COVID-19: What does the Bible say?

Franklin Graham drew the ire of the press when in a recent interview he tied the coronavirus to the sin of mankind. We have to be careful that we don’t put words in his mouth. He did not point to a specific sin as causing the disease, but he highlighted that sickness and death, and yea, even COVID-19, are in the world because of sin generally, because of man’s rebellion against God (Romans 3:623a). That's what he said.

Which then begs the question: what can I know specifically about God and such plagues from the Bible? Is COVID-19 a judgment upon the world?

In the past, a few pastors have grabbed the limelight by linking natural disasters to God’s specific judgment of the sin of particular groups of people or of specific individuals. The problem with such  positions and such assertions is that they cannot be supported from God’s word to mankind, the Bible.

In wanting to distance ourselves from such heartless heresies, we’ve gone to the other extreme and often said nothing about God’s certain judgment against sin. The media carries on about the worst pandemic in a century as though God has no part of it and has nothing to say about it.

Both positions miss the clear teaching of the Bible.

WHAT I CAN’T SAY

Dirty Harry famously declared, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Nowhere is that more important than when we look to see what God has declared to us in the Bible. I must discern not only what does it say but what doesn’t it say.

WE CAN’T KNOW IF THE PANDEMIC WAS CAUSED BY SIN

In John 9, the disciples are with Jesus, and as they pass a blind beggar, the disciples are curious about whose sin brought about the man’s blindness: his own or his parents’. Two things to note about the disciples question. First, the disciples recognize the sin of the man from his birth. God’s word makes plain that there is none righteous, no, not one (Romans 3:10b) and that inherent sin nature within each person begins at conception (Psalm 51:5). None is born righteous. Each of us is born in sin. Second, the disciples understand that without even knowing them that the parents are sinners, too. Little within sociology can begin to refute the sinfulness of each person, that each one does not uphold God’s perfect standard of holiness.

Notice, too, that in John 9, Jesus doesn’t correct the disciples implications about the sinfulness of the three people in question. In John 8:11 he didn’t deny the sin of the woman caught in adultery either. Almighty God alone understands the magnitude of each one’s sin which is why a sacrifice of the magnitude of the death of the Son of God was required to pay such a penalty for all humanity. We are all steeped in and saturated with our sin.

A brief rabbit trail. While it wasn’t the specific sin of the man or his parents that brought about his blindness, we do recognize that such a condition is traceable to the brokenness of the world that was brought about by the sin of Adam and Eve. What we call natural evil (i.e. blindness, deafness, earthquakes, tsunamis, famine, and pestilence)—all have their root in the original sin of mankind. Death (Genesis 2:17, 3:19) entered the cosmos not as a natural mechanism but as a result of man’s treason against God. With that sentence of death came the decay that accompanies it, both within man himself and within the world created for him (Romans 8:19-22). As such, all sin, all disease, all natural evil within the cosmos can be traced back to the rebellion of man against his Creator. That was Franklin Graham’s point.

I CAN’T KNOW SPECIFICALLY WHY DISASTERS COME

This passage in John 9 isn’t the only time in the Bible that Jesus highlights that we cannot know God’s intention behind a terrible situation. In Luke 13:1-6, Jesus is confronted by some about Pilate’s atrocity of mixing the blood of some Galileans with his sacrifices. When Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?” he highlighted their implication within the question, that is that they suffered this fate because they were worse sinners.

It’s natural, gut-level response. We think that because something terrible has happened to someone, it is because they have done something terrible. We have let the idea of karma within eastern religions infect our thinking. One need only look to the cross of Christ to understand that the only holy Man to walk the planet, the One in which no sin dwelt, Jesus of Nazareth, received not what he deserved but what all of humanity deserved in total.

He dispels their faulty thinking in four words: “No, I tell you…”

As we look to bad things happening in the world, as we look to the wildfire spread of COVID-19 across the globe, no one can point an indicting finger and declare that anyone’s particular sin is the ultimate cause. Prophets of old with God’s divine authority brought such declarations and the coming judgments against specific nations were born out in the days that followed. Or by God’s authority upon his special revelation to them, they (alone) could declare the reason of a cataclysm as God’s specific judgment upon specific sin.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had such a prophet.

