Category: Christian

A Review of Principalities Powers and Allegiances: Submission in Enemy Territory

Untangling submission to authority and allegiance to God

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A friend posted an glowing endorsement of the book, Principalities Powers and Allegiances, by Matt Mouzakis & Will Ryan, that intrigues me because the subject is a topic I have spent some time considering and writing about. The book is an exegesis of biblical passages that have posed challenges to modern Christians like myself: Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:11-17.

These passages instruct Christians to submit to earthly authorities “for the Lord’s sake” (1 Peter 2:13). Mouzakis and Ryan provide background and Scriptural insight that sheds some fresh light on these passages. It is not new light. In fact, it is ancient light that was likely understood by the original readers of those words, but which has been lost in the centuries since that time.

I do not have the book, but I was curious because of my own interest in the tension between faithful adherence to the Gospel and submission to governing authorities, so I asked Google Gemini for a summary of the book. More specifically, I asked for a summary of the exegesis of Romans 13:1-7 for comparison to my own exegesis. (How Should the Church Act Regarding Authority? and more recently Submitting to Authority For the Lord’s Sake Like Peter, Paul, and Jesus Did)

The exegesis of Romans 13:1-7 offered by Mouzakis and Ryan is a departure from modern reading that views government as God’s benevolent institution for all time. They argue that the passage must be read through the lens of the Deuteronomy 32 worldview and the larger narrative of sin and God’s judgment in the book of Romans.

The Deuteronomy 32 worldview, in a nutshell, is that Yahweh, is the sole supreme Deity, and that the gods of the other nations are lesser, created spiritual beings (“sons of God” or elohim). It pulls from the judgment following the Tower of Babel that included the scattering of the people:

“When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
    when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders of the peoples
    according to the number of the sons of God.”

(Deut. 32:8)(ESV)

The “sons of God” are sometimes translated “sons of Israel”, but Israel was not yet a nation at that time. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (whose name was changed to Israel) from which God formed His people were not yet born. God called Abraham out from among the nations and formed a people of God, the nation of Israel, separate and apart from the nations. Thus, Jews identified only two sets of people: the Jews and the Gentiles.

The Deuteronomy 32 worldview notes that the “sons of God” (the elohim) rebelled. They demanded the worship that belonged only to Yahweh, and they lead the nations into idolatry and violence. They are the principalities and powers that Paul speaks of who rule the “world system.” Jesus defeated those principalities and powers by his life, death, and resurrection (Colossians 2:15), broke down the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles (Ephesians 2:14), and established his Church for the purpose of reclaiming the nations for the Kingdom of God.

Romans 13 needs to be read in the context of the sweep and arc of the story of God and what He is doing in space and time. Here are the key points of their specific interpretation of Romans 13:

1. The Context:

From Handing Over to Submission

The authors connect Romans 13 directly to Romans 1:21-23, where Paul describes God “handing over” (paradidomi) humanity to the consequences of their idolatry. In the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, this “handing over” included disinheriting the nations and appointing elohim (spiritual beings) to govern them.

The Problematic Authorities:

By the time of the New Testament, these spiritual beings—the principalities and powers—had fallen, becoming demonic forces that oppose God. When humanity rejects God, they are handed over to the “world” and to these spiritual powers, which are associated with the consequences of “sin and death.”

The Assertion:

The Roman government (specifically the Empire under Nero in the 1st Century) is viewed as aligned with these demonic forces. Paul’s message is that because Christians serve KING JESUS, they are no longer slaves to these demonic forces, even while living under their political rule.

2. The Nature of “The Authorities”

The Greek word used for “authorities” in Romans 13:1 is exousiai, which refers both to human governing authorities and spiritual powers (seen in Ephesians 6:12). Mouzakis and Ryan contend that Paul is deliberately using this ambiguous term to encompass the reality that earthly governments are influenced by unseen spiritual powers.

When Paul says the authorities are “instituted by God,” he does not mean God approves or blesses their actions. Rather, God established them as the temporary framework of consequences and judgment that the world is subjected to—a framework that God ultimately controls in his sovereignly.

3. The Ruler as “God’s Servant”

The authors evaluate the terms used for the governing official: leitourgos (minister/servant, v. 6) and diakonos (servant/minister, v. 4).

A Tool of Wrath:

The ruler is called both “God’s servant for good” and an “avenger who carries out God’s wrath” (v.4)(ESV). This wrath is seen not necessarily as God’s positive blessing on good governance, but as the execution of the consequences already outlined in Romans 1—the judgment of being “handed over” to a system that operates by the sword. the “good” is the carrying out of God’s purposes. The government’s function is to maintain basic civic order and punish wrongdoers, which is a necessary restraint in a fallen world, but the government itself is not necessarily acting righteously.

