Preamble
In March 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a rapidly spreading virus outbreak a pandemic which countries over the world are grappling with. COVID-19 (Corona Virus Discovered in 2019) pandemic is a term indicating that the virus has penetrated a large population, countries and continents. Its impacts cut across board and without discrimination, it affects young and old, sportsmen, politicians, crowns and the crowds. It is largely being feared for being the cause of a contagious widespread of disease and death. COVID-19 like other influenza viruses (respiratory viruses) is spread by coughing and sneezing. It is not visible to the naked eyes but can only be seen by electron microscopy. Viruses are the most numerous type of biological entities.
In a biblical perspective however, sin is the mother of all viruses. It has existed in the Garden of Eden before the law was given by God through Moses (Rom. 6:13). Adam was the index case in the world many thousand years ago, whereas, COVID-19 index case was just discovered last year in Wuhan, China. The description of sin's global spread is beyond pandemic and its scourge has a deeper penetration in humanity and on the ecosystem than COVID-19 does. Sin has killed more people in the world from the time the first index case was pronounced convicted and judged than COVID-19 which has just affected barely over a million people as at the time of this writing. Sin like a virus permeates our ecosystem on Earth and found almost everywhere.
What is a virus? A virus is a sub-microscopic infectious agent that reproduces only inside the living cell of an organism. It can infect all types of life forms from animals and plants to microorganism including bacteria. Virus is much smaller than bacteria and lacks the capacity to thrive and reproduce outside of host body. When it enters healthy cells, it hijacks them and creates copies of itself. Viruses are essentially inert (unable to move) and on their own they can’t do anything. They need a host cell to replicate; they survive by harming other species.
Etymologically, the word virus is from the Latin neuter virus which means ’poison’ and noxious liquids. Sin, like the etymological meaning of virus is poisonous. It kills, maims, sinks and destroys. God told Adam the poisonous and deadly effect of sin, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen. 2:17). The Apostle Paul says in his Epistle to the Roman Christians: “for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom.6:23) Paul states clearly in I Cor. 15:55-57:
“ O Death. Where is your sting?
O Hades, here is your victory”
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, Who gives us the victory through our
Lord Jesus Christ.
We should note as Bible records that, “for until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law” (Rom. 5:14). The impacts of sin were not seen or felt until man (Adam, our index case) committed it. Sin was lurking ab initio before it found its way into man. The tree of the knowledge and good and evil had existed in the Garden of Eden before God created and put Adam in it. They had seen it and passed by it severally without attempting to eat it until the tempter came and Eve noticed its presence. The scripture says:
So when the woman saw that tree was good for food that it was
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she
took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her
and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and
they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves covering (Gen 3:6-7)
God told Cain after killing his brother that “sin lies at the door (Gen 4:7; cf. Heb.12:1).Sin like any virus can mutate, one sin can lead to others in order to cover it up. David with Bathsheba is a classical example here. Seeing the nudity of another man’s wife didn’t end there but several other sins were committed (2 Sam 11:1ff; cf. Job.31:1). Sin has the ability to spread widely like virus if not checked on time among people, within a church, organization, country or continent. “Therefore just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and this death spread to all men, because all sinned (Rom.5:12). Like virus, one of the ways to detect it in a healthy cell is TEST and thus contains its spread. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” “Let me be weighed on honest scales, that God may know my integrity. If my step has turned from the way, or my heart walked after my eyes, or if any spot adheres to my hands.” Examine me O Lord, and prove me; try my mind and heart.” (Ps 139: 23-24; read Job 31:6-7; Ps 26:2)
How to Cure the Virus Called Sin
Virologists hold that most viruses especially respiratory viruses can easily be ‘disassembled’ by soap and water- washing your hands with soap for at least 20 seconds under a running water when they are outside the body. What if it has begun replicating? Those confirmed positive to COVID-19 are treated symptomatically particularly now that there is no single drug or vaccination that can cure it. Sin however, has a permanent cure which was given over two thousand years ago. The cure to the Sin Virus is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself who is our ‘Jehovah Ropheka’ (I am the Lord that heals you, Ex 16:26.) “who Himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we having died to sins, might live for righteousness - by whose stripes you were healed (1Pet. 2:24). The permanent cure was made available to us on the cross, He died for our sins, He died that he might destroy the power of sin and set us free and healed.
Though the cure is for the whole world nevertheless it is only those who come and believe in Him that can access the healing. According to His word, healing is related to forgiveness (II Chrn.7:13-14; Ps 103:3). For anyone to receive healing from the scourge of the Sin Virus, one must confess and repent of one’s sin(s) and be freed (I Jn. 3:8)
Conclusion
Corona virus is not only destroying the immunity of its host and replicating itself in the host cells, it has brought untold hardship and woes to all the countries of the world. Over a million people infected and tens of thousands dead already and still counting (we pray for divine intervention in the world affairs), over four billions of world population are on lockdown in their homes. The world is now in recession worse than that of 2008 according to the IMF Chief Kristalia Georgieva. The world population, countries and their governments, World Health Organization, NGOs and Philanthropists are synergizing on how to contain the COVID-19 while ignoring the more deadly SIN VIRUS which will soon consume the ungodly and sinner (I Pet.3:7) It is high time we used the period of this LOCKDOWN to LOOKUP to God and ask for his help over the SIN VIRUS
Pastor J.A. Gbolahan is Somolu Olaleye DCC Youth Coordinator, he also pastors CAC Gate of Heaven in Idafa, Ikorodu, Lagos
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