The coronavirus is NOT God’s judgment

No it most definately is NOT!. The simple answer is you can’t prove the coronavirus has been sent by God from any passage from the bible but that has not stopped some from trying. This is very sad, especially as many thousands of people (children, elderly, infirm, malnourished) are dying from Covid-19 (the disease caused by the coronavirus) and they are dying in hospital alone and with a lingering slow death. Of those that recover, some have life limiting disabilities called “long Covid”.

Some Christians (they are in the minority by far) say that it is and want to shout it from the rooftops, however some of those judgmental Christians are so “nice” they find it a struggle to say this out loud in public and prefer to say “God is Sovereign” and

God is all powerful and in control, so He must have at the very least allowed this to happen.

In which case to be consistent they must also blame God for all the evil under the sun, including the holocaust and every imaginable evil “because he must have allowed it”. They would baulk at that but make no mistake thats where their thinking naturally leads. If you are all powerful and therefore can stop anything then you are complicit and want what is happening to happen. There is no difference between saying God did it to saying God allowed it. This again is simplistic thinking and so wrongs God who loves everyone. I explain why in my article “God is in control“. So these mistaken Christians they choose to preach on the Judgments of God from the old testament books like Isaiah and Haggai and let you join the dots. All this at a time when people (including Christians) are suffering everywhere. They usually all claim that this judgement is in return for specific wrongdoings the world has done – like abortions but the type of wrong doing varies depending on their particular views and pet hates. How terribly sad and wrong! Finally there are those who muddy the word “judgment” and claim the coronavirus is a small part of God’s “judgment” on original sin because we live in a fallen world and God has cursed the earth because of Adam and Eve’s sin and Coronavirus is just one small example of that curse working its way out on mankind. To see why this also is false see my article on “Errors of Judgment“. I will give you a clue, saying that, means you blame God for all suffering in the world. Its quite easy, someone gets a gun and kills shoppers, -its God’s judgment since we wouldnt have guns or murderers if Adam hadn’t sinned. A landslide in Aberfan kills men, women and children at a school. – Its God’s judgment as it wouldn’t have happened if Adam hadn’t sinned…you get the picture. How sad. How terribly sad. What wrong thinking.

Then there are the majority of Christians, who like me, don’t blame God and feel so much for the suffering around the world, as God does.

See my article “Has God abandoned me?“. In any case, can these views be backed up biblically or in any other way?

Who are these Christians? Well predominantly they seem to be older, conservative in viewpoint and usually aligned with the prophetic movements, especially in the UK. I call these Christians “judgment theorists” for want of a better word. You can’t put them neatly in a box and say they are fundamentalists because not all fundamentalists agree with them. What they all seem to have in common is a desire to relate current events to the bible and a desire to have an answer for everything that happens. It seems to me the more learned they are the more readily they jump to the answer that God has in some way done or allowed this or that to happen and they can quote several bible passages as we shall see.

Lets address these hard line judgment theorists then as they are pretty blunt and lay their cards on the table. What they say is that the coronavirus is a plague sent by God to punish or “shake the nations” for what they have done and by “done” they mean abortions or whatever they perceive the world has done “wrong”. Lets take time out first to define a few terms.

Judgement – requires a crime to have been committed by someone (you cant sue a natural disaster!)

Punishment – requires that a suitable penalty for the crime is administered to the guilty party (After they have been found guilty).

Justice – the putting right of wrongs committed by either restitution or penalty. (as far as is possible).

Let us note first who are “the punished” in this matter of the “plague” of coronavirus. Let’s see now there is the elderly and the infirm the poor and the needy (because they are often malnourished) and also it seems the BAME community is particularly hard hit, not to mention that men are more affected than women. Does that sound like people that need singling out for punishment by God? No we don’t think so either, however, many anti Christian world leaders are doing well and have not suffered. Where is the JUSTICE of God? -Its absent in this judgmental thinking.

Also quite absent from their thinking are those Christians that have suffered terribly because of the pandemic and we read about these persecuted groups in many Countries of the world. Also the consequences to the poor in society has been huge. Job losses and economic fallout will be paid back over decades. many organisations are reporting an increase in abortions and an increase in suicides.

If they think things are being put right they are severely mistaken. Things have only got worse.

To avoid getting too theological in this article I have placed the biblical passages quoted by the “judgment theorists” in another article you can read called “Errors of judgment” and how we refute the conclusions they draw from the bible passages they quote.

You might ask, why give so much air time to these Christians, if they are in a minority? The answer is simply that they have come to our attention and we have seen the damage they have caused. There are Christians out there who we know personally that are struggling with their teaching and it is spreading to the younger generation as well. We have found precious little information on the internet about their claims. There are many organisations and Churches that are content to ignore them but we can’t do that because as we shall see in the follow on article called “Consequences of judgment talk” the results of their teaching are divisive and pushing unbelievers further away. They probably don’t realise it but they are also maligning God’s character because…

Judgment without justice is just not from our God!

When Jesus walked this earth, he showed us what God the Father was like. Jesus said “I and the Father are one” John 10:30 and “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does…” John 5:19 Yet in John 8:1-11, when Jesus was being tested by the Jewish authorities and they wanted to catch him out, they brought to Him a woman caught in the act of adultery. They knew the penalty was death by stoning (according to Exodus 20:10) but Jesus said to them all (including the crowd that had gathered) Whoever is without sin among you, cast the first stone. – They all left without a stone being cast (from the eldest first) – they only one who could have cast the first stone was Jesus but he did not. The grace and Love of God is desperately needed in our world today.

This brings me to the last point I want to make in this article. Where is their compassion? I mean, even if you do think this is God’s judgment, where is your basic humanity and compassion for those sick and dying from Covid-19 (the disease caused by the coronavirus). If you are honest you will see that it is a terrible, lonely and protracted death. The bereaved are not even able to say goodbye at the funeral properly due to restrictions. How can you turn to them and claim its God’s doing?