WHAT GOD’S WORD DOES SAY

Jesus Christ absolved the man born blind, the Galilean martyrs, and the eighteen who died when Siloam’s tower collapsed of being causal behind the particular evil, but as we already noted, he did not absolve them of sin. That is what Jesus wanted to drive home in the current events lesson of Luke 13. When he said, “No, I tell you” in answer to whether or not it was the Galileans sin, he continued, “but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). He might just as well have slapped each one in the face. In case they missed it, he repeated the lesson when he brought to their mind the eighteen who died when the tower of Siloam collapsed, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:5)

Jesus Christ, God the Son, was (then) and is (now) issuing a wakeup call. And he suggests that it is the darkness and disaster in the world that should snap us out of our complacency.

We, each one, stands in rebellion against God. None righteous. No, not one (Romans 3:10). The Romans 3 passage continues with more troubling detail than an MRI, “no one understands. No one seeks after God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless…there is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:10-18). No sin-stained soul can make a case for themselves against the blistering holiness, goodness, and righteousness of God. And God is warning us.

To think that we can make a case for ourselves before God only seals our condemnation (Luke 18:10-14).

This condemnation is not merely a physical death but an eternal spiritual death separated from God and in eternal punishment (Matthew 10:28, 25:41).

Well, then what hope do we have? Heed what Jesus said in Luke 13. Man must repent before God. It was the sermon of John the Baptist as he prepared the way for the Lord (Matthew 3:3ff). It was the first message of Jesus Christ to the masses when he started his earthly ministry at age 30 (Matthew 4:17). If we cannot fathom that our relationship with God is amiss and a mess in the first place, our relationship with God can never be made right.

When disasters strike, the news feeds will be filled with the question, “Why?” Why did this happen? Who is at fault? Who is to blame? Is it greenhouse emissions? Or is it greenback greed? Jesus shakes his head. Sin has brought these things into the world. Yes, they are a result of sin, but whether it is a particular man’s sin, we cannot know. That is the purview of God.

What we can know is that the obvious consequence of a broken world must slap us with the realization that the world and everyone in it stand condemned before God’s righteous judgment. And we must turn to God. Repentance is serious business. I must recognize God alone is holy. I must recognize I am not, and that I have been a rebel from the womb. In truth, I come to God with nothing to offer. Like the tax collector in Luke 18, I can only beat my chest and beg that God have mercy upon me, a sinner.

This is not an act whereupon receiving God’s mercy and forgiveness, the man then returns to the place of his debauchery and deceits. Repeating the Shammah five times didn’t release him to go back to adulteries and assaults. Like Zacchaeus the tax collector, he goes and makes things right, never to return to his treacherous practices. Half his wealth to the poor. He returned four times that which he stole. This is a man who was truly changed.

But how does this change come?

THE GLORY OF GOD AMID DISASTER

In John 9:3, Jesus gave an amazing reason behind the nightmare of the man’s blindness. No, it wasn’t the sin of the man or his parents, “but,” Jesus said, “that the works of God might be displayed in him.” The entire chapter is an extraordinary story of blindness. The disciples. The people. The parents. The Pharisees. None seeing the reality. And at the end of the story, the only one who “sees” clearly apart from Jesus is the one blind who was physically blind at the start.

The amazing work of God is not physical sight—though that is not to be dismissed as a small thing—but the spiritual sight. Throughout the story, the man testifies to this one who healed him. He recognized the truth of this man, that he must be from God. A prophet?

At the end of the chapter, Jesus asks him if he believes in “the Son of Man,” a phrase that Jews of that day would understand to be the Messiah, the Savior of the world. The man asks Jesus in utter sincerity, “Who is he?” When Jesus reveals himself as the Son of Man, the man-once-blind said, “Lord, I believe,” and John tells us that the man worshipped Jesus (9:38).

Here is God glorified. When he is worshipped for who he is. When man understands his wretchedness through the miraculous touch of God, and upon hearing what God has done for him, he explodes in love and worship for God, God is glorified. Man finds his delight and his satisfaction in the One who created him.

COVID-19

None of this dismisses nor diminishes the darkness of disaster and death. Again, the price paid on the cross by Jesus Christ only magnifies the gravity and grotesque severity of the problem.

