At the beginning of social distancing, I spoke with a mentor of mine, a man with over four decades in pastoral ministry. Our purpose for talking wasn’t the present situation, but it wasn’t possible to ignore it. I asked him his thoughts on the situation and for advice. What he told me hit me like a brick. He said that he had never experienced anything like it and said we must try our best to minister to our people. Now, I knew nothing like this had happened in his lifetime, but it still gave me pause to hear it put so bluntly.
A Strange Problem Before Us
COVID-19 and the government have recommended or put a halt to our corporate gatherings. Though many other pastors and I have either live-streamed or posted sermons online, it is not the same as the corporate gathering. A local church is God’s institution created by His power and shaped by His wisdom. It is in local churches that the invisible and universal church is made visible. It is in the gathering of the local church that the saints come under the ordinary means of God’s grace, namely the preaching of the Word, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and corporate prayer. To have these stripped from us is no small thing, and the pain that we feel from it is real.
Indeed, COVID-19 has more than just Christians feeling pain, our entire nation, and much of the world has been brought to their knees. This crisis raises many questions in the aching human heart. Some might ask why this is happening? Others might ask if there is any hope? More might ask what we should do in response to the present distress? These questions are natural responses to the problem before us. Are their answers? More specifically, for someone of my vocation and background, does Christianity have any answers about the coronavirus?
A Sad Attempt to Answer
N.T. Wright, a popular New Testament scholar, writes in an article for TIME, “It is no part of the Christian vocation, then, to be able to explain what’s happening and why.”1 His article is meant to encourage. However, I disagree with N.T. Write’s assessment of the present crises before us. Our divergence likely begins at two different conceptions of God and from that different understanding of the nature and interpretation of Holy Scripture. In the space below, I would like to provide an alternative to N.T. Wright’s approach, while first summarizing some of the startling claims of his article.
N.T. Wright provides us with a succinct description of the God he believes in when he writes, “Some Christians like to think of God as above all that, knowing everything, in charge of everything, calm and unaffected by the troubles in his world. That’s not the picture we get in the Bible.2 So, if I understand Wright correctly, some Christians believe God is Holy, Omniscient, Sovereign, Immutable, and Impassible. And this Holy, Omniscient, Sovereign, Immutable, and Impassible God is not the one of the Bible. Before the quote above, Wright says, “Lament, woven thus into the fabric of Biblical tradition, is not just that it’s an outlet for our frustration, sorrow, loneliness and sheer inability to understand what is happening or why.”3 The point of human lament, according to Wright, is that God also laments. Is Wright insinuating that God, in some way, experiences the same things we experience in lament? Does God get frustrated, sorrowful, lonely, and not have the ability to understand what is happening and why? It would seem so.
The “some Christians” who believe what that N.T. Wright disagrees with would be non-other than most Christians in Church History, including those who subscribe to the seventeenth-century confessions. It would include me. In chapter 2 paragraph 1 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession states
The Lord our God is… a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; who is immutable…, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory.4
The confession cites many passages of Scripture in support of its summary of the Christian doctrine of God. The confession rightly concludes that God is Holy, Omniscient, Sovereign, Immutable, and Impassible. Wyatt Graham has written a helpful article on divine impassability found here. It addresses some of the above issues of N.T. Wright’s article in a more comprehensive way.
Another irony of the article is that N.T. Wright claims that Christianity has no answers to the coronavirus, but the article provides one. In summary, God is just as frustrated as we are by the present meaningless suffering, so all we can do is lament.5 The writing of the article refutes the main conclusion of the article.
A Sound Summary of Truth
So, does Christianity have any answers about the coronavirus? Contrary to N.T. Wright, I would say yes, it does. It answers several questions. In this section, I will state and answer four questions that are related to the Coronavirus problem.
When did suffering begin?
Christianity tells us the origin of suffering. God created the world good and placed man in the garden as His image bearer to mediate and reflect His reign. The first man was in covenant relationship with God as a federal representative of all his physical seed (Gen 2:4-25; Hosea 6:7; Isa 25:5-6; Rom 5:14). If man kept the moral law written on His heart and the positive law of not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God would have granted Him eternal life (Gen 2:9, 16-17). If man failed, he and his physical seed would come under the curse of the covenant, which culminates in death (Gen 2:16-17). Genesis tells us man disobeyed, and as a result, the entire creation came under God’s just curse (Gen 3; 5; Rom 5:12). Man’s work became toilsome, and his destiny was death (Gen 3:17-19). Woman became subject to pain in childbearing (Gen 3:16). So where did suffering begin? It began in the wake of the first human king’s failure. It began because of sin. COVID-19, the Coronavirus, is one of many negative consequences of the first man’s initial rebellion.
Who is in control?
