All photographs courtesy of Unsplash
Even after all these months, there is no clear information about exactly where Coronavirus came from and how it spread so fast. Did it spread from some animal to man, and what might that animal have been in this case? The World Health Organisation has recently been to Wuhan in China to find some answers, while China does not want them to find answers that would embarrass them!
But how does such a virus originate in the first place? It is a microscopic parasite which can only live and multiply by invading the cells of another organism. There it produces copies of itself which then spread rapidly, usually damaging the organism.
The structure of viruses has been carefully analysed, especially recently, in the search for effective vaccines. Viruses are probably the simplest and smallest type of living thing we know about. Scientists are unsure whether to even classify them as living because they need another organism to support them.
There are thousands of viruses which infect plants and animals. Clever natural defences in many organisms can combat and destroy the invading viruses, and vaccinations can reinforce these defences. This helps to control an outbreak and often eliminates it eventually. We hope it does so in this case.
But we would still like to know how viruses originated. This is part of the wider question about how life itself originated. Science insists that life can only come from a previous life, and we all know this is true. Evolution theory cannot explain how life began, how non-living matter could have produced life. This is a fundamental flaw in that theory which it chooses to ignore.
The Bible has an interesting and logical explanation. We are told that the almighty, eternal God created life and sustains it. “He gives to all life and breath and all things” (Acts 17.25). He is the author and provider of every kind of life – physical, mental and spiritual. In fact, God is the great original cause, and Creator of everything as the first verse in the Bible tells us, and no fact of science can ever contradict this.
There is another kind of life which only God can give. It is called eternal life which He offers to everyone who will accept it. Romans 6.23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”. We earn wages and work for them, but never can earn eternal life or merit it. We don’t need to, for God offers it to us as a free gift. “By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2.8).
God provided natural life to all His creatures, including us, by the power of His spoken word. But for Him to give us eternal life, His only Son had to die on the cross for our sins. Through His death and His resurrection, we can receive that life that is spiritual and eternal. If we receive it here and now by putting our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we will enjoy it without an end in heaven when our present life is finally over. It is everlasting life.
Do you remember this hymn we hope to sing together again soon?
Oh what a Saviour that He died for me!
From condemnation He hath made me free;
He that believeth on the Son,” saith He,
“Hath everlasting life.”
All my iniquities on Him were laid,
All my indebtedness by Him was paid;
All who believe on Him the Lord hath said,
“Have everlasting life.”
Though all unworthy, yet I will not doubt,
For him that cometh He will not cast out,
“He that believeth,” Oh the good news shout,
“Hath everlasting life.”
James McGranahan (1840-1907)
Written by Bert Cargill and used by kind permission
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