Not condemnation but redemption
25 July 2004 – Steve Titus of South Africa preached on HIV/AIDS: "Some people are quick to see in HIV/AIDS infection the wrath and punishment of God..."
Steve was our first African preacher and spoke after a reading from the story of Jesus healing a man born blind, in John 9:1-11."Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him" (John 9:3).
I recently put the following question to some theological students: "Did God create the HIV/AIDS virus?
This question should be quite easy for any of us to answer. In our creeds we confess that God is the only Creator. John 1:3 emphasizes that God, through Jesus Christ, made all things, and "not one thing in all creation was made without him". God alone is Creator of everything. Any theory or doctrine that puts the power of creation in any person or power other than God, is false teaching.
Yes, God created the HIV/AIDS virus, but why? Some people are quick to see in HIV/AIDS infection the wrath and punishment of God. They are like the fundamentalist TV evangelists, who were quick to blame the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on 11 September 2001 on "pagans, abortionists, feminists, homosexuals and civil liberty organizations". The tragedy, they said, was God's punishment on these perceived sinners.
These conservative, right-wing religionists, who pretend to have a superior knowledge of God's mind, but seem oblivious of the compassionate spirit of Jesus, are always quick to portray God as a punitive, judgmental, eager-to-punish individual. But Jesus tells us that God is not like that.
In the well-known biblical story of the man who was born blind, the disciples asked Jesus: "Whose sin caused him to be born blind? Was it his own or his parents' sin?"
In their minds, there was no question as to what is the cause of disaster, of sickness, of blindness. It is sin. They only wanted in this case to know exactly who sinned. Did the man sin even before his birth, while he was still in his mother's womb? Or was it that the sins of his parents, his ancestors from the third and fourth generations, was visited on him that he was born blind?
Jesus said no! Even though it cannot be denied that some of the calamities we experience are the results of sin, not every sickness, trouble, problem, is punishment for sin.
There is another option, Jesus said. "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him!"
He was born blind so that the power and the glory of God might be manifested. He was born blind so that God's pity and compassion can be demonstrated. And then Jesus healed the blind man. God does not wish to condemn the world, but to redeem the world.
The HIV/AIDS infection is not only transmitted by unprotected sexual intercourse. Nurses have become infected in the course of their work, and a church minister has become infected by way of a blood transfusion. God does have mysterious ways in which he performs wonders, and it should not surprise us that infection by HIV/AIDS may form part of God's plan to bring us back to God.
In that case HIV/AIDS would not be a punishment but part of God's redemptive plan.
Steve Titus is is the General Secretary of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa, which covers five African nations.