But God’s word does point us to the truth that even in the middle of suffering, God calls his creature, each one, to consider where they stand before him. And he does it not that we be overwhelmed in a guilt trip, but that we would reach out to the priceless provision he made on our behalf. “Jesus paid it all,” the song declares, and more than that, the Bible declares it (John 3:16, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Colossians 2:13-14).

Why is COVID-19 ravaging the world? I don’t know specifically; the Bible does not say. But God does make plain to us that such situations are wake-up calls for us even today. Now is not the time for us to hit snooze but to respond to his call.

Sin: The root of evil

Another horrifying day in America. Children dead. Teachers dead. The heart cries out, "Why? How did this happen? How could a human being do such a thing?"  Many folks a thousand miles away spent sleepless nights wrestling with such horror. Parents stole into their children's bedroom to behold their babes and to weep.

Two common answers have swirled about in the wake of this tragedy. It's a mental illness problem, and it's a gun problem. That's Roland Martin's take at CNN, and the sentiment in the Twitter-verse:

"MORE gun control, MORE mental health services. It's no longer a debate. Never was," spewed comedian Patton Oswalt. 

He wasn't alone in his anger.

"The way to honor these dead children is to demand strict gun control, free mental health care, and an end to violence as public policy," suggested Michael Moore.

Anybody notice anything missing from these ruminations? None of these men and few talking heads hold the man accountable for his actions. Man is culpable for what he does.

Man is an independent moral agent responsible for his thoughts, words, and deeds. That's part of what is meant by God when he stated, "Let us make man in our image" (Genesis 1:26). As such, he is responsible for his choices. God went on to strip away excuses when he declared,

"What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person." (Mark 7:20-23)

I do understand that some do not have all of the cognitive tools that others have. Consider the man or woman with Down's Syndrome, but when has there ever been an instance of one with a clear genetic challenge who has gone off the moral deep end and unleashed carnage on an entire school or anything even approximating such atrocity? Rather you'll find the average Down's individual a more moral and compassionate individual than an individual with the standard chromosomal alignment. Nope, if you peek into the cells of butchers like the one in Connecticut, you'll find a set up much like mine or yours.

But what of their past, what of their environment? This has been the focus of modern psychology. We are not responsible for what we do because we are machines, experts assert, and are simply the product of our past and our environment. Does anything that has ever happened to me in the past justify my murdering twenty kids? God doesn't seem to think so. In fact, he goes so far as to command that we control our reactions to slights and affronts.

"But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you." (Matthew 5:44)

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, commands them to,

"Repay no one evil for evil...If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”" (Romans 12:17a, 19)

From the time of the Fall of Man, man's rebelliousness against God and his commands have plagued him and his relationship with his fellow man. He destroys himself and all that is good. Little points to the veracity of the Bible more than what's happening in the world around us. How can man who on the one hand seems to be able to do such good turn about and unleash such evil?

Anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists continue to wrestle with that question, but thousands of years ago, God had recorded for his creatures the truth. Man, created in God's image, has rebelled against his Creator, and while he still carries that image (and thereby the capability for good), that image is marred beyond man's ability to restore it leaving him ever in a struggle against an innate hostility toward God and toward the good.

If you get right down to it, if there is no God, who can say such barbarity is wrong? Is it not survival of the fittest in a world that is red in tooth and claw? But we rail against such a notion. We know such conduct is evil because we were created in God's image, marred though we be. 

So what is it then that causes a man to gun down innocents? The same thing that makes a man cheat on his wife. The same thing that makes a man rob a convenience store. The same thing that makes a man slander a political opponent. It is the sinfulness of man's own heart.

It is for this very reason that Jesus Christ bore in himself the penalty of mankind's rebellion against God. His vicarious sacrifice for us provided the means of justice in dealing with such rebellion by which God's righteousness might be satisfied and by which man might be restored in his relationship to God. Paul went on to declare of the one who has accepted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to himself thusly:

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come." (2 Corinthians 5:17)

A bit later, Paul declares how this took place:

"For our sake he made him (Jesus Christ) to be sin who  knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (5:21)

Even as a Christian, the struggle against our sinful nature remains (Romans 7:23, 1 John 1:8), but as a Christian, God empowers us (Philippians 2:13) and disciplines us (Hebrews 12:7-10) that our minds and our lives might be transformed to a thing that is pleasing to God (Romans 12:1-2).

