By Here is a summary of a little book worth reading. It is entitled Coronavirus and Christ and is written by John Piper. You can access it here:
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“What is God doing through the coronavirus?” While John Piper does not claim these answers to be exhaustive, it is a reminder to us that God is at work in this moment in history.
The first things that God is doing through the corona virus is …
1. Picturing Moral Horror
God is giving the world in the coronavirus outbreak, as in all other calamities, a physical picture of the moral horror and spiritual ugliness of God-belittling sin.
Sin, in fact, is why all physical misery exists.
The Fall Is Judgment
The Bible does not see this brokenness as merely natural, but as the judgment of God on a world permeated with sin. Paul describes this in Romans 8:20-22.
The difference for Christians—those who embrace Christ as their supreme treasure—is that our experience of this corruption is not condemnation. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ” (Rom. 8:1). The pain for us is purifying, not punitive.
When I trace the miseries of this world back to God’s judgment, I am not shutting my eyes to the fact that Satan is very involved in our global misery. The Bible calls him “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), and “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31), and “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). He has been “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). He binds and oppresses with many diseases (Luke 13:16; Acts 10:38).
But Satan is on a leash. The leash is in God’s hands. He does not act without God’s leave. He acts only with permission and limitation (Job 1:12; 2:6; Luke 22:31; 2 Cor. 12:7). God decides finally the extent of Satan’s damage. He is not separate from God’s judgment. He serves it—unwittingly.
In our present condition, after the fall, blinded by sin, we cannot see or feel how repugnant sin against God is. Hardly anyone in the world feels the horror of preferring other things over God.
We need to see this, and feel this, or we will not turn to Christ for salvation from the ugliness of sin. We may cry out to escape the penalty of sin. But will we see and hate the God-demeaning, moral ugliness of sin? If we don’t, it will not be because God has not provided vivid portrayals of it in physical misery—like the coronavirus. Therefore, God is mercifully shouting to us in these days: Wake up! Sin against God is like this! It is horrible and ugly. And far more dangerous than the coronavirus.
2. Sending Specific Divine Judgments
Some people will be infected with the coronavirus as a specific judgment from God because of their sinful attitudes and actions.
The fact that all misery is a result of the fall—a result of the entrance of God-diminishing sin into the world—does not mean that all individual suffering is a specific judgment for personal sins. For example, Job’s suffering was not owing to his particular sins.
Piper provides two examples. Acts 12 King Herod exalting himself to be called a god and Romans 1 with particular reference to the sin of homosexual intercourse.
The coronavirus is, therefore, never a clear and simple punishment on any person. The most loving, Spirit-filled Christian, whose sins are forgiven through Christ, may die of the coronavirus disease. But it is fitting that every one of us search our own heart to discern if our suffering is God’s judgment on the way we live.
A summary of the third and fourth thing that God is doing through the coronavirus will be here tomorrow. God be with you.