The Truth About Plagues Warrants Repeating

The Curse of Plague, The Blessing of Faith

Peter Barnes
Presbyterian Church of Australia

Dr Samuel Johnson is supposed to have written to a hopeful would-be author: ‘Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.’ One can sympathise with the sentiment. Everyone has written on the coronavirus, and the main points that need to be said from the Christian perspective have already been made.  Nevertheless, they will be made again.

All Afflictions Come From God

All disasters come from God (Amos 3:6; Isa.45:7; Lam.3:38). This is a startling truth, especially in today’s age of soft gods, but it is the truth nevertheless. God warned Israel that if the people set their face against Him, He would set His face against them. ‘I will visit you with panic,’ He declares (Lev.26:16).

The terrible Bubonic Plague of the late 1340s wiped out about one-third of Europe. Writing to his brother (who was a monk), the poet, Petrarch, lamented:

Alas! My beloved brother, what shall I say? … On all sides is sorrow; everywhere is fear. I would, my brother, that I had never been born, or, at least, had died before these times … When has any such thing been even heard or seen; in what annals has it ever been read that houses were left vacant, cities deserted, the country neglected, the fields too small for the dead and a fearful and universal solitude over the whole earth?

Petrarch, who fathered two children without the benefits of marriage, had no doubt that ‘We have, indeed, deserved these [punishments] and even greater’. Philip Daileader has commented that Petrarch could make receiving a parking ticket sound tragic, but the Black Death remains the most devastating plague in human history. And God sent it.

Daily Meditation

Anchoring Your Soul

Ligonier Ministries

The God of Christianity is not a frivolous God. He is not given to caprice or arbitrary acts of violence. His actions are not irrational expressions or whims. We do not know why at a given place or a given time natural catastrophes take place. Easy equations of guilt and disaster are ruled out by statements in the book of Job and the ninth chapter of John’s gospel. When inexplicable disasters occur, we must say with Luther, “Let God be God.”

When Job cried out, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21b), he was not trying to sound pious or give superficial praise to God. He was biting his lip and gripping his stomach as he sought to remain faithful to God in the midst of unmitigated anguish. But Job knew who God was and cursed Him not.

Whatever else this world is, it is fallen. Suffering is inseparably related to sin. That is not to say that all suffering is a direct result of sin or that there is a measurable ratio between an individual’s suffering and his sin (Job and John 9 militate against such thinking). However, suffering belongs to the complex of sin. As long as this world suffers from the violence of men, it returns such violence in kind. Scripture often personifies nature as being angry with its human master and exploiter. Instead of dressing, keeping, and replenishing the earth, we exploit it and pollute it.

The world is not yet redeemed. We look for a new heaven and a new earth. We yearn for a land without tempest, flood, or earthquake. Such yearning provides a hope that is an anchor for the soul.

Coram Deo

Is your soul anchored to the biblical hope of the future, the new heaven and earth, where there will be no more sin and suffering?

Passages for Further Study

John 9:1–3

Daily Meditation

Responding to Disasters

Ligonier Ministries

How do we respond to the violence of natural disasters? How does our theology deal with such wanton destruction that shows no respect for persons? The elderly, infants, and helplessly infirm experience no mercy in the face of natural disasters such as floods and storms that sweep away everything in their paths. After such events, the question on many people’s lips is: “How could a good God allow such a thing to happen?”

Nature’s angry tirades have produced endless speculation from philosophers and theologians. How do we, as Christians, respond to the problem of pain and suffering in the world? Scripture provides no final answer to the problem of evil and suffering. But it gives some helpful guidelines.

First, the Bible teaches us that evil is real. The Bible never seeks to minimize the full reality of suffering and misery. It makes no attempt to pawn these realities off as mere illusions. Nor is there any call to a Stoic attitude of imperturbability or detachment from such reality. The biblical characters speak openly of calamity; they weep real tears; they rend their garments and pen their lamentations. The Christ of Scripture is a man of sorrows who is acquainted with grief. His road is the Via Dolorosa.

Second, the Bible teaches that evil is not ultimate. Though Christianity recognizes the total force of evil, it is never regarded in ultimate categories of dualism. Evil is dependent and derived. It has no independent power above and over God. It is redeemable. Though Scripture takes evil seriously, its message is one of triumph. Though the whole creation groans in travail waiting for its redemption, that groan is not futile. Over all creation stands the cosmic Christ who at the same time is Christus Victor.

Coram Deo

How do you respond in the face of disaster? Do you blame God? What is your personal theology of suffering?

