Is the coronavirus judgement from God?

The answer is undoubtedly yes, the coronavirus is part of the judgement of God upon mankind. Now this is not a popular answer, and may well offend some. Indeed, a Tearfund article includes the statement “Any suggestion that coronavirus is some kind of divine judgement is fundamentally at odds with God's character.” I support Tearfund and will continue to do so, but this statement is utter rubbish. Almost every page in the Bible contains judgement. Look at the words of Jesus, there is an awful lot of judgement in there.

So let’s look at why so many Christians object to the notion that this is part of God’s judgement. I think this is because there are many false presuppositions. One of these is that judgement and mercy are opposites, are incompatible with each other. So if we say this is God’s judgement then we think mercy goes out of the window. We seem to think that the only logical response is that we should go around condemning people, which is clearly not God’s will. We know God does want us to show compassion, so we therefore deduce that the coronavirus cannot be linked to God’s judgement. 

However, in the Bible judgement and mercy are not opposites. Look at the cross. On the one hand the cross is an act of judgement, it is a judgement on my sin and your sin. The cross is where you and I belong. Yet we also know that the cross is God’s supreme act of mercy, for the punishment that should have been ours was laid upon Jesus (Is 53:5).

Then look at Micah 6:8:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

    And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

    and to walk humbly with your God.

 What does God require of us? To act justly, and to love mercy. Judgement and mercy go together. Now we find it hard to work out how that can be, but look at the last bit, “and to walk humbly with your God”. We cannot work it out, but God can. So we live in humble obedience to Him.

In practical terms it means we do all we can to help people at this time. We do pray for the success of scientists searching for a cure or a vaccine. We do pray for the medical staff, the carers and the other essential workers. We do show compassion.

But suppose the virus went away tomorrow, what then? Well, I would be glad, but the killing of lives in the womb would continue unabated. The poor would continue to be exploited. People would continue to be abused. Sexual immorality would continue to run rampant. What would have been gained?

God wants us to learn from what is going on, to humble ourselves before Him, to end our rebellion against Him. If we did this then we truly would have gained something from this episode. We need a truly Biblical understanding.

Judgement and mercy go together in Christ. 

You can find a short video on the same theme here.