Yesterday morning I was reading through Paul's letter to the Romans 11:32-36 NIV:
[32] "For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all."
[33] "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
[34] “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”
[35] “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?”
[36] For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen."
What caught my attention was verse 32. Paul was writing about Israel and how they will all be saved, and was discussing how we have been grafted into their promise through faith. Paul's conclusion was that God's plan was that we (Gentiles) and Israel (children on God's promise) were all bound or more accurately, grouped together in the same net of disobedience to God's will, not so He could punish us all, but rather that He could have mercy of everyone equally!
On Saturday, I was helping a great group of people walk through some conflict they had experienced, and we were talking about how important it is to understand people's motivations. Oftentimes we mis-judge people's motivations, and then judge their words or actions according to our misunderstanding of their motives. I feel like this is exactly the point Paul is making here. God is often maligned as being hard, judgmental, punishing, etc. People think that His whole goal is to punish those that break His law, or those that are outside of His will, basically sinners. Paul tells us that God actually has the opposite motivation. His goal and prime motivation was, and still is, to have mercy on all of us!
This is so important to grasp, for how we think about God and His motivation completely colors our perception of God's actions (or non-actions). If we think that God is primarily looking to punish people, then anytime something bad happens, we think it is God's punishment. If we see natural disasters, we perceive God punishing whole regions for their disobedience! This is ascribing the wrong motivation to God. He desires to show us all mercy, which means He would rather forgive us than punish us!
In Exodus 34 we have a record of how God describes Himself. Moses wanted to see God, and so God allowed him to see just His back, but when He did this HE revealed to Moses His character as well. Here is the text - Exodus 34:5-7 NIV:
[5] "Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. [6] And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, [7] maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin..."
When we read the verses above, the picture is quite clear - these are God's primary motivations and character. He is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin! That doesn't sound like an angry, waiting to punish you type of God, but the exact opposite!
Now the interesting thing is that God continues on with the following statement, which is also part of verse 7: "Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
In typical human fashion, most of us remember the last thing they heard better than the things said before them. We tend to identify God with His last statement. When I run into verses like these, where they seem to conflict with the words spoken immediately before them, I like to go back to the original language and see if I can figure out what was being said. I am not a language expert, or even remotely educated in that regard, so I am just trying to make sense of this for myself. In the first part of verse 7, God says that He is forgiving of wickedness, rebellion and sin, which fits with what He just said about Himself. Then He continues, "yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished..." which seems like the opposite of forgiving.
I should say that when I read this sentence the thing that comes to mind is the God is just and fair. However, I went back to the original Hebrew here, and it is a bit confusing. The word translates punishing is the word "Naqah" which is usually translated: to be empty, be clear, be pure, be free, be innocent, be desolate, be cut off. It seems that God is saying He won't call the guilty innocent.
I want to bring in the NASB translation here which is closer to the original Hebrew (from what I can tell). Here is how the NASB translates the end of verse 7: ..."guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations." It says that God visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children. The word translated iniquity, actually can be translated perversion, and the root of that word means twisted (twisted understanding, or actions). In other words, He allows up to 3 or 4 generations to be affected by the twisted logic or actions of the individual. This makes sense to me to say that He allows up to three and four generations to be affected by the consequences of misunderstanding God's will and purpose.
I should note that in the book of Ezekiel, God walks this back a bit and says He will only punish a man for His sins, but won't punish the son (Ezk:18:20). Also, God has already defined in Exodus 20:6 that thousands is referencing a thousand generations.
Putting everything together, we have described here a God who is first of all compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to 1000 generations, and who is just. He is also a God who will not avert His eyes from unrighteousness, twisted thinking and actions, but who is forgiving of rebellion, wickedness and sin. He will allow the consequences of a man's actions to visit him, but His primary motivation towards us all is mercy!
Finally, I love that Paul was so overcome by this reality that it is like he breaks into song about how amazing God is! He is clearly affected by, or bringing to our mind, God's unsearchable and unknowable mind and thoughts, for God does not act like us! As God says in Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. [9] “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Paul is in total agreement!
What a loving and merciful God we have, one who desires to extend mercy to us all!
Amen
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