Passages for Further Study

Psalm 135:3
Psalm 100:5
Psalm 86:5

Daily Meditation

Suffering for Righteousness

Ligonier Ministries

Martin Luther’s teaching of “justification by faith alone” was a battle cry for the sufficiency of the merit of Christ and for the graciousness of redemption. His slogan sola fide (“by faith alone”) was merely an extension of Augustine’s earlier credo, sola gratia (“by grace alone”).

What is lacking in the afflictions of Christ is not merit. No one can possibly subtract from or add to the merit of Christ. His merit is capable of neither diminution or augmentation. Our best works are always tainted by our sinfulness. We are debtors who cannot pay our debts, let alone accrue a surplus of excess merit. To interpret Colossians 1:24 in the way I mentioned in the previous reading is to cast a grotesque shadow over the utter perfection and fullness of Christ’s meritorious suffering.

What then does Paul mean by filling up what is lacking? If the lack is not merit, what is it? Paul repeatedly stresses the idea that the church, the body of Christ, is called to a willing participation in the humiliation and suffering of Jesus. For Paul, as with any Christian, it was a singular honor to be persecuted for righteousness’ sake. But it is one thing to suffer for righteousness’ sake; it is quite another to suffer for merit’s sake.

Coram Deo

If you are suffering, reflect on these questions: Is it because of your own bad decisions? Is it because of your circumstances? Are you suffering for righteousness’ sake or is your suffering self-inflicted?

Passages for Further Study

1 Peter 4:13
Philippians 3:10
Hebrews 13:12

Daily Meditation

Avoiding a False Theology of Suffering

Ligonier Ministries

Martin Luther’s tenure in the monastery was a time of spiritual desperation. He was tormented by unrelieved guilt coupled with a gripping fear of the wrath of God. Why would an educated man retreat to a barren cell and abuse himself with self-inflicted physical punishment? Why would a believer go out of his way to find personal suffering?

The answer may be found partially, though not totally, in a concept that emerged in church history that equated suffering with merit. Monks fled to the desert to seek rigorous forms of asceticism and self-denial, not only as a form of spiritual discipline to maintain a healthy dependence on the grace of God, but also in quest of sanctifying merit.

A biblical text that was often cited as scriptural warrant for such activity is Colossians 1:24. Paul writes, “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church.” The key words of this verse are “fill up … what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.”

A false theology of suffering emerged that was built on the hypothesis that the meritorious suffering of Jesus, though necessary for the redemption of God’s people, is not complete—there is additional merit that can be added to it by the suffering of the saints.

Coram Deo

Reflect on this truth: The suffering of Christ cannot be augmented by your merit. It is complete.

Passages for Further Study

Colossians 1:24
1 Peter 2:21
1 Peter 3:18

Daily Meditation

Anchoring Your Soul

Ligonier Ministries

The God of Christianity is not a frivolous God. He is not given to caprice or arbitrary acts of violence. His actions are not irrational expressions or whims. We do not know why at a given place or a given time natural catastrophes take place. Easy equations of guilt and disaster are ruled out by statements in the book of Job and the ninth chapter of John’s gospel. When inexplicable disasters occur, we must say with Luther, “Let God be God.”

When Job cried out, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21b), he was not trying to sound pious or give superficial praise to God. He was biting his lip and gripping his stomach as he sought to remain faithful to God in the midst of unmitigated anguish. But Job knew who God was and cursed Him not.

Whatever else this world is, it is fallen. Suffering is inseparably related to sin. That is not to say that all suffering is a direct result of sin or that there is a measurable ratio between an individual’s suffering and his sin (Job and John 9 militate against such thinking). However, suffering belongs to the complex of sin. As long as this world suffers from the violence of men, it returns such violence in kind. Scripture often personifies nature as being angry with its human master and exploiter. Instead of dressing, keeping, and replenishing the earth, we exploit it and pollute it.

The world is not yet redeemed. We look for a new heaven and a new earth. We yearn for a land without tempest, flood, or earthquake. Such yearning provides a hope that is an anchor for the soul.

Coram Deo

Is your soul anchored to the biblical hope of the future, the new heaven and earth, where there will be no more sin and suffering?

Passages for Further Study

John 9:1–3

Daily Meditation

Avoiding a False Theology of Suffering

Ligonier Ministries

Martin Luther’s tenure in the monastery was a time of spiritual desperation. He was tormented by unrelieved guilt coupled with a gripping fear of the wrath of God. Why would an educated man retreat to a barren cell and abuse himself with self-inflicted physical punishment? Why would a believer go out of his way to find personal suffering?

