The Coronavirus Pandemic: Set in the Context of a Biblical Worldview

Dr. Alan Dunn

Although there have been similar pandemics in the past, few of us have ever experienced one. Suddenly a small microbe is compelling us to ask the big questions concerning our “worldview.” We all have a worldview, our undergirding assumptions, by which we see and interpret life’s experiences.

The bedrock on which the four foundations of our worldview rest is our doctrine of God accompanied by our doctrine of Scripture. We will hold to a biblical worldview to the extent that we embrace the God revealed in the Bible.

The Bible’s Worldview: Creation – Fall – Redemption – Consummation

The first foundation of our worldview is the doctrine of creation. God made us to be like Him and to live with Him. God reveals three truths to us. One, God created our universe. Two, His creation is very good. And three, we, male and female, are created in God’s image. WE must perceive the inherent goodness of God’s creation. The doctrine of creation is crucial.

The second aspect of a biblical worldview is the doctrine of the fall. God gave Adam dominion over creation which he was to exercise in obedience to God and for the glory of God. God gave Adam a command which he could have easily obeyed as an expression of his love for his Creator-Father. God warned that disobedience would bring the sentence of death on Adam and his domain. Adam, believing the lies of the Evil One, rebelled against God and broke His law. His was the original sin into which we are all born, and on account of which we all die. God’s good creation is now cursed and under the sentence of death. We and our world are fallen.

Redemption is the third part of a biblical worldview. Redemption is the main message of the Bible. Death is not God’s final word to us. He is the God who raises the dead and brings us into resurrection life. In redemption, God reveals the good news of the gospel. Scripture tells the story of redemption which culminates in the person and work of the incarnate Son of God, Jesus the Christ. By His life, death, and resurrection, Jesus has accomplished redemption. Now He, by His Spirit, applies redemption to all who receive Him by faith. Jesus’ death and resurrection is the crux of the gospel. There is good news for God’s fallen creation! Jesus is risen and is alive with the life of the age to come, with resurrection life. The message of Scripture is the message of life. All who receive this message in repentance and faith in Jesus receive His life: resurrection life, the life of the redeemed, eternal life.

It is this resurrection life that is the focus of the fourth component of our worldview: the consummation. The consummation concerns the end of this present age of history and the commencement of the age to come. It concerns the completion of God’s redemptive purposes at the return of Jesus, the resurrection of the dead, Final Judgment, and eternity. Hope, along with faith and love, is integral to our view of life lived in this world. We look to the future with hope.

We Must View This Pandemic in the Light of Creation and the Fall

There are two pervasive worldview mistakes which, if committed, obscure, if not deny, the view of reality revealed in Scripture. The first mistake is the failure to acknowledge and sustain the distinction between God as the Creator and everything else as creation. The inability to differentiate God from His creation is the cause of man’s most ingrained and intractable sin: idolatry.

The second worldview mistake is the failure to differentiate God’s good creation from the evil brought about by Adam’s sin and the curse of death. God created a very good world and entrusted it to Adam’s care. Adam broke God’s law, abdicated his rule to Satan, and subjected himself, his progeny, and his planet, to the curse of death. If we do not perceive that our world is essentially good but fallen, we will not rightly interpret things like hurricanes, earthquakes, pandemics – death itself.

These two worldview mistakes are evident when, in the face of pandemics and death, we hear it said, “Well, that’s just the way things are and the way they have always been.” The assumption is that God created a less than good world, and that creation is inherently flawed. Peter addresses this mistaken opinion in 2 Peter 3:3-10. He tells us that ungodly men think that the world in its present death-conditioned state has been like this since its origin. They deny creation, the Flood, and the second coming of Christ. Why? The real issue is what is common to all three events: divine judgment. A man’s aversion to the God who judges him prejudices him against the God of Scripture who judged His creation to be very good, judged creation in the Flood, and who will come at the end of the age to judge mankind. This assumed bias against God as Judge renders men unwilling both to acknowledge Him as Creator and to differentiate between God’s good creation and the effects of the fall.

