Series - Tempted to Hate

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We’re exploring God’s foundational description of himself, on the assumption—well founded in Scripture—that we ought to treat others the way he does. We’re getting to the end of the list, where there’s a cluster of attributes that we really need to discuss together.

Exodus 34.7 puts it this way:

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The fourth characteristic that God emphasizes about himself is that he is “abounding in lovingkindness.”

If you’ll compare the different ways that last word is translated, you find that it has a broad range of meaning and significant theological depth—

• KJV “goodness”
• NASB “lovingkindness”
• ESV “steadfast love”
• NIV “love”
• GW “always faithful”

In other passages it’s rendered widely: kindness, mercy, devotion, favor, loyalty.

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God’s primary description of himself begins with his compassion, and then his grace. Next is the phrase “slow to anger” (Ex 34.6). The KJV renders that as “longsuffering”; the God’s Word translation says “patient.”

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In his foundational self-description, the first thing God tells us about himself is that he’s compassionate. By nature, he feels deeply for the hurts and trials of his creatures—even the animals (Jon 4.11), but most especially those in his image.

He cares.

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In his primary description of himself, God includes a list of related attributes (Ex 34.6-7):

• Compassionate
• Gracious
• Slow to anger
• Abounding in lovingkindness
• Abounding in truth
• Keeping lovingkindness for thousands
• Forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin
• Not leaving the guilty unpunished
• Visiting the iniquity of fathers upon children

And in the parallel prophetic passages,

As we’ve noted, even Jonah the bigot knew that God had revealed himself as a God of compassion, who extends mercy even to the most wicked, upon their repentance—and who seeks that repentance from them.

When and where did God reveal this?

It begins with Moses.

We’re polarized.

Yep.

And each side sees the other as the Ultimate Personification of Evil.

They’re bad people, you see. They want to destroy us and all that we hold dear.

No tactic is out of bounds in our desire to destroy them.

It’s war.

Bring it.

There were situations like this in biblical times: existential crises, where God’s people, and all they held dear—or should have held dear—was under assault by those who hated what they stood for, because they hated the God who had chosen them for himself.