The coronavirus pandemic is the latest in a long line of disease outbreaks that have wreaked havoc on humanity over the centuries, and it will very likely not be the last. This editorial offers theological, historical, and pastoral reflections on disease and sickness.

So thou, sick world, mistak’st thy self to be
Well, when alas! thou’rt in a lethargy.…
There is no health; physicians say that we,
At best, enjoy but a neutrality.
And can there be worse sickness than to know
That we are never well, nor can be so?
—John Donne, “An Anatomy of the World”1

Once again, the terrifying term “pandemic” has been headline news. On 31 December 2019, Chinese health officials reported cases of serious respiratory sickness in people associated with a large market in Wuhan, China.2 This outbreak was soon linked to a “novel coronavirus” (later given the innocuous name “COVID-19”), and the World Health Organization declared “a global public health emergency” due to the deadly virus.3 On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization characterized COVID-19 as “a pandemic,” with confirmed cases of the virus in well over 100 countries, thousands of confirmed deaths, and thousands of new cases being reported each day.4 The Center for Disease Control ominously warns that there is “no vaccine to protect against COVID-19” and “no specific antiviral treatment for COVID-19.”5 Despite the stunning scientific advances in our modern age, medical providers and researchers weren’t prepared to counter this coronavirus when it burst on the scene. Without vaccine or cure, the Chinese government turned to containment, imposing residential lockdowns that impacted over half the country’s population,6 while major airlines grounded flights to and from China. The global spread of the coronavirus prompted nation-wide lockdowns in Italy and other countries, severe travel restrictions, closures to schools and businesses, and cancellations of major sporting events. The president of France even declared “war” on the invisible enemy.7 Churches on multiple continents have even been forced to cancel or modify corporate worship services.

The coronavirus pandemic is the latest in a long line of disease outbreaks that have wreaked havoc on humanity over the centuries, and it will very likely not be the last. This editorial offers theological, historical, and pastoral reflections on disease and sickness.

1. Disease in Biblical Perspective

Disease and death have indelibly marked the human experience east of Eden. In the beginning, there were no rogue parasites or harmful germs—everything was “very good” (Gen 1:31). Then everything changed when sin entered the world and “death through sin,” and creation itself “was subjected to futility” (Rom 5:12; 8:20). Though the OT does not explicate this point, the realities of sickness and disease accompany the “thorns and thistles” of creation’s curse and humanity’s “dust … to dust” sentence. Without sin, human beings would experience neither death nor illness, which serves as “death’s prelude.”8

The OT emphasizes that Yahweh alone has the ultimate authority to “wound” and to “heal” (Deut 32:39; cf. Job 5:18). Yahweh strikes Egypt with various “diseases” yet promises to heal and protect his people if they heed his voice (Exod 15:26; Deut 7:15). Likewise, when the Philistines capture the ark, Yahweh afflicted them with tumors and caused “a deathly panic” (1 Sam 5:6–12). “Pestilence” is also one of Yahweh’s four dreadful judgments against Israel, along with war, famine, and wild beasts (Ezek 14:21; cf. Deut 32:24–26; Rev 6:8). On several occasions in the OT, Yahweh afflicts his people with pestilence because of their unfaithfulness. For example, in response to David’s sinful census, Yahweh strikes the land with his “sword” of pestilence, and 70,000 men of Israel perished (1 Chron 21:12–14). Because Jehoram “walked in the way of the kings of Israel” and led Judah into spiritual harlotry, the Lord brings “a great plague” on the people and strikes the wicked king with a severe, incurable disease in his bowels, “and he died in great agony” (2 Chron 21:12–19).

However, the Scriptures do not always connect sickness to specific personal or corporate transgressions. For example, the great prophet Elisha who raised the Shunammite’s son and healed Naaman of leprosy himself fell sick with a terminal illness (2 Kgs 13:14). In the NT, Jesus corrects his disciples’ neat-and-tidy cause-and-effect reasoning that ties physical sufferings to personal sins (Luke 13:1–5; John 9:1–3).

The prophets also anticipate the day when Yahweh will gather his scattered, afflicted people to bind up their wounds and heal them—not just from their physical afflictions but from “their apostasy” (Hos 14:4; cf. Isa 30:26; Jer 30:17; 33:6). The scourge of suffering and the hope of restoration move God’s people to heed Hosea’s call, “Come, let us return to Yahweh; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up (Hos 6:1).

Jesus declares that he “came to seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10), in contrast to Israel’s self-serving leaders who failed to strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the injured, and seek the lost (Ezek 34:4). He shows compassion to the harassed and helpless (Matt 9:36) and heals the sick and the oppressed (Acts 10:38). Christ’s healings authenticate his ministry as truly from God, signal the dawn of the age of restoration, and also point to the deeper healing that he accomplishes through his atoning death for sins (1 Pet 2:24; cf. Isa 53:3–4; Matt 8:16–17).

Thus, the Scriptures do not present disease as morally neutral or “indifferent” like the philosophers.9 Rather, disease and other causes of pain and suffering are part of this broken world infected with sin, and these terrors have no place in the new creation, when God will roll back the curse, wipe away every tear, and make all things new (Rev 21:4–4; 22:3; cf. Isa 25:8).

2. Disease Is a Parable

The secular prophets warn that global pandemics are among the greatest threats facing humanity,10 but the biblical prophets present disease as a parable for humanity’s greatest malady—sin.

The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. (Isa 1:5)

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jer 17:9)

How sick is your heart, declares the Lord GOD, because you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen prostitute. (Ezek 16:30)

When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to the great king. But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound. (Hos 5:13)

Sin is the ultimate pandemic, infecting every son of Adam and daughter of Eve (cf. Rom 5:12). It is “a deep, universal and fatal illness.… Its working is lethal and toxic, and we all carry the germ.”11 Calvin puts it this way: “Innumerable are the evils that beset human life; innumerable, too, the deaths that threaten it. We need not go beyond ourselves: since our body is the receptacle of a thousand diseases—in fact holds within itself and fosters the causes of diseases—a man cannot go about unburdened by many forms of his own destruction.”12 There is no political solution, scientific remedy, or educational program that can cure or contain the pandemic of human sin. Yet many if not most people do not recognize their cancerous condition or grasp its deadly diagnosis.

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