@ 2022-02-25: GOD AND COVID-19

What would our Creator have our world do in response to the COVID-19 pandemic? Is it one and the same as what our world is doing? 

My wife and I are two of the 65 million Americans who have survived COVID-19 to date. My wife got infected first. Her infection was acute, but not fatal. Mine sent me to the hospital—and it came very close to killing me. Neither of us were vaccinated beforehand. 

My wife has very serious doubts about even the mRNA vaccines and boosters. I have learned to trust her foresight on such matters. For the record, we do understand the technology behind mRNA vaccines. It is very clever—and it has been very effective in the short term. 

But what of the long term? Leaving aside possible unforeseen effects of the vaccines on the human population (and unproven allegations about human engineering of the original virus), we humans are in an arms race against mutations of one of the most intelligently designed viruses known to man. It is like a plague straight from the hand of God. What if it is exactly that? Do we really think our medical science could outmaneuver such a thing in the long term? 

And even if this virus is a purely natural happenstance—something originating in a reservoir in the animal world, and then crossing over to humans from there—it is virtually certain that the crossover would have happened due to persistent, culturally rooted violations of God's dietary laws (Leviticus 11:1-47; Deuteronomy 14:3-21). Are we humans willing to consider that reality seriously? And what are we prepared to do about it? Simply deal with effects rather than causes, as we almost always do when faced with a crisis? Or will we address the causes, and repent of them? 

WHAT SCIENCE CAN TELL US 

Those waging scientific and medical war against COVID-19 face a steep "learning curve". Advice to the public from the CDC (for example) keeps changing accordingly. Out of an abundance of caution no doubt, some CDC recommendations remain fundamentally unchanged at this date. First, everyone who can—apparently whether they already have had COVID-19 or not—should get vaccinated and have booster shots. Second, masking, social distancing, and quarantine should remain in place in many places. (These last three policies have a biblical basis, by the way: cf. Leviticus 13:45-46.) 

But consider this article from The Hill on the effectiveness of natural immunity versus vaccination. This is not simply an "op-ed" piece. It is written by two doctors citing research provided by the CDC, with Web links and appropriate medical caveats. Here is a citation: 

The pattern of improved protection after natural infection makes sense. It always has. That’s how immunity against infections works. That is why vaccines work. The COVID-19 vaccines were developed to mimic a natural infection based on the original virus that was identified in 2019, what biologists call the "wildtype" strain of SARS-CoV-2. The vaccines, especially the commonest mRNA-based ones, use the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, the protein that acts as a key to enter cells and cause infection. By blocking that entry with vaccine-induced antibodies, infection is prevented.

In contrast, during a natural infection, the human body is exposed to all parts of the virus, including the spike protein. When the immune system responds to enable recovery from the infection, it is broader and more diverse, with a greater ability to defend against any future SARS-CoV-2 virus variants. Therefore, while mutations naturally form in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein through the process of viral evolution, the targeted vaccine-based approach to attack the spike protein, while still effective, is not as robust as the armamentarium created from surviving a true infection, and most effective in combination with vaccination. 

“The (natural) armamentarium (is) most effective in combination with vaccination.” Fair enough. Another article published by the CDC supports this conclusion in its own way. Allegedly, if one is vaccinated after being infected, one is half as likely to gain a new infection. But is such a result really the point God wants us all to see? 

I have no objection to vaccines as such—although for some 20-plus years, I didn't even take the flu vaccine. I also didn't get the flu, thanks to preventative medicine. COVID-19 has proven much more dangerous than the flu, however. I do notice that people tend to take (or to resist) whatever changing medical advice about COVID-19 fits their biases (and sometimes their fears). But should the changing results of medical science be our focus? What would God have us do about this pandemic? 

GOD IS NOT AGAINST DOCTORS! 

Let's be perfectly clear first on one thing: the God of the Bible is not against either human doctors or human medicine! Contrary to what some "people of faith" claim, to say "doctors can't heal" defies the plain sense of the Biblical languages. By definition—particularly in Hebrew—doctors are "healers" [rof'im (רפאים)]. Doctors simply have natural limits on what they can do! God does not (Mark 5:25-34; Luke 8:43-48)! 

Jesus Christ famously commended doctors (Matthew 9:12; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31), as did Paul (Colossians 4:14). Indeed, one does not need to be a doctor to "heal" another human being (Exodus 21:18-19). Moreover, the Bible speaks of various medicines and other techniques of treatment, such as binding wounds and broken limbs. One elegantly simple medicine—a fig poultice—was God's chosen means of healing King Hezekiah of his otherwise fatal disease (Isaiah 38:21; 2 Kings 20:7). 

THE ETERNAL OUR HEALER 

But God's direct healing is supernatural, and is connected with the forgiveness of sin (Isaiah 53; Matthew 9:6 and Synoptic parallels; James 5:14-16). It is also connected with repentance from sin. Notice now part of King Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the First Temple: 

(2Ch 6:28 NKJV) "When there is famine in the land, pestilence or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers; when their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities; whatever plague or whatever sickness there is;

(2Ch 6:29 NKJV) whatever prayer, whatever supplication is made by anyone, or by all Your people Israel, when each one knows his own burden and his own grief, and spreads out his hands to this temple:

(2Ch 6:30 NKJV) then hear from heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive, and give to everyone according to all his ways, whose heart You know (for You alone know the hearts of the sons of men),

(2Ch 6:31 NKJV) that they may fear You, to walk in Your ways as long as they live in the land which You gave to our fathers. 

What was the Eternal's famous response? 

(2Ch 7:13 NKJV) When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people,

(2Ch 7:14 NKJV) if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 

WHAT THEN SHOULD WE DO? 

True, the Eternal God does not imply, in Exodus 15:25-26, that He is our Only Healer. He implies that He is our Supreme Healer. And even so, the fact He had to ordain statutes on public health (as in Leviticus 13:45-46) proves Israel was not fully obedient to Him—and thus was unable to claim His promise in Exodus 15:25-26 concerning the prevention of all disease. 

But there were some diseases–or so it appears—that came upon Israel that did not yield so readily to what the Eternal commanded in cases of "leprosy". Perhaps some were like COVID-19: capable of being spread long before symptoms appeared (and even long after they disappeared, perhaps). What did the Eternal God recommend in such cases? Rely on human doctors and human medicines in place of Him, or ahead of Him? No! Turn to Him in repentance, faith, and prayer, so that He might turn to us! That is what President Abraham Lincoln would be telling us to do, as he did during the Civil War![1] That is what our President and our society should be doing right now! That is what my wife and I are doing as a personal example, for those with eyes to see! 

I am not naive. I know this is the last thing our society will do. But the day is coming when one-fourth of the world will be struck down by false religion and resulting wars, famines, and pestilences. And that will happen just before the greatest time of trouble the world has ever seen! In those days, only those who turn to God in repentance and faith will have any hope of survival! 

John Wheeler

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[1] Our present Thanksgiving Day exists because God answered the nation’s heartfelt prayers at that time. Lincoln had called for a national day of fasting and prayer the previous spring.