Hope in a Coronavirusing, Social Justiceing, God Ignoring World  

I love spell check.  If a word is not spelt (spelled) correctly or is a made-up word, you can just hit “add to dictionary” and voila, a new word is born.

Just what is a coronavirusing, social justiceing, God ignoring world?

 From a Biblical perspective, it is a world in which every person knows that the gracious and glorious God of all eternity exists and that we are accountable to Him for how we live our lives in this world, but have suppressed that knowledge in an attempt to be free from that accountability. Thus, it is a world that has been given over by God to the corrupting power of sin, and it’s just penalty of death (Romans 1:18-32).

It is a world under the spiritual influence and oppression of the “wicked one” (1 John 5:19); who is called in Revelation 12:9, the devil or Satan, the one who has deceived the whole world with his lies regarding the truth of God, that mankind may join Him in His rebellion against God’s rule and authority (John 8:44).

It is a world filled mostly with pain, sorrow and suffering, in which all of mankind and all of nature groans and travails under the weight of the corrupting consequences of man’s sin (Romans 8:20-22), and God’s curse upon the creation which is His temporal judgement on our sin (Genesis 3:16-19).  All forms of sickness and disease, including COVID 19, as well as all forms of social injustice, including racism, are linked directly or indirectly to this judgement.

It is a world in which, despite mankind’s suppression of the truth of God and our opposition to His rule over our lives, God continuously displays the glory of His grace, of His mercy and loving kindness (Exodus 34:5-7) by providing innumerable things in this world for our enjoyment and fulfillment.  These include marriage and family and the enjoyment of sex within marriage, food and drink, productive work and employment, houses and cars, dogs and (maybe cats). We also have available for our enjoyment and delight while in this world the beauty and majesty of nature; mountains, oceans, forests, lakes and all the wildlife and flora that exist within them.

In addition, God graciously gives mankind wisdom to develop inventions that will mitigate some of the pain and sorrow and suffering of life in our sin cursed world (thank God for air conditioning).

Despite this extravagant display of His grace, God’s purpose is not for mankind to continue comfortably in our rebellion, but that we would come to know and worship Him as the source of all that is good (James 1:16-17) and to lead us to repentance; wherein we willingly turn from a self-centered life to a God centered life. (Romans 2:4)

We are warned in 1 John 2:15-17 to not love this world, a world that offers us everything we think we want, but absolutely nothing that can ever satisfy the deepest needs and desires of our hearts which only God can do.  And the reason given for this warning is that this present world is a world that is perishing under the judgement of God; a world that will have an end, a sudden and horrific end (1 Thessalonians 5:2-3); an end described for us in 2 Peter 3:10-13, wherein elements which make up the universe  as well as the earth and all that is in it, will be dissolved, and those who would not love and trust and submit their lives to the God who created them to know and love and be loved by Him will be confined forever to the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:12-15), having forfeited the glorious life with God for which they were created.

So where do we find hope in a coronavirusing, social justiceing, God ignoring world?

We are told in John 3:16 that God the Father so loved this world of rebellious, sin corrupted, condemned image bearers, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that all who would repent and believe on the Son for salvation, would not perish, but receive the gift of eternal life, the glorious life with God for which man was created.

God the Son, Jesus Christ, willingly came into this world in the form of a mortal man to, at great cost to Himself (Isaiah 53:4-12), accomplish everything required by divine justice to rescue from eternal judgement and grant eternal life to all who will trust Him as their all sufficient savior, submit to Him as their sovereign Lord/King, and pursue Him alone as the object of their deepest love and source of their greatest joy (Luke 10:25-28).

Thus in Jesus Christ alone we find our hope in this world and the world to come.  (1 Timothy 1:1).

Grace and Truth ×