Why'd God make Coronavirus?
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Why would a loving God make Coronavirus and let the world suffer through a COVID-19 pandemic?
Why would a loving God make Coronavirus and let the world suffer through a COVID-19 pandemic?
It goes without saying that we are going through absolutely extraordinary times. The orderly structure of our society that most all of us have experienced since birth has been turned on its ear, seemingly in a weekend.
Things we have always done we cannot do.
Places we have always gone we cannot go.
People we love and care about are being taken down by an unseen enemy.
Jobs where we felt our income was secure have evaporated
The health care system that we have never seen overwhelmed is teetering in big cities.
Children have had an unprecedented conclusion of their school year.
Grocery stores that have always fed us can’t reliably provider our staples.
Policemen and firemen are not as securely present as they have always been.
Even our online stores are not getting our stuff on the front porch before we shut our computer down.
In short, the things we have surrounded ourselves with in this world to assure our security are threatened on every front.
Where’s your God now?
Where’s your God now?
As a believer or even as a nonbeliever, these days require all of us to ask this question?
As a believer, these are days where what you profess to believe will be put to the test.
As a nonbeliever, these days might make you question why others would believe in a benevolent and loving God at all.
These are days, make no mistake, where Jesus and Satan are battling for possession of your soul. It may sound dramatic, but these are the days where our faith or lack of faith has to stand the test of being applied to our world and getting us through to tomorrow.
In the early days of his ministry, the late Reverend Billy Graham, had a partner who preached alongside of him. His sermons were so moving that he was often even considered the better preacher of the two. Countless people were moved to a relationship with God by his words. This mans name was Charles Templeton. He was the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination in Canada and was one of the founders of Youth for Christ.
Yet in 1957, Templeton experienced a crisis of faith and publically declared himself a nonbeliever. The thing which tipped the scales for him was seeing a picture of a dying African girl who was losing her life to drought and the resultant famine. He questioned how a loving God could allow an innocent child to suffer and die for want of a rain storm. His answer is that the God he preached couldn’t if he existed, and therefore, he must not exist.
Templeton’s reasoning lead him to a conclusion which I believe was fundamentally wrong, but he was not wrong for asking the question.
Many of you, believers and nonbelievers alike may have had similar doubts and questions just like this in light of this pandemic. Lets not run from the question. Lets pray about it and together lets look into Scripture to see what the Word, the ultimate source of truth, has to say about it.
Did God create the Coronavirus?
Did God create the Coronavirus?
Yes, God most certainly created this virus as he is the only being capable of the act of creation. All that exists in this world was spoken into existence by him.
Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so.
God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
And by the breath of His mouth all their host.
He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap;
He lays up the deeps in storehouses.
Let all the earth fear the Lord;
Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.
For He spoke, and it was done;
He commanded, and it stood fast.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;
For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.
By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
So clearly, God is the Creator. Things don’t come to be except by the will of God and things dont come to life except by his breath.
So then the answer is Yes, God made the Coronavirus
By the way, a virus is an amazing feat of engineering. Out of just a little protein and nucleic acids, the designer made an organism that can be both dead during parts of its existence and alive at others. It has amazing capabilities to replicate itself like a photocopy machine on steroids. It can endure in harsh conditions and it can change an adapt to new hosts. We lose lives to viruses every day and amazingly God has also granted us the ability to save lives with viruses every day. Anyone who has ever learned some virology has seen witness to God. A virus does not come to be without an intelligence bringing it into existence.
The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.
Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge.
So if God made Coronavirus, why did he make something that hurts us?
So if God made Coronavirus, why did he make something that hurts us?
The answer of course is he didn’t, but somehow something more happened.
When God finished his creation he looked at it and when he did, he sat back, hooked his thumbs in his suspenders, and he made note of something very important.
God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Everything was brought into existence when God concluded his creation. And the God who knows everything knew that it was all very good. There weren’t a few mistakes here and there. There weren’t a few things that snuck by him that were horribly dangerous. There weren’t unexpected spin-offs. It was all very good.
We have a God who is all good and all love and nothing evil in this world has or can emanate from him
And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.
The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
If everything made by God is good, how’d the coronavirus get so bad?
If everything made by God is good, how’d the coronavirus get so bad?
So if only Good things can come from God, how do we end up with the evil and misery and suffering that this world contains? How do we get from a coronavirus designed by God and examined by him and proclaimed to be “very good” to a coronavirus that sickens and kills his children?
The answer to that quandry lies in God’s decision to create us in his image.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
So He created us to be a reflection of himself into his creation. He is in his heavenly realm and he created us to represent him in this worldly realm. As his representatives, we were originally given dominion over all of his creation to rule and subdue it. The creation was subject to us and not the other way around.
Additionally, as beings created in the image of God, we were imbued with freewill. We were given the ability to choose. We were not created as pre-programmed robots to just do God’s bidding.
Now, God created us for a very specific purpose. To have a relationship with him and with each other that glorified our God and the limitless love he has for us. We are to be living examples of his glorious love.
Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
Everyone who is called by My name,
And whom I have created for My glory,
Whom I have formed, even whom I have made.”
“The people whom I formed for Myself
Will declare My praise.
Ok so lets summarize.
God created us to have a relationship of mutual love with him and each other, to be his representative, in his image, to this creation, and to display his glory.
Here is the critical point to understand
If we had exercised our free will to fulfil our purpose just as God intended, then we would still be living in the paradise of Eden in the daily presence of our Creator. His perfect design would still operate perfectly for us. We would have no need, no want, no misery, no suffering and no death.
