God and Viruses.
We are presently bombarded with information about the coronavirus. At times like these we might question why God created such terrible viruses.
This issues in the wider problem of suffering in the Natural Order that we see today. It is asked how can there be a Creator when we see suffering and pain in His Creation?
As far as viruses are concerned we should understand that most bacteria are beneficial, only about 5% are pathogenic1. Many foods, like yoghurt, are created by microbe action. We would not be able to digest our food properly without certain bacteria in our gut. However, it is since The Fall of humanity that disease, decay and death have intruded upon our existence:
The book of Genesis explains the origin of suffering and death. In the Creation account in Genesis 1 we read ‘That God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good’. The Creation was very good.
But then follows The Fall described in Genesis chapters 2 and 3.
Eve ate the forbidden fruit and gave it to her husband, and he also ate it. So they sinned against God by disobeying God’s commandment. Romans 5:12 says ‘just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned’. So death in the world is the result of sin. And it has resulted in the deaths of all people.
God did not suddenly inflict death and disease on Adam and Eve, but withdrew His protective care. This allowed mutations within living creatures and some of the good bacteria to deteriorate. Dr A. Gillen explains: ‘When bacterium degenerates, it loses valuable information and must find other sources to survive. Bacteria generally are made of one cell; and as they lose information from their genetic hardware they consequently can no longer produce their own needed materials to synthesize cell parts. And so, as they lack information they have to gain that same information or the same materials that come from the information from some other creature (an animal or person) and in doing so they cause disease symptoms’2
Romans 8:18-25 affirms the whole creation (not just people) has been ‘subjected to futility’ and is now ‘groaning’ and in ‘bondage to decay’ waiting for its redemption. This state of affairs is consistent with The Fall where the whole Creation was cursed because of the man’s sin. For example Genesis 3:18 tells us the ground was now to bring forth thorns and thistles. Genesis 1:29-30 indicates the animals and people were originally vegetarian, but after The Fall we have animals howling in pain and fear as they attack one another.
The biblical explanation is that Suffering and Death entered the world through Adam’s sin; the Creation is cursed.
The biblical explanation for suffering and the entrance of death into the world is in stark contrast to the evolutionary view that has accentuated misunderstanding. Popularisers of evolution like David Attenborough and Stephen Fry point to evils in Nature and say they cannot worship a god who is supposedly their author. Neither could Christians! We need to remember there was no suffering or death before Adam’s fall. Creation was ‘very good’ and death only came about after sin. But the evolutionary view says that suffering and death are integral to how life has come about (‘the survival of the fittest’). The evolutionary view says suffering and death have always been.
Even some people in the church have been confused by this secular indoctrination. Theistic evolutionists (who believe that God used evolution) have to say that God brought Adam’s ‘very good’ world into existence through millions of years of death and suffering. They also have to assume that the fossils of creatures, some diseased some attacking one another, indicate that suffering has always been with us.
However the worldwide flood is widely documented in the Bible, and takes up four chapters of Genesis. In our last film showing at Angmering Baptist Church, before the restrictions, we heard geologist Dr Terry Mortenson3 give solid scientific evidence for that year long, mountain covering flood, creating global upheavals (Genesis 7:11) and leaving millions of fossilized whole animals and plants in layers of sedimentary rock laid down all over the earth. We do not see millions of years of gradual geological work but fossil graveyards and layered canyons that speak of a global catastrophic flood. An event that happened after The Fall. The suffering and disease evidenced in the fossil record is not therefore a record of what has always been, but rather a record of what took place after The Fall and as a consequence of the worldwide flood.
The God of the Bible loves us. Suffering is an alien intrusion into His Creation, the result directly and indirectly of Adam and Eve’s sin. But God permitted this because He wanted to give us free will. Love cannot be forced; there is a real choice involved. But ever since we have all have disobeyed God’s commands, and this leads to suffering. In his book ‘The problem of Pain’ C. S. Lewis writes: ‘It would no doubt be possible for God to remove by miracle the results of the first sin ever committed by a human being; but this would not have been much good unless He was prepared to remove the results of the second sin, and of the third, and so on forever. If the miracles ceased, then sooner or later we might have reached our present lamentable situation: if they did not then a world, thus continually underpropped and corrected by Divine interference, would have been a world in which nothing important ever depended on human choice, and in which choice itself would soon cease from the certainty that one of the apparent alternatives before you would lead to no results and was therefore not really an alternative.’4
Suffering results from when people sin against one another. Selfishness, greed, lust, pride and anger are all such manifestations; broken relationships and unhappiness follow.
Sometimes God actively judges sin in this life. The biblical worldwide flood is an example. When ‘the Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time…his heart was filled with pain’ (Genesis 6:5, 6).
