for a reason.  Coronavirus is merely a small example of one of those consequences. 

Coronavirus shows us that we are not in control.

This is the 21^st century.  This is America.  We have scientific knowledge.  We have advanced technology.  We have money and comfort and pleasure. 

But we are not in control.

Coronavirus is a reminder that the human race is weaker than we would like to think.  Past eras saw this fact more clearly than we do, for they were not sheltered from pain to the extent we are.  They had no electricity, no central heat or air conditioning, no Tylenol for pain, no Netflix for entertainment.  They did not need a major plague to know that they were not in control.  Daily life told them that.

But we are different.  We shield ourselves from everyday pains and get drunk on the elixir of entertainment or our own comfort.  We have a thousand choices at our fingertips.  Until something severe comes along, we pass the time thinking we are fine . . . we are in control.  Our information, technology, and entertainment have built for us a house of cards that we put our trust in.  Coronavirus tears down this house of cards. 

Coronavirus is not bigger than God

Coronavirus shows us that we cannot put our trust in our own strength or this world system, but coronavirus cannot and will not harm God.  To God coronavirus is a speck of dust in the universe. 

What this means is that the proper spiritual response to coronavirus is to acknowledge our own sin and weakness and run to God.  God is bigger than coronavirus. 

On Sunday night our church met online, and several people shared that God had spoken to them through Psalm 91.  Here is what it says:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
² I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

³ For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
    and from the deadly pestilence.
⁴ He will cover you with his pinions,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
⁵ You will not fear the terror of the night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
⁶ nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
    nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

⁷ A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.
⁸ You will only look with your eyes
    and see the recompense of the wicked.

⁹ Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—
    the Most High, who is my refuge—
¹⁰ no evil shall be allowed to befall you,
    no plague come near your tent.

¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways.
¹² On their hands they will bear you up,
    lest you strike your foot against a stone.
¹³ You will tread on the lion and the adder;
    the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.

¹⁴ “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;
    I will protect him, because he knows my name.
¹⁵ When he calls to me, I will answer him;
    I will be with him in trouble;
    I will rescue him and honor him.
¹⁶ With long life I will satisfy him
    and show him my salvation.”

God is our protector.  God is our refuge.  God is our fortress.  God is our shield.  God is our deliverer.  God is our shelter.  And God is bigger than coronavirus. 

Psalm 91 does not mean that God’s people never suffer.  Jesus suffered.  Paul suffered.  Peter suffered.  Jacob, Moses, David, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednago, on we could go.  Psalm 91 does not guarantee health, wealth, and prosperity in every instance.  It is a statement of trust in God who takes care of His people.  His faithfulness is our shield. 

Psalm 91 also does not mean we abandon common sense.  Satan quoted this psalm to Jesus to get Jesus to jump off the temple.  We are not to tempt God by being stupid and then say, “God will protect me.”  We are to use common sense and to trust God as we do.  Concerning coronavirus, we will limit physical contact, wash hands, and all the rest, but we do not pretend that these practices are our refuge and fortress.  God is.  And only God is.  Coronavirus should drive us to God.  If it doesn’t, we have no understanding of what is going on or of God Himself.  We see with physical eyes only. 

God will work out good things in the midst of coronavirus

People are suffering and dying.  Families have lost loved ones.  Workers have lost jobs.  Businesses are struggling financially.  All of these situations are real, and I don’t want to minimize the pain people feel.  Coronavirus has brought real suffering.

But in the midst of all the pain, God will do good.  He is that kind of God.  He turned Haman’s plan against him.  He took Satan’s plan to crucify the Son of God and used it to save the world.  Can there be a darker day on Earth than Good Friday?  And yet Good Friday is called Good for a reason.  God turned evil on its head and destroyed it with its own weapon.  He will do the same with coronavirus.

God will use coronavirus for His good purposes.  Coronavirus has already caused many people to be more open to God.  It has caused some to see how shallow and empty Earth is.  It has brought families together.  It has given billions of people more time to seek God, and some have used that time to learn of God and seek Him in Scripture and prayer.

God does not see things the same way we do.  Most people see only the physical and the right now, and if that is all you see, then coronavirus is a sad picture.  But God looks at the spiritual and the eternal.  His perspective is fuller and richer than ours.  He sees things we don’t.  If suffering causes people to seek God, then God will gladly bring suffering.  He will trade the temporary in order to get the eternal, and suffering has this way of causing people to think on the eternal. 

If you look at the news, all you will see is the suffering, but the heavenly news reports different things, and it is not all bad.    

Is coronavirus God’s judgment?

That’s a complicated question.  In one sense it is.  In another sense it may or may not be.  Let me explain.

We need to understand that the wages of sin is death and that the consequences of the Fall are God’s judgment on sin.  In this sense all pain, suffering, sickness, and death is a judgment of sorts.  God has judged sin to be worthy of such consequences.  In this sense, God has woven judgment into the fabric of this world.  Normal pains are judgments.  Even when a baby dies, his death is a result of being born with a sinful nature into a sinful world, and death is God’s normal judgment on sin.  In this sense, coronavirus is a judgment in the same way that the flu or cancer or an avalanche can all be judgments.  This sort of judgment is generic and is part and parcel of living in a fallen world.  I mention it because most people do not think of ordinary pains and deaths as judgments, but they are — even if they have no relation to some specific sin.

However, when people ask if coronavirus is a judgment, they do not have in mind this generic type of judgment.  What they have in mind is whether coronavirus is a special and specific judgment of God on some specific sin or set of sins in the human race. 

To this I have to say, “I don’t know.”  In order to say that coronavirus is or is not some special judgment of God, I would need to receive some special revelation from God, and I have received no such thing.

Some people, however, may confidently declare that God would never punish anyone with such a plague, but those people have never read their Bibles.  In Scripture, God brings special judgments for sin all the time.  Consider Noah and the flood, David after he took the census, Jeremiah and the Babylonian captivity, or the book of the Revelation just to name a few.  We cannot rule out the judgment of God as a possible explanation for coronavirus.  Such judgment would be well within God’s character.

At the same time, neither can we confidently state that coronavirus is a special judgment that God has released upon the world.  People who say this also need to consider their Bibles.  In Scripture, God allows calamities to come upon the righteous and the unrighteous.  Consider Job, the man born blind whom Jesus healed, the persecuted church in Acts, and the psalmists’ frequent cries of “How long, O Lord.” 

It would not surprise me if coronavirus is a special judgment of God.  It would also not surprise me if it is not.  Therefore, given the fact that, apart from some special revelation, we simply don’t know, I think it best for the average believer to not overly concern himself or herself with the question.  Be OK not knowing and focus on more fruitful questions like “How can I draw closer to God . . . How can I live a more holy life . . . How can I love and serve my neighbor?”  Pursuing those kinds of questions will actually bear more fruit in your life.