‘God’s loving compassion compels Him to definitively judge.’

Scripture: The Entire Book of Nahum

One of the hardest things for us to grasp is the Justice of God. From the outside God could seem capricious, angry, needlessly violent. But is that really who He is? Why must God judge at all? Couldn’t he just let our mistakes and faults go? After all He asks us to do that with others? In the book of Nahum we get the answer. The book is full of judgement, justice and condemnation on Nineveh and Assyria, those infamous bullies of the ancient world. God has given them every opportunity to turn, to repent. Sending first Jonah, and then displaying his power through Hezekiah. But they’ve rejected Him. And that rejection can’t simply be glossed over. There are consequences to wasted grace, consequences to saying no to mercy and love. Just as a Spouse feels rightfully angry when their mate walks out and abandons them, so God feels righteously angry when His creation denies Him and seeks other salvations. God is ‘great and mercy, slow to anger, abounding in love and kindness(Exodus 34:6-7).’ Yet if we reject all of that what is left–He tells us, ‘He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.’ He will never call divorce from Him good or okay, but will judge it. And it’s not out of character for a loving God to display righteous judgement. God loves us so sincerely, that zealous love becomes righteous jealousy when we deny Him. We saw also that at the heart of the matter God didn’t really want to judge Nineveh. But he has compassion, not on Nineveh which he destroys but on the people who have through the ages been mistreated by Nineveh. Throughout all ages evil people arise with powerful technology and oppress and kill others wrongfully; God let’s us know that these misdeeds ultimately falls at His feet and he is going to intervene. He is an avenger, an avenger of those who have no voice. So then when God judges we saw in Nahum, he does so to silence the power of the wicked, to protect the innocent. His justice is our great hope as we have no other means to make our world right, or to right the wrongs. But thanks be to Jesus that we ourselves are not judged. God is so righteous He cannot let any sin go, to do so would be to love His people insincerely. He must take ever sin and make it right. That’s why Jesus is punished because God must be perfectly just and yet still loves us supremely.

Tim