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| Dr. Richard Land. |
By Richard Land, Christian Post
Executive Editor
In the last month I have been asked with great frequency, “Did God
cause the Coronavirus pandemic. If not, why did He allow it if He is indeed
omnipotent?” Whenever we seek to answer such questions, we must first express
our humility, remembering the Apostle Paul’s admonition, “Oh, the depth of the
riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and
how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has
been his counselor?” (Rom. 8:23-24 CSB).
Fortunately, God has
revealed a great deal about Himself and His purposes in Holy Scripture, and it
is there that we must turn for the closest we are going to be able to get to
definitive answers.
God has revealed to us
that because of the Fall (Genesis 3), “The whole creation has been groaning
together in the pains of childbirth until now . . .” (Rom. 8:22). The Bible
reveals to us that literally nothing is the way God created it to be and that
the whole creation is warped and distorted by sin, including but not limited
to, humankind.
So, when people ask,
“Did God cause this to happen?” the answer has to be, “No, He did not.” Why?
The Bible tells us that “no one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18). The
Psalmist tells us that “the works of his hands are faithful and just” (Psalm
111:7) and “God is light and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).
Thus, God cannot be
the author of evil. The question then becomes, if God is omnipotent, why did He
allow the CVP to perpetrate such pain and such suffering? God is omnipotent,
thus all-powerful. He is also omniscient, thus all-knowing. As a function of
His omniscience, He has always known what has happened or will ever happen.
That does not mean He dictates that it happens that way. If God were going to
allow Adam a choice, He had to allow Adam to make the wrong choice and to live
with some of the disastrous consequences. Yet, in the immediate aftermath of
the Fall, God sought out Adam (Gen. 3:8-9) and while pronouncing judgment,
first promised ultimate redemption through the “seed of the woman” (Gen. 3:15).
The story of God’s
redemption of man and the rest of creation, both cursed, marred, and warped by
the impact of the Fall, is the story of God’s ultimate triumph over Satan and
the pain and suffering wrought by the “tempting one” (Matt. 4:3) who walks the
earth “like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8) and
ultimately over death itself (1 Cor. 15:50-57).
Yes, God is
omnipotent. However, since He is omnipotent, He can choose to limit Himself in
order to give fallen men the opportunity (when convicted by the Holy Spirit) to
respond to Him with confession, faith, and allegiance to Jesus and thus to
worship Him freely and willingly, rather than being compelled to do so.
Please allow me to
illustrate this in the following way. I am a huge Texas Longhorn fan and have
been since I was six years old. On January 4, 2006, Texas played the two time
defending national champion USC for the national title in the Rose Bowl. It has
been voted by at least some sports reporters as “the greatest college football
game every played.” Both teams were undefeated, and they entered the game
ranked #1 (USC) and #2 (Texas) in the nation.
It was quite a game, a “real nail-biter.” When Texas pulled out a
41-38 victory in the last minutes of the game, I was emotionally drained.
I felt I had played the game myself. Now, I have watched the game a half dozen
times since then on video, and I have been so relaxed that I have even dosed
off a couple of times when I was watching the replay late at night. Why? The
answer is simple; I know how it ends. When God looks at human history from the
beginning, He knows how it ends. He sees and experiences everything that has,
is, or ever will happen simultaneously. C. S. Lewis calls it “the eternal now.”
And He has always (eternally) had this knowledge and experience.
Nothing surprises God.
Did God will Adam to sin? No, but He always knew he was going to and made plans
to overcome it before creation. Did God know the Jews were going to reject
Jesus as Messiah? Yes, and He eternally had a plan to overcome it. Ultimately,
God’s will prevails in all those who by faith in Jesus are His children.
We can rest in the
absolute assurance that God is “working” all things to the good of those who
are the “called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28).
As Joseph explained to
the brothers who traded him into slavery in Egypt, “You meant evil against me,
but God meant it for good, to bring it about that my people should be kept
alive . . .” (Gen. 15:20). In other words, what the devil and Joseph’s brothers
intended for evil, God redeemed for good and His purposes.
“Did God cause the
Coronavirus pandemic?” No. “Did God allow the pandemic to happen?” Yes.
At present it appears
that the occasion of this pandemic started in a horrendous failure of security
protocol in a Chinese government laboratory, exacerbated exponentially and
grotesquely by the duplicity and censorship of the Chinese government in not
alerting governments around the world to this incredibly contagious virus and
the terrible dangers it posed.
Can God ultimately
redeem the pandemic for good? That depends entirely on how we as Christians and
as a nation respond to this terrible tragedy.
In Ephesians, the
Apostle Paul exhorts the Ephesian Christians, and us, to understand that the
“days are evil,” and as Christians we are to be “redeeming the time” (Eph.
5:16). The word “time” is kairos, meaning time in its propitious, not
chronological moments, and “redeem” is a business word, meaning “to cash it in
for profit.” This is a propitious moment. Will we allow God to use us to redeem
this moment by proclaiming and doing the will of God, offering help to the
suffering in Jesus’ name and telling them that God loves them and that there is
eternal meaning and purpose to life. Let us be about our heavenly
Father’s business.
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