The answer may be found partially, though not totally, in a concept that emerged in church history that equated suffering with merit. Monks fled to the desert to seek rigorous forms of asceticism and self-denial, not only as a form of spiritual discipline to maintain a healthy dependence on the grace of God, but also in quest of sanctifying merit.

A biblical text that was often cited as scriptural warrant for such activity is Colossians 1:24. Paul writes, “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church.” The key words of this verse are “fill up … what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.”

A false theology of suffering emerged that was built on the hypothesis that the meritorious suffering of Jesus, though necessary for the redemption of God’s people, is not complete—there is additional merit that can be added to it by the suffering of the saints.

Coram Deo

Reflect on this truth: The suffering of Christ cannot be augmented by your merit. It is complete.

Passages for Further Study

Colossians 1:24
1 Peter 2:21
1 Peter 3:18

Daily Meditation

Avoiding a False Theology of Suffering

Martin Luther’s tenure in the monastery was a time of spiritual desperation. He was tormented by unrelieved guilt coupled with a gripping fear of the wrath of God. Why would an educated man retreat to a barren cell and abuse himself with self-inflicted physical punishment? Why would a believer go out of his way to find personal suffering?

The answer may be found partially, though not totally, in a concept that emerged in church history that equated suffering with merit. Monks fled to the desert to seek rigorous forms of asceticism and self-denial, not only as a form of spiritual discipline to maintain a healthy dependence on the grace of God, but also in quest of sanctifying merit.

A biblical text that was often cited as scriptural warrant for such activity is Colossians 1:24. Paul writes, “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church.” The key words of this verse are “fill up … what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.”

A false theology of suffering emerged that was built on the hypothesis that the meritorious suffering of Jesus, though necessary for the redemption of God’s people, is not complete—there is additional merit that can be added to it by the suffering of the saints.

Coram Deo

Reflect on this truth: The suffering of Christ cannot be augmented by your merit. It is complete.

Passages for Further Study

Colossians 1:24
1 Peter 2:21
1 Peter 3:18

Daily Meditation

The Great King's Wine

We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

John Piper

I have never heard anyone say, “The really deep lessons of my life have come through times of ease and comfort.” But I have heard strong saints say, “Every significant advance I have ever made in grasping the depths of God’s love and growing deep with him, has come through suffering.”

This is a sobering biblical truth. For example: “For Christ’s sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8). Paraphrase: No pain, no gain. Or:

Now let it all be sacrificed, if it will get me more of Christ.

Here’s another example: “Although he was a Son, Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). The same book said he never sinned (Hebrews 4:15).

So learning obedience does not mean switching from disobedience to obedience. It means growing deeper and deeper with God in the experience of obedience. It means experiencing depths of yieldedness to God that would not have been otherwise demanded. This is what came through suffering. No pain, no gain.

Samuel Rutherford said that when he was cast into the cellars of affliction, he remembered that the great King always kept his wine there. Charles Spurgeon said, “They who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.”

Do you not love your beloved more when you feel some strange pain that makes you think you have cancer? We are strange creatures indeed. If we have health and peace and time to love, it is a thin and hasty thing. But if we are dying, love is a deep, slow river of inexpressible joy, and we can scarcely endure to give it up.

Therefore brothers and sisters, “Count it all joy when you meet various trials” (James 1:2).

Daily Meditation

The Seminary of Suffering

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.  (2 Corinthians 12:9)

John Piper

This is God’s universal purpose for all Christian suffering: more contentment in God and less satisfaction in self and the world. I have never heard anyone say, “The really deep lessons of life have come through times of ease and comfort.”

But I have heard strong saints say, “Every significant advance I have ever made in grasping the depths of God’s love and growing deep with him has come through suffering.”

The pearl of greatest price is the glory of Christ.

Thus, Paul stresses that in our sufferings the glory of Christ’s all-sufficient grace is magnified. If we rely on him in our calamity and he sustains our “rejoicing in hope,” then he is shown to be the all-satisfying God of grace and strength that he is.  If we hold fast to him “when all around our soul gives way,” then we show that he is more to be desired than all we have lost.

Christ said to the suffering apostle, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul responded to this: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10).

So suffering clearly is designed by God not only as a way to wean Christians off of self and onto grace, but also as a way to spotlight that grace and make it shine. That is precisely what faith does; it magnifies Christ’s future grace.

The deep things of life in God are discovered in suffering.

Daily Meditation

Our Weakness Reveals His Worth

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

John Piper

God’s design for suffering is that it magnifies Christ’s worth and power. This is grace, because the greatest joy of Christians is to see Christ magnified in our lives.

When Paul was told by the Lord Jesus that his “thorn in the flesh” would not be taken away, he supported Paul’s faith by explaining why. The Lord said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). God ordains that Paul be weak so that Christ might be seen as strong on Paul’s behalf.

