Why would a good God allow the Coronavirus?

“If God is willing but not able to prevent evil, 
then He is impotent. 
If God is able but not willing to prevent evil, 
then He is malevolent. 
If God is willing and able to prevent evil, 
then where does evil come from?”
- Epicurus, Greek Philosopher, 300 B.C.

Why would a God who is omnipotent (all-powerful) and omnibenevolent (all-good) allow the Coronavirus? Why would He allow such a pandemic to turn the world upside down, killing the most vulnerable? I will in no way attempt to solve the problem of evil, which has been the subject of thousands of volumes over thousands of years, in a few words here, but what I can and will do is offer my own thoughts on this tough issue, in hopes that it could be an encouragement to us during these challenging times.

Think of a childhood friend with whom you’ve shared many many years of friendship. It could be a friend or cousin, or a spouse whom you’ve been married to for many years. You’ve been through thick and thin together. You know him/her better than they know themselves. Would a single misunderstanding between you terminate your lifelong friendship? I would certainly hope not and I’m sure neither would your friend.

Since with God we’re not talking about a lifelong friendship, but a centuries-long history of faithfulness to humankind, kindly allow me to give Him the benefit of the doubt for a few moments here.

God created a coronavirus-free, perfect universe and created mankind as perfect beings in perfect fellowship with Him, giving them authority as stewards over all of creation. No coronavirus, no natural disasters, no pain, no suffering, no death. But we thought we could try running the world ourselves, we thought we could determine what is good and evil ourselves, and so we essentially asked the King to leave and we would be King instead. This event, commonly known as the Fall, has changed everything. We suddenly suffered from enmity with our life-source, God (due to sin), enmity with one another (Adam and Eve immediately blaming one another), enmity with creation (the land will produce thorns and thistles), and even enmity with ourselves (sin destroyed us ontologically; in our very beings).

We need to move beyond seeing sin as a single event that two single individuals committed that we should not bear the consequences of hundreds of centuries later. We need to distinguish between a sin (Greek hamartia ἁμαρτία- missing the mark) and the state of sin that the Fall brought about (Greek anomia ἀνομία- a state of lawlessness). The Fall resulted in a state of sin that literally changed everything.

Our physical bodies became prone to disease and death. We lost all sense of right and wrong so morally we are in a state of chaos; literally not knowing our right hand from our left (Jonah 4:11). Emotionally and mentally, we all seem to suffer from identity issues, from low self-image issues, not to mention depression, suicide, and so much more. Socially, we are surrounded by selfish human beings of whom, if we are honest, we ourselves are one. Put a bunch of selfish, egocentric humans together on a planet and you have an endless myriad of problems! Creation itself “groans” as the Apostle Paul described it in Romans 8:22. So yes, natural disasters are common; earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, no part of our planet seems to be free from some form of natural disaster. And now we have COVID-19, which in a matter of days has become the topic that literally everyone on earth, from very young children to the elderly, are talking about, and many fearing. Until this moment, 7,000 deaths have been recorded worldwide.

“But God seems to be watching me suffer in silence, and I can’t worship a God like that!” you might be thinking.

I absolutely agree, I wouldn’t either!

But this is not the God I worship.

The God I worship saw that mankind got themselves into a dilemma from which they can’t save themselves. And so He didn’t let us pay for our actions and suffer forever, even though we deserved it! We should have paid for our mistakes but we could not. The only one who could was the One who remained unaffected by the state of anomia that infected everything; only the transcendent and perfect God who is beyond time and space could. But mankind should pay for their mistakes. So God did the unfathomable. He became man, so that a man would as a man should pay for the sin of mankind, yet He was God and so He could die on our behalf and through His death bring us life. He died the death we should have died so that we could live the life He should have lived. As John Stott eloquently put it,

“Jesus Christ is the only Savior since he is the only person in whom the should and the could are united, being himself both God and man.”

I worship this God who became man and wept at his friend’s tomb. He wept because He was hurt to see death bring so much pain to His loved ones. But He didn’t just stop at that. Yes He brought Lazarus back from the dead, but more importantly, He went to the cross to nullify the power of death over us once and for all. He bore our penalty and nailed our debt to the cross. His death paid the debt. But, He didn’t remain in the grave. By rising from the dead, He not only solved the problem of our past sins (hamartia), clearing us judicially, but rose from the dead to solve the problem of our state of sin (anomia) so that through His death, we would die to our corrupt natures and rise again to the newness of life (Romans 6:4). This newness is what Jesus described as the new birth; we died with Christ and are born again into a new life that is not in a state of sin (John 3:1-15). We are cured ontologically and can live this new life!

But wait a minute, if this is the case, why do we still see evil in the world? Because the creation still groans. But let me share the verses that precede the “groaning” of creation that the Apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote:

“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it (i.e. Adam), in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

Romans 8:20-21

This is what theologians have coined “already but not yet.” Christ died? Yes. Christ overcame sin and death? Yes. Do we enjoy the full benefits now? No, not yet. That will take place when “creation itself (is) set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain(s) the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” We live in the very real hope of what the Bible calls a new heaven and a new earth (2 Peter 3:13, Rev. 21:1), where God will once again perfect us and everything, where Christ Himself will “wipe away every tear from (our) eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ ” (Rev. 21:4-5). What a real and glorious hope we have to look forward to! Indeed “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). No matter how soon or late our life on earth ends, we can rest in the firm knowledge that Christ has prepared a permanent eternal home for those of us who are “in Christ;” a home that is not made with human hands (John 14:3); an eternal home that will make this current life seem like a mere iota of time!

So are we to suffer in the “not yet” for the rest of our lives as if Christ had not yet overcome sin and suffering? NO! The good news is that Christ didn’t just come and die on our behalf to leave us alone again. His death on the cross achieved such a profound ontological union between us and Christ, that Christ says we are “in Him” and He is “in us” (John 14:20)! So He dwells in us, gives us the strength and grace and peace we need to get through the storms of life, and is our Good Shepherd who knows us by name and leads us step by step; “Follow Me!” He says. So not only did He achieve the “already” but He goes before us in the “not yet” and even dwells in us and we in Him!

My friends, I am not talking to you about a distant God, but a God who “emptied Himself” (Philippians 2:7-8) and became man; who walked the path of suffering before us and so knows what it is to suffer deeply. Isaiah prophesied the following about Him: “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Is 53:2-3). He suffered for us and now suffers with us until we have to suffer no more because of what He has achieved through His suffering.

We may not have all the answers to the “why’s” of our lives, particularly when confronted with what seems like unreasonable suffering, but we have a God who is infinitely trustworthy!

“If we again ask the question: ‘Why does God allow evil and suffering (and coronavirus) to continue?’ and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still do not know what the answer is. However, we now know what the answer isn’t. It can’t be that He doesn’t love us. It can’t be that He is indifferent or detached from our condition. God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself.”

Timothy Keller

And so my friends, the God that we worship is far from impotent and far from malevolent! He is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent. He is both willing and able to prevent evil and out of His lavish love for mankind, not only prevented it, but conquered it forever!

Allow me to close with the glorious hope that God gives us through the Apostle Paul’s words to the church in Corinth:

“What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.

It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory.

It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”

1 Cor. 15:42-44

*Arabic version available here.