Ironically, men cannot escape the necessity of judgment. God made creation to be judged. So, having denied God the right to judge, men blasphemously claim that prerogative for themselves. To assert that God created a flawed world is to become the judge – of God! In the face of pandemics, the ungodly accuse God of wrongdoing and attempt to make God accountable to them. We are asked, “Why doesn’t God do something? Either He is not powerful enough or not good enough to fix the problem of death and evil. Why did He make the world like this? Why doesn’t He do something?” Well, God did do something, and He is doing something, and He is about to do something.

We Must View This Pandemic in the Light of Redemption and Consummation

The light of redemption began to shine in history when God came to the fallen couple in Genesis 3. He did curse Adam and his dominion with death as He warned [Gen 2:16-17], but amazingly, He revealed that He is the gracious and merciful Savior of sinners. The Lord salvaged the original goodness of creation so that it would serve as the stage on which He reveals His saving grace. Paul pointed the idolaters of Lystra to their Creator’s goodness to them to encourage them to receive the message of His saving grace declared in the gospel [Acts 17:15ff]. Our good God comes to us with saving grace announcing the gospel of Jesus, the conqueror of sin, Satan, and death.

The gospel declares that Jesus is Lord and interprets His death and resurrection according to Scripture. Jesus ascended to the throne of God and now rules over heaven and earth, building His church and directing history to its consummation. His rule is redemptive. Only the crucified, risen and enthroned Jesus has the authority to forgive sin and to bestow all the blessings of eternal salvation to every sinner who repents and follows Him in faith.

Before Jesus died, He described what would happen between the time of His ascension to the throne of God and His return to resurrect the dead and execute Final Judgment. In Matthew 24-25 He tells us that, 1] the gospel will be proclaimed throughout the entire world, 2] that His disciples will suffer opposition and persecution, 3] that many who initially profess faith in Him will apostatize, and 4] that there will be constant social upheavals and natural catastrophes – including plagues like the CV19 pandemic. The best way to understand how all these factors converge and course through history is the metaphor of a pregnant woman. These forces will crest and crescendo like the contractions of childbirth until the climactic convulsion that will occur when Jesus returns and raises the dead. Paul employs this metaphor of birth pangs in Romans 8:18-22, where he describes the earth as an impregnated womb, ready to give birth. That birth will be the bodily resurrection of the sons of God, which will also liberate the world from the curse of death. The world will be then purified through the fires of judgment and enter its consummated state of resurrection glory as the dwelling place of God with men.

We Must View This Pandemic in the Light of the Bible’s Worldview

We gain a biblical perspective on the coronavirus pandemic when we see it in terms of a biblical worldview and locate it in this present age immediately preceding the return of Christ. The CV19 virus is a result of the fall and a manifestation of the curse of death brought upon us by Adam’s sin. But God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, our Redeemer, who has conquered death, is resurrected and reigning and about to return to usher us and this fallen world into the consummated joy of His glory.

A pandemic confronts us with serious and sober questions. Perhaps now you have some answers to some of those questions? “What kind of world is this in which a microscopic virus can permeate the entire world’s population, bringing disease and even death? For what should I be living? Am I prepared to die?” Perhaps you can better perceive this pandemic from a biblical perspective to understand the day in which we live? Yes, you live in a day when this good, but cursed, world is convulsing in the throes of her birth pangs, yet it is the day of salvation [2 Cor 6:2]! Perhaps you will rejoice to believe the gospel? There is good news! The divine Son of God came into the world to save sinners. Jesus has conquered death. He rose from the dead into resurrection life and now reigns to save sinners. He is about to return to take every saved sinner with Him to glory. Would it not be wonderful if God, in His kindness, were to use this pandemic as the occasion to call you to Christ and include you among those saved sinners? Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed for whoever will call upon Him will be saved [Rom 10:11f].