If we feel and look self-sufficient, we will get the glory, not Christ. So Christ chooses the weak things of the world “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:29). And sometimes he makes seemingly strong people weaker, so that the divine power will be the more evident.

We know that Paul experienced this as grace because he rejoiced in it: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10).

Living by faith in God’s grace means being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus. Therefore faith will not shrink back from what reveals and magnifies all that God is for us in Jesus. That is what our own weakness and suffering does.

From the Greater to the Lesser

Preaching Daily to The Soul

We have had occasion recently to think upon one of the more famous passages in the Pauline library: namely Romans 8: 31-39.  This is one of those passages which demands it be firmly anchored into its context, lest it be twisted by perverted minds.

The reason why context is so important is the otherwise unqualified, open-ended nature of the initial promise:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?  [Romans 8: 31-32]

This is a favorite text of the Prosperity Gospellers.  "Look, mate.  You want that swanky car?  God will give it to you if you believe with faith of sufficient quantity and quality.  Does it not say that God will give you all things?  Oh, and since God is going to give you all this, you are freed up to give me what you do have."

Since old-style theological and biblical liberalism has departed to the plains of Moab whence it came, and is left bubbling in the cauldrons of radical pomo agnosticism, the Church is left to contend with idiots who preach the gospel of money.  The Prosperity Gospellers are a great curse upon our times.  Their avarice and distortion of texts such as the passage in Romans above must be exposed and utterly rejected.

Daily Devotional

How to Contemplate Calamity

“The waves of death encompassed me, the torrents of destruction assailed me. . . This God — his way is perfect.” (2 Samuel 22:5, 31)

John Piper

After the loss of his ten children owing to a “natural disaster” (Job 1:19), Job said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). At the end of the book, the inspired writer confirms Job’s understanding of what happened. He says Job’s brothers and sisters “comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11).

This has several crucial implications for us as we think about the massive calamity that occurred December 26, 2005, in the Indian Ocean — one of the deadliest natural disasters on record.

1. Satan is not ultimate, God is.

Satan had a hand in Job’s misery, but not the decisive hand. God gave Satan permission to afflict Job (Job 1:12; 2:10). But Job and the writer of this book treat God as the ultimate and decisive cause. When Satan afflicts Job with sores, Job says to his wife, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10), and the writer calls these satanic sores “the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11). So Satan is real. Satan brings misery. But Satan is not ultimate or decisive. He is on a leash. He goes no farther than God decisively permits.

2. Even if Satan caused the earthquake in the Indian Ocean the day after Christmas, he is not the decisive cause of over 200,000 deaths; God is.

God claims power over tsunamis in Job 38:8 when he asks Job rhetorically, “Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb . . . and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?” Psalm 89:8–9 says, “O Lord . . . you rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.” And Jesus himself has the same control today as he once did over the deadly threats of waves: “He . . . rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm” (Luke 8:24). In other words, even if Satan caused the earthquake, God could have stopped the waves.

3. Destructive calamities in this world mingle judgment and mercy.

Their purposes are not simple. Job was a godly man and his miseries were not God’s punishment (Job 1:1, 8). Their design was purifying not punishment (Job 42:6). But we do not know the spiritual condition of Job’s children. Job was certainly concerned about them (Job 1:5). God may have taken their life in judgment. If that is true, then the same calamity proved in the end to be mercy for Job and judgment on his children. This is true of all calamities. They mingle judgment and mercy. They are both punishment and purification. Suffering, and even death, can be both judgment and mercy at the same time.

The clearest illustration of this is the death of Jesus. It was both judgment and mercy. It was judgment on Jesus because he bore our sins (not his own), and it was mercy toward us who trust him to bear our punishment (Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24) and be our righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). Another example is the curse that lies on this fallen earth. Those who do not believe in Christ experience it as judgment, but believers experience it as merciful, though painful, preparation for glory. “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope” (Romans 8:20). This is God’s subjection. This is why there are tsunamis.

4. The heart that Christ gives to his people feels compassion for those who suffer, no matter what their faith.

When the Bible says, “Weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15), it does not add, “unless God caused the weeping.” Job’s comforters would have done better to weep with Job than talk so much. That does not change when we discover that Job’s suffering was ultimately from God. No, it is right to weep with those who suffer. Pain is pain, no matter who causes it. We are all sinners. Empathy flows not from the causes of pain, but the company of pain. And we are all in it together.

5. Finally, Christ calls us to show mercy to those who suffer, even if they do not deserve it.

That is the meaning of mercy — undeserved help. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27).