And so when horrors like those of this past week come, we grieve. Man's rebellion against God continues to slap us in the face, but we do not have to grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). God has provided the solution to such evil by bearing himself the ultimate penalty that was due to each one of us.

This is the only answer (Acts 4:12). We just choose to ignore it.

Hell, plain and simple

[WARNING: Robust doses of biblical information to follow]

I just finished teaching through a couple of weeks on Hell in my Adult Bible Class (the adjective "adult" takes on far different meanings when placed in front of different nouns, doesn't it?). Some things we broached in our discussions, I thought you might find interesting because Americans' ideas about Hell are as far apart as Bangor is from San Diego.

Consider, if you will:

• Your opinion doesn't affect reality. I might argue that Paris exists only in mythology. You see, I have never seen Paris. I have seen pictures, but how do I know that you didn't Photoshop the shots to make it look like everyone else's pictures of Paris. In all likelihood, folks only began speaking of Paris after Vic Hugo penned his Quasimodo epic. Despite my absolute denial about the existence of Paris, the city remains in north-central France. Many find Hell disagreeable and therefore, they deny its existence even though many others have the same argument about Paris.


• Most people are wrong. Jesus Christ made the audacious claim that "...wide is the gate and broad the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it," and at the same time "...narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it" (Matthew 7:13-14). He is speaking of Hell and Heaven, respectively. You'll be hard pressed to find anyone in the Bible who says more about Hell than Jesus. Said a lot more about it than he did Heaven. I suspect it is because he didn't want folks to end up there but understood that most were deluding themselves about their final destination. Matthew records that Jesus seems to be convinced that many are enroute to Hell and few are heading toward Heaven. Staggering, really.


• Most people are wrong, Part II. Start asking your church-going friends to describe Hell and like Bangor and San Diego, you'll find them all over the map. Some have followed the illusion of a pop-theology that God will eventually work it all out that none will be in Hell (personally, I'd be a bit bummed to find myself living next to Mssrs. Hitler, Stalin, or Manson on that street of gold). Others think that the death of the doomed brings annihilation. Again, one is left to wonder about justice if Hitler offs his six-million and Stalin offs his fifty-million and the only punishment is death in this life? We all die! How is that justice? No, the Bible's descriptors of a place of on-going torment and of justice meted out seem nonnegotiable.


• It's not going to be a party. You'll hear folks mention, usually at their DUI limit, "I'd rather go to Hell where I'll be with my friends so we can party!" Do these descriptions sound like a party?


• Likened to a fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:42, 50)
• Darkness (Matthew 8:12)
• Anguish in the flame (Luke 16:24)
• Repayment, vengeance (2 Thessalonians 1:6, 8)
• The punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord (2 Thessalonians 1:9)
• Where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:48)
  
  Those are just a few of the passages where Hell is described in the Bible. Most of the verses cited here and throughout this post also refer to this as an eternal (never-ending) condition.


• God and the Cross. Many have no idea that the literal place we call Hell, the Lake of Fire, was created by God for Satan and his angels (Matthew 25:41, Revelation 20:10). It becomes the final and eternal location of those angelic hosts that sought to supplant their Creator. Rather than savor their Creator and the position he gave them in his creation, they went their own way and God let them. The final consequence is eternal separation from him and eternal torment for the rebellion they unleashed in the cosmos.
  
  

  

  When man followed in rebellion, he consigned himself to that final destination as well (see again, Matthew 25:41, Romans 3:10-18, Revelation 20:15). God would have been just in the absolute to leave man with that sentence, but he "so loved the world that he sent his only Son" to pay the penalty and to absorb the full wrath and condemnation of God. In so doing, God is just and the justifier of mankind (Romans 3:26).
  
  When folks think Hell is overkill on the part of a vindictive God, they grossly misjudge two things. First, they do not comprehend the absolute purity and holiness, righteousness and goodness of Almighty God. Because we miss the boat on that point, we err on the second point and that is the serious nature of our sin and rebellion before the pure and holy God. To begin to fathom these two things, consider what took place when God was nailed to a cross. Perfect purity became supreme sin. Why would God the Son subject himself to so brutal a death as a human being and to the condemnation and wrath of God the Father if not to provide redemption from eternal condemnation and wrath for man?  Which takes us to my final rumination.