Christianity tells us who is in control. Scripture speaks of God’s sovereignty in several ways. The Psalms tells us that God is in the heavens and does whatever He pleases (Ps 115:3), He reigns (Ps 93:1; 97:1; 99:1), He created and sustains all things by His power and might (Ps. 104:19-20), and He sits enthroned over everything (Ps 29:10). Yahweh tells us through the prophet Isaiah that the Lord brings both light and darkness and makes calamity and well-being (Isa 45:7; see also Lam 3:37-38). J. Alec Moyter, commenting on this text writes,
Light and darkness are well established metaphors for the pleasant and the unpleasant; they are, of course, also the regular sequence of things, and either can be the meaning here. The Lord is executively behind all the diversities of experience which life contains; he also ordains the order in which things happen, the course of experience.6
Joseph holds together the agency of men and God’s sovereignty in the evil deeds of his brothers. What they meant for evil God meant for good (Gen 50:20). Job also assumes God’s control of all things when he responds to the loss of everything by saying, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21). Peter even says that it is by God’s sovereign will that Jesus died at the hands of lawless men (Acts 4:27-28). Yes, some Christians do believe God is above and in control of everything. They do so because that is what Scripture teaches, contrary to the presumption of modernists. Coronavirus comes in the wake of the fall, and God is in absolute control of it and all other things.
How should we respond to suffering?
Christianity tells us where we should go and how we should live amid suffering. First, we should trust God and His Son, Jesus Christ. Consider the hall of faith in Hebrews chapter 11. These people underwent many and various trials and sufferings. And yet they believed God. They trusted that He would be faithful to His promises. They weren’t wrong. Like them, we must look to the Lord Jesus who they saw in types and shadows. He is the founder, perfecter, and object of our faith. Set your hope on Him (Heb 12:1-3). Second, we should take this time for personal reflection. Rather than complaining, we should heed the call of Jeremiah to “test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord” (Lam 3:40). Third, we should remember God’s faithfulness and redemption, lament our present difficulties and pray for relief (See Psalm 89). Fourth, we should seek to live faithfully to God’s moral law (Deut 5:1-21; Matt 22:36-40; Rom 13:8-11; 1 Tim 1:9). Fifth, we should call others to reckon with their mortality, repent, and believe the gospel. Reflect on Jesus’ words:
There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:1-5).
How should people respond to the reality of their mortality? They should repent and believe the gospel. COVID-19 has revealed, at the very least, that we are mortal. We should repent and believe the gospel in the light of such a revelation. All of the responses to suffering listed above are applicable to our present situation.
When will suffering end?
Christianity tells us when suffering will end. Scripture speaks of Adam as a type of one who was to come. It tells us that there are two great kings in humans (Romans 5:12-21). The first was Adam, who failed. The second is Christ Jesus, who succeeded in the Covenant of Redemption. The Covenant of Redemption is accurately described by Samuel Renihan when he writes,
“The Father sent the Son on a mission as a federal head of an elect people, constituted Him a prophet, priest, and king, sustained Him in His work, and promised Him a reward of eternal resurrected glorified life for Himself and all His people in a new creation.”7
The benefits of Christ redemption are covenanted to us in the Covenant of Grace, or the New Covenant. We receive Christ and all that comes with Him in the New Covenant by Faith. It is by union to Christ that we are justified, sanctified, and glorified. The end of suffering will come when Christ returns to bring culmination what He inaugurated in first coming. It is then we will enter God’s rest forever (Heb 9:27-28). It is then when we will dwell with our redeemer for all eternity in the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21-22). It is then we will confidently see that all things do work for the good of those who love God (Rom 8:28). Those who reject the Son of God will undergo the eternal judgment they deserve. Those who trust Him have been shown grace upon grace leading them to eternal life. Christianity tells us in the face of present sufferings to look to Christ for hope and trust in Him for salvation.
Conclusion
In this article, I started by acknowledging the present difficulty we now face in the coronavirus. It is something that none of us have face in our lifetimes. Some would have you believe that Christianity has no answers about the coronavirus. I disagree. Christianity’s God has plenty of answers about the coronavirus. The question is, are we asking the right questions, and will we accept the answers of the only immortal, invisible, King, and God (1 Tim 1:17)? Will we take Him at His Word and place our hope in the scope of all His written revelation, namely His Son Jesus Christ? He is our surety in life during both good times and bad. Cleave to Him; He won’t fail.
Jimmy Johnson serves as the Senior Pastor at Vista Baptist Church of Osceola, Missouri. He is a husband and father, and a sinner saved by the awesome grace of God in Jesus Christ. He is the cohost of Covenant Podcast. He received his BA in Christian Ministry from Missouri Baptist University. He received His MDiv from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He subscribes to the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith as a faithful summary of biblical teaching. He can be found on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
He co-founded this website to be dedicated to providing biblical, theological, confessional, and historical content that is accessible and beneficial to the Church of Jesus Christ. He contributes to the website to become more skilled as a writer, theologian, and pastor.
