Creation in Bondage

A few months ago, a pastor in Tennessee declared that COVID-19 is God’s judgment against the United States for, among other things, same-sex marriage and no prayer in our public schools. Of course, this isn’t the only Christian or preacher to view this current crisis as a divine “this is for that,” nor is this the first time such a claim has been made. But it is my opinion that such assertions of divine “this is for that” are questionable, largely because such proclamations go beyond the church’s prophetic function. I hope to offer a better way of explaining the hand of God in the devastations of the created order. Before doing so, I would like to focus on two sound presuppositions that form the basis for their unsound conclusion.

In the first place, the idea that disease and disaster in the created order are according to the purposes of a divine Creator is consistent with orthodox Christian teaching on the sovereignty of God. The Belgic Confession states,

We believe that the same God, after he had created all things, did not forsake them, or give them up to fortune or chance, but that he rules and governs them according to his holy will, so that nothing happens in the world without his appointment. (Article 13)

The other sound presupposition is that God in His holiness will not allow sins to go unpunished. There are both temporal and eternal consequences for human sin. The Heidelberg Catechism states:

Will God suffer such disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished? By no means, but is terribly displeased with our original as well as our actual sins; and will punish them in his just judgment temporally and eternally, as he hath declared, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” (Q&A10)

So, to acknowledge that disease and devastation in the created order are according to the sovereign purposes of God is accurate and orthodox. The mistake is to believe that we can specify with certainty particular sins as the reason for particular events.

We live in a cursed creation where the wrath of God is manifest against all unrighteousness. All the disorders experienced in the created order are described by the Apostle Paul in Romans 8 as “subjected to futility” (v. 20), in “bondage to corruption” (v. 21), and “groaning together in the pains of childbirth” (v. 22). All these events and experiences are but precursors of the final judgment at the end of human history. Those who are united by faith in Christ will experience the effects of living in a cursed creation, but we are those “on whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Cor. 10:11). In Christ’s death our judgment has been rendered, and in His resurrection our glorification has been secured. So, as well intended as “this is for that” rhetoric may be, it misses the point. The most we can say with certainty in this era is that natural tragedies result from the fall, and the ultimate solution is what happened on Calvary.