However, ‘not all suffering is the direct result of our own sin. Job’s friends thought Job’s suffering/sickness must be the result of his own sin- but they were wrong (Job 42:7, 8). Jesus repudiates the automatic link between sin and suffering (John 9: 1-3). Jesus also points out that natural disasters are not necessarily a form of punishment from God (Luke 13: 1-5)’5
The secular view of suffering is never seen as a meaningful part of life but only as an interruption. On this view there are two things to do when they occur. The first is to manage and lessen the pain. The second is to look for the cause of the pain and eliminate it. Christians have been on the forefront of medical relief, hospitals were born out of the Christian worldview, established by Christians, as was the modern hospice movement. But Christianity goes beyond the management and relief of suffering- it sees that suffering is meaningful. ‘There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine’ (‘Walking with God through Pain and Suffering’ Timothy Keller).6
In 1967 teenager Joni Eareckson was left paraplegic after a diving accident. In her book ‘Diamonds in the dust’ she writes ‘…After three depressing years of suicidal despair over my paralysis, I prayed, ‘God if I can’t die, show me how to live, please!’ Things didn’t change overnight, but with that simple prayer my outlook began to change. I realised I had to take responsibility and face reality head on. With God’s help, I would have to learn how to do the impossible- handle life in a wheelchair. And God did help! I’m convinced the Lord was touched deeply by my short simple prayer. I pushed myself out of the way in order to rely on His Spirit…’7 The story of her spiritual growth through fifty years of trauma has been an inspiration to countless people all around the world.
Richard Bewes in his book ‘The Top 100 Questions’ writes about what we can learn from viruses:
‘They instil a sense of humility. Long before the electron microscope had identified the virus, the very presence of disease and infection was a constant reminder that we are subject to death. None of us escapes; a hundred years or so- and there’s a clean sweep right across the planet. Certainly the answer has been found to some of these viruses, but there is no denying that, however long we live, it is usually some infection that finally kills us. But consider this too:
They instil a sense of eternity. Not in themselves of course. But repeatedly a virus attack will cause us to look up and around for answers. This heightens the possibility of our becoming exposed to the one factor that can give us real pointers- the revelation that God has given us, culminating supremely in Jesus Christ. Many millions of people never even begin to think about God and His saving plan, until they or a loved one were struck by an apparently random disease. Focus on the virus alone- and the mystery may seem insoluble; but if we can stand a little further back, we can learn to view the fallenness of our situation through the wide angle of God’s revelation. Without that revelation we could never have known of his loving purposes.’8
So what is this ‘wide angle of God’s revelation’ and ‘loving purposes’?
The Bible is the most influential book ever known. It gives us this ‘wide angle’ of God’s revelation and loving purposes. The Old Testament looks forward to the coming of the Messiah. Events in the Old Testament- like Abraham being prepared to offer up his son- foreshadow Christ and his work, and the prophets prepared the way for him since he fulfilled detailed prophesies, including the place of his birth, and the manner of his life, teaching and death (C.f. Micah 5:2; Isaiah 53: 1-12; Psalm 22: 1-18).
The ultimate purpose of Jesus Christ was to restore that broken relationship between God and the human race. That broken relationship resulting from Adam and Eve’s sin which ushered in The Fall.
‘Throughout his three years of public ministry, Jesus lived a perfect life and could challenge his accusers to prove him guilty of sin (John 8:46; Hebrews 4:15). No one else has ever lived like this. He claimed equality with God and the authority to forgive sins (John 10:30; Luke 5:21), and his unique miracles reinforced this. Because of his perfect life, he alone had no need to suffer the penalty of death which resulted from The Fall. Instead, by his death he took the guilt, sin and punishment of all who place their trust in him. So that they could be forgiven by God (Hebrews 9:28; 1 Peter 2:24)’9
Not only does Christ provide salvation from our sins, but He shows us that He (God the Son) is involved with our suffering. God is not some distant, unconcerned observer. Rather God was ‘in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:19). He became one of us; he suffered in all the ways in which we suffer. He knows about suffering but he has also suffered himself. He understands what we are feeling when we suffer. Hebrews describes him as our Great High Priest who is interceding for us when we face trials. He understands and cares for us in what we face here.
‘Jesus Christ literally and physically rose from the dead- an event recorded by five independent writers in the New Testament. By this he proved finally who He was and why he had come. Paul wrote, ‘Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, he was buried, and he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures’ (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).’10
So there is a challenge for us all in the light of this revelation: For those who deny the Creator and Saviour, there is no ultimate purpose. Neither in the world around us or in suffering. Further they must give account to God on the Day of Judgement. If they have justified their sin and rejected God’s salvation in Christ they will be condemned. ‘Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him’ (John 3:36).
So believe in the Son while it is still today. While you are reminded in the present crisis of the transient nature of this life and eternal realities. God in Christ has prepared the way to restore the whole of the spoiled creation to what it was originally. He has promised that one day Jesus Christ will return and create a ‘new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13). It will be as it was at the beginning, but greater still: Because of our fall and redemption in Christ, we will have a level of grateful intimacy with God that Adam and Eve never knew. There will be no more viruses, ‘no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passes away’ (Revelation. 21:4). Glory to God!
1 Dr Alan L. Gillen ‘The Genesis of Germs’, p.8.
2 Ibid. p.141
3 Dr Terry Mortenson ‘Noah’s Flood. Washing Away Millions of Years’, DVD.
4 C. S. Lewis, ‘The Problem of Pain’, p59.
5 Nicky Gumbel, ‘Searching Issues’, p12.
6 Timothy Keller, ‘Walking with God through Pain and Suffering’, p26ff.
7 Joni Eareckson Tada, ‘Diamonds in the Dust’, thought from January 2nd.
8 Richard Bewes, ‘The Top 100 Questions’, p30.
9 Brian. H. Edwards, ‘Wonders of Creation’, p213.
10 Ibid.