That was the deal we were offered. But when presented with that existence, we thought we knew better and we chose something else.
Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
So we have clear instruction.
God knows what is good and has given us only good things.
He tells us that we have no need to be able to discern good from evil because he has provided for us. We need only trust in him and all that we experience in that trust will be good.
Why did God tell Adam that knowing the difference between good and evil would kill him? That seems a bit odd.
Its not so much that knowing the difference leads to our death. But its the idea that we would trust in ourselves more than we would trust in God that defeats us. It suggest that rather than glorifying God as we were created to do, we would be choosing to glorify ourselves and diminish him.
Do you know anyone that would rather trust in themselves or glorify themselves rather than to defer to the goodness of God in their lives? Can you see times in your own life where this has been you?
Well Adam and his wife Eve experienced this moment of having to choose between what God wants for us and what we want for us. And to the agony of all creation, they exercised their free will to choose themselves over God.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat;
but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’ ”
The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!
“For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.
Any time we choose a path that separates us from the will of God, there is consequence and this first instance is no different.
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.”
To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you.”
Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
“Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;
By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.”
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—
therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken.
So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.
Not only was all of humanity imprinted with this flaw of tending to love self over God but because we perverted the purpose for which God had made us, we corrupted the perfection of his creation.
For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope
that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
This passage is pivotal
It teach us that our original sin corrupted and damaged all of God’s handiwork. That not just humanity was stained but in fact all of creation was maligned by man’s wrong choice. Moreover generation after generation of humanity has continued to choose to live in opposition to God’s will so the corruption continues.
In God’s design, there was no death and therefore no coronavirus that could kill us. There was no suffering so no illness that would take us from health to a ventilator in 10 days.
But like an errant child who thinks he knows better than his parents, but on a much grander scale, we have run amok in God’s creation and handed our dominion of it over to Satan. He has become the Prince of this World by stealing our dominion from us.
Our God is a just God and he is not able to unsee sin. And the price of sin is death
Now because of our sin, we must contend with drought and starving innocent little girl’s in Africa. Now we must contend with COVID-19, not because God did not love us enough, but because we did not love him.
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Our God is a just God and there is a price to pay. BUT, our God is also a faithful God and a God of love and a God of Hope
Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;
who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
“Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments;
The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
From the moment he created us, he knew that the humanity that he so loved could fail him. So from the moment he created us he had a plan to restore us to him should we ever fall away.
Our God is a God of countless second chances.
Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity
And passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession?
He does not retain His anger forever,
Because He delights in unchanging love.
And rend your heart and not your garments.”
Now return to the Lord your God,
For He is gracious and compassionate,
Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness
And relenting of evil.
So if he gave us perfection, and we screwed that up, what was God’s rescue plan?
So if he gave us perfection, and we screwed that up, what was God’s rescue plan?
In a name, Jesus
Since sin warrants death. A just God requires that the debt be paid.
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne;
Lovingkindness and truth go before You.
Recognizing the weight of human sin, God knew no mere man would be able to cover the debt that humanity had incurred.
He knew only a perfect sacrifice would do. He also knew that the only perfect sacrifice would be his Son, Jesus
Because he so loved the humanity he created. He offered up that Son as a complete and perfect sacrifice. A sacrifice so incomprehensibly perfect that it would redeem the debt of all of humanity’s sin
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
We are washed so incredibly clean by the blood of Christ that we are once again able to come to the table and be in communion with the Father. We are restored to Eden. But an even better Eden. One where there is no longer the temptation of sin and one where we will dwell for eternity glorifying our Creator.
“Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord;
and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you,
whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.
So the next time you feel driven to mock a believer for following a God that would permit this pandemic, consider what that God gave us in Christ.
The next time you balance your checkbook and are bitter over the job you lost in this crisis, remember what your Great Grandfather Adam has cost you
The next time a family member or a friend are buried too early remember all of the sin you yourself have heaped upon the cross.
God gave us Eden. We rebelled against him and repudiated that gift for a world with COVID-19. A world of our own creation and our own choice.
After we failed, God gave us Jesus. Through him he gave us a path to an eternal existence where there is no toxic coronavirus. Yet we still rebel and so many repudiate this gracious gift of a second chance.
We stand filled with pride and hubris and self assurance and just as Adam and Eve we tell God we don’t need him on our lives, or in our homes, or in our government, or in our schools, or in our workplaces. We smugly ignore our own history and are confident that we will do just fine making our own decisions.
Because of this foolishness we have war, and disease, and crime, and want. Not because God put them in our lives but because generation after generation after generation we make the free will choice to have them there.
God did not give us a coronavirus that could harm us. That unfortunately is a sentence we have passed on ourselves.
Choose Jesus. He is the Way. The only way back to what our loving God created for us.
“If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people,
and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Our struggle with humbling ourselves and being obedient to the purpose that God set for us is the problem. COVID-19 is nothing more than a symptom of what is already broken in our hearts. Jesus Christ is a surer antidote than wonder drugs, vaccines, and social distancing.
God is not punishing us. He is not leaving us to suffer. He loves us and his heart is breaking for us right now. He is trying to rescue us from the consequences of our own folly if we would only grasp the lifeline he has been holding out to us. Accept the help and you will find yourself in a place of peace where everything this coronavirus can take away from you pales in value compared to every thing God has waiting for you as an eternal inheritance that is yours just for the asking.