What is God doing through the Coronavirus?

At this moment, I am sitting in my house, theoretically enjoying my remaining vacation days left, but in reality, my family and I are in close-contact quarantine because of coronavirus exposure.  Having some time on my hands and unable to really go anywhere, I got to thinking about how COVID-19 has affected our lives so profoundly this past year.

Each of you reading this has experienced it.  Fear, especially at the beginning, of the unknown regarding this virus.  Loved ones dying or becoming seriously sick because of the virus.  Our lives being shut down and constrained to prevent the spread of the disease.  Enduring the social distancing that is required.  Suffering with the discomfort of wearing a mask in public settings.  Vacations being cancelled and visits with loved ones limited to phone or video calls because of travel restrictions or border closure.  Disagreements between families and friends over COVID-19 “facts” and mask wearing.  And now, with vaccines becoming available, being told time and time again that the vaccine is our salvation for this thing.

All of these things and more are reminding me that, as believers, we need to have a proper theological perspective on this whole matter.  I don’t see a lot of that happening.  I see a lot of angry Christians.  I see a lot of fearful Christians.  I see a lot of Christian spending a great deal of time and energy figuring out ways to skirt government mandates like mask-wearing requirements.  I hear Christians grumbling about how this whole virus situation has been politicized.  I see Christians putting their own comfort ahead of the safety and health of the corporate body.  But I don’t see a lot of Christians resting in God, assured of his sovereign control in the midst of a pandemic.  I don’t see a lot of Christians that reflect an assurance, deep in their hearts, that God is big enough to use even this for his great and gracious purposes.  And admittedly, I have been guilty at times of a number of the things I just listed.  It is hard in these circumstances to rest in God.

But rest in God is what we must do.  This is a prime opportunity for believers to show
the difference Christ makes in a heart.  This is a prime opportunity to demonstrate the fruit of a mind that is being renewed (Rom. 12:2).  This is a great time to display the transformation that comes as part of the new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).  And those things involve trusting that God is in charge, that God is purposeful and that we can live our lives trusting in His plan.

Recently I finished an excellent little book entitled Coronavirus and Christ by John Piper.  John Piper seeks to assure us that though times are not normal, and sometimes life seems to be spinning out of control, God is still worthy of our trust.  He is still righteous, holy and good.  He is sovereign over the coronavirus.  And he can use even the coronavirus to fulfill His good purposes.

At the end of the book, Piper lists 6 things that he believes God is doing amidst the coronavirus pandemic.  I want to share them with you to remind us of how we should be looking at this pandemic as believers.

 What is God doing through the Coronavirus?

1.         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.  Human sin has corrupted everything.  The coronavirus is another picture of the horror of that sin.

2.         Some people will be infected with the coronavirus as a specific judgment from God because of their sinful attitudes and actions.  Not all individual suffering is a specific judgment for personal sin, but some is.

3.         The coronavirus is a God-given wake-up call to be ready for the second coming of Christ.  The pandemic is part of the birth pangs (Matt. 24:7-8), evidence of the groaning of creation awaiting the full redemption of the people of God (Rom. 8:18-25).

4.         The coronavirus is God’s thunderclap call for all of us to repent and realign our lives with the infinite worth of Christ.  God is showing us – graphically, painfully – that nothing in this world gives the security and satisfaction that we find in Christ.

5.         The coronavirus is God’s call to His people to overcome self-pity and fear and with courageous joy, to do the good works of love that glorify God.

6.         In the coronavirus God is loosening the roots of settled Christians, all over the world, to make them free for something new and radical and to send them with the gospel of Christ to the unreached peoples of the world.  The pandemic will ultimately serve God’s invincible global purpose of world evangelization.

Is this all God is doing through the coronavirus?  Surely not.  But this is enough to rest on right now, enough to assure ourselves that God is sovereign and righteous and holy and good and that He is worthy to be trusted, even in the midst of a pandemic.