More than once Jehovah attempted to show wayward Israel how great His love was for them. There was no need that One as self-sufficient as He should do this, if it were not for the driving force of the very love He was trying to get them to see.
“How shall I give thee up, Ephraim [Israel]?” He said plaintively; “how shall I deliver thee [up], Israel?…mine heart is turned [draws back] within me, my repentings [compassions] are kindled together.” (Hos. 11:8)
This was the gracious and merciful side of God that had as much need for expression as His righteousness and justice. But there is no conflict between the two, no division within Jehovah. Whereas any two opposing natures within us can create conflict, at times driving us mad, we must remember one thing in this connection: The two apparently conflicting sides of Jehovah are both harmonious facets of the one wholly integrated God. The justice of God is not fighting against the mercy of God. That cannot be. For the sake of putting the situation in humanly comprehensible terms, we at times make them appear to be antithetic. But no facet of God can be opposed to another facet; it would cause a rift within the divine Being. The fact is that Justice worked with its counterpart (not opponent) Mercy, and forged an environment in which man could live.
A God of Balance and Justice
The world is hell-bent (a fitting word!) on doing its own thing, and God will allow them to do so up to a point. While individuals and governments are sating their lusts for power and wealth and glory, God is, unnoticed, easing them slowly and surely onto the track to doom and destruction. This is not because God has suddenly become like the mythical gods of old – petty and vindictive – no; He is the same God He has always been; He is a God of balance and justice.
To be the same God He has always been, He has to show He is a God of justice, that is, wrongdoing must suffer punishment and righteous living must be rewarded. But humanity continually has turned a deaf ear and a cold shoulder to God’s remonstrances. Now, in all justice and righteousness, God has to be the God He has told mankind He is: He is a God of balance, that is, love AND judgment. He has warned them, “For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption…” (Gal 6:8), even while He still offers this assurance, “but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
What more could we ask of a just, balanced, righteous, evenhanded God?
Yet men and women press on in their sinful ways. God has pleaded with and begged these impenitent sinners – but they have refused to listen, they have rebuffed His efforts at reconciliation. He has whispered offers of peace in their ears at night; in desperation God has thundered it at them, “You must come to me and find rest and peace!” He has always been there trying to tell sinning humanity ever since their fall in the Garden of Eden that they must suffer for their sins. He has sought to drill it into their minds and hearts, ever since that horrible debacle in the Garden, that what a person sows he must reap.
And reap he will whether he is a saint or a sinner. For the saint, however, once he accomplishes his reaping in this life, all reaping will be over. The blood of the Lamb of God (Jesus), has removed his sin and, although the saint has to reap in this life for the sins he has committed in the past, they are no longer around to follow him into the hereafter.
But God is saying at this time the path is not irreversible for individuals who have not yet come to Christ. God is still pleading one-on-one with individual souls to come to Him. Mankind as a whole now seems to be hurtling toward perdition (no longer are they being “eased slowly and surely toward it”), but there is still room at the cross for just one more sinner. If you will reach down deep into your heart, deep into your innermost being and cry out, “Lord, save me; I need you more than anyone or anything in this world!” He will hear you and He will save you. He wants so much for you to ask Him into your life because He will never force His salvation on you.
What more could we ask of a just, balanced, righteous, evenhanded and merciful God?
The loving nature of God looked at the tragedy of man and could no longer be restrained. The creature He had made was on an unswerving track to doom because of the “high and lifted up” divine goodness that was towering over the creature. This goodness and righteousness were ready to fall on the creature and grind him into the dust of hell. Love, however, towering just as high and invincible and every bit as strong and enduring, was yearning over its errant child and eager to save him.
As God beheld adulterous Israel, His heart smote Him (human terminology). That is why God cried out, “How shall I give thee up?” Jehovah was like a man whose emotions were being wrenched by a faithless and undeserving wife whom He dearly loved. Jehovah had lavished much love and care on Israel and she had thrown them back in His face. No one can appreciate the agonies of unrequited love so much as he who has experienced them. Such is the vulnerability of love, even divine love.
About Aaron Smith
Speak Your Mind