• Hell is optional. This is perhaps the most startling concept within the cosmos. Nobody has to go to Hell. People will be condemned to Hell because they chose to be condemned to Hell. God's not playing "I've got a secret." Psalm 8:1-4 and Romans 1:18-20 point out that the creation itself declares the Creator so much so that the Romans passage declares that men are "without excuse." Psalm 19 shouts the same thing about the creation in the first half of its lyric and spends the second half declaring the glory of God's special revelation, the Bible. Especially in America, if any do not know about Jesus Christ and what he did, it is because they have no interest in knowing. We do not comprehend the gravity of our willful ignorance.

You may well call me judgmental, but I will argue that all I am saying is what God's word says itself, what God says himself. Hell is real. It is a place of torment and punishment. It is for man's deserved rebellion. And man does not need to go there.

You do not need to go there. Consider where you stand before a holy God. He stands holding the free gift of eternal life because of the finished work of Jesus Christ (Romans 6:23). All you need to do is repent of your sin and rebellion and accept Jesus' finished work on your behalf. You would be relenting to his rightful lordship in your life. You as the creature would be submitting to your rightful place before your holy and good Creator.

Now is the day of salvation. It's your call.

To welcome the worm

Over the last couple of months, I have posted photos of the Wichita Falls, Texas ten-day forecast on Facebook that looked a lot like today's forecast:

Why would I share such? Perhaps it is my Minnesota roots longing for a 75-degree day to go bike down around the lakes on the southwest side of Minneapolis.  North Texas has no such place where lake dumps into lake ringed by bike paths and naturally growing elms, oaks, maples and pines. Nor does it see 75-degrees between the months of April and October except between 1 and 2 a.m. I remember my undergrad philosophy instructor, Patrick Tower, telling me that "misery loved miserable company." Maybe I just wanted everyone to take pity.

Quite frankly, the area around where I live is facing a dire situation. The heat, yes, has been unrelenting. Couple that with wind that never dies and a ground-quenching rain that last visited some time late last summer and you have a) a tinder box, b) a crop-destroying drought, and c) conditions that crack a house's foundation. If you could think to pray for this neck of the woods--that God would send rain--when you happen to think of me, that would be most appreciated.

As I rode my motorcycle home this afternoon, a decent-sized cloud mass shielded the sun, and praises to God spilled from my lips. When it's 105-degrees, a modicum of shade makes all the difference.  But that cloud got me to thinking of Jonah.

I'll not go into the entire big-fish story (yes, it was a fish and not a whale). Let's skip to the end. Jonah was in the middle of a mood. In fact he was hating life much like I have been hating 10-day forecasts. As he moped on a sun-scorched hillside, God in his goodness sprouted a Miracle-Gro laced plant to grow up and cool the perturbed prophet's brow (Jonah 4:6).

That very same God, to teach Jonah his sovereignty in all things, sent a root-chomping worm that withered the shade-producing plant. Jonah's response? He posted a picture on Facebook of the withered plant and considered death to be favorable to enduring the inferno atop the hill for another day.

God's response: "Son, I bring the shade and I bring the worm. I have my purposes in both, purposes that you do not see. How about coughing up a little praise for the shade AND for the worm?" (a very loose paraphrase of Jonah 4:9-11).

As I type this, my thermostat's on an endurable 77-degrees. I have a kiddie-pool in the back yard to dip into if I need to cool off not to mention the four gallons of ice cream in the freezer and lemonade in the fridge. My God is so very good to me in ways seen and unseen. His word makes clear that he controls the weather (Matthew 5:45). So when we see no rain, when the wind never ceases, and when the temps make the world feel like an Easy-Bake Oven, God's not surprised; he has brought it to pass for his GOOD purposes.

By the time I pulled my bike in the garage, he had given me a repentant heart as well as a cloud-covered ride home. I will continue to pray that he will send the rain and the cooler temps, but I will do so with thanksgiving for his good and for his provision and for his purposes unseen. Though I do not understand all of his ways, I do know that God is always good.