Consistent with this, we can find multiple times in Scripture where unjust nations are identified as servants of God. Isaiah identifies Assyria as the “the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath!” even as Isaiah pronounces, Woe to the Assyrian!” (Is. 10:5-6) Jeremiah called the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, God’s servant. (Jer.25:9 & 27:6) to bring God’s judgment.

The Non-Endorsement:

The term leitourgos neutral. It refers to public servants, generally. It means a tool or agent of God, like Assyria and Babylon were to accomplish God’s purposes in exiling his people. It is not an endorsement of them as God’s representative.

4. Allegiance vs. Submission

The most crucial distinction is between submission and allegiance:

Allegiance is to Christ:

The Christian’s primary and ultimate loyalty is to Jesus and the Kingdom of God. Our allegiance (our citizenship in the kingdom of God) made the Christian community a rival kingdom to the Roman Empire. That is why Christians were viewed with suspicion and called “atheists” (because they didn’t bow to Caesar and they didn’t worship the Roman pantheon of gods). Jesus was crucified, in part, because he was perceived to claim to be the King of the Jews, though his kingdom is not of this world.

Submission is Tactical:

The command to “be subject” (hypotassō) is a call for voluntary, orderly yielding to maintain peace, prevent anarchy, and avoid creating unnecessary offense that would hinder the spread of the Gospel. Peter says to submit “for the Lord’s sake”, so that the Gospel message is not hindered. It is an act of discipleship lived out in enemy territory.

Taxes and Honor:

Paul’s only specific instruction about submitting to the governing authorities is to “pay to all what is owed them” (v.7), including taxes. He echoed Jesus in this who told us to pay unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to his disciples to pay the Temple tax. It is a call to fulfill one’s basic civic duty (giving to Caesar what bears Caesar’s image). However, the ultimate message is a remez (a subtle link or hint) to Jesus’s teaching to give yourself wholly to God because you bear His image.

In summary, for Mouzakis and Ryan, Romans 13 is not a command for blind obedience to the state, but a strategic directive for Kingdom citizens to live non-violently and orderly in a world ruled by lesser, fallen powers, while reserving ultimate worship and allegiance for King Jesus.

If you are interested in what the authors have to say about the book, this video features Dr. Matt Mouzakis discussing the process of writing the book and exploring its underlying theological themes in a conversation about writing worship music. Write Biblically Accurate Songs For The Church with Dr. Matt Mouzakis

If you want to read what I have written about the tension between submission to authority and allegiance to God, see How Should the Church Act Regarding Authority? and more recently Submitting to Authority For the Lord’s Sake Like Peter, Paul, and Jesus Did.

Did AI do a good job summarizing the book? I have added to the AI summary I obtained. Did “we” do a good job? If you have read the book, please let me know.

If this helped you, made you curious, or even if you disagree, please feel free to start a conversation in the comments.

Why I Write About Immigration Issues

The truth is complicated, but God’s heart is certain

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Mexican Border

I have friends who keep me honest, and I am grateful for that. They don’t always agree with me. In fact, they often disagree with me on various things, but they remain my friends, and I remain grateful for them.

Anyone who follows me on social media knows that I am virtually fixated on the issue of immigration right now. It may seem like a new thing—that all of a sudden I have become woke, liberal, or progressive. Some people who don’t know me well, I am sure, think that about me. The truth is more complicated than that.

I am a lifelong Republican and conservative by nature. I’m also a follower of Jesus, though, and I find that Jesus defies modern political categories and stereotypes. If Jesus looks to me like a Republican or Democrat, “my Jesus” probably is not the real Jesus, and my politics have likely influenced my view of Jesus.

Many people might look at my posts on immigration and feel like I have abandoned all sense of patriotism and national pride. They might think I have become a hater of the United States of America. Again, the truth is more complicated than that.

I grew up with a love for my country and a strong sense of patriotism and pride. I was educated, like most people my age, on the goodness of the United States of America, celebrating Christopher Columbus and Thanksgiving this time of year with idyllic depictions of pioneers living in harmony with Native Americans as our forefathers lived out their manifest destiny in keeping with a divine mandate from our creator to form the greatest, freest country on earth.

I still believe we live in the greatest, freest country on earth, but the truth is messier and more complicated than I once believed. I am grateful for a strong sense of the goodness of the United States of America I learned as a child, and I appreciate the positives in that idealized memory of America. But it’s more complicated than that.

Humanity is nothing if not messy. We are fallen, sinful creatures. We know that, but our idyllic, comforting images die hard.

The pioneers displaced the Native Americans who were here long before us. They were pushed out of their ancestral lands. They were marched in a “trail of tears” to godforsaken territories where they have had to scrape out a meager subsistence ever since then in the literal dust of the barren, rocky places to which they were consigned.

Slavery is a pox on our idyllic history. That it was supported, promoted, and defended by Christians who sought comfort in the Bible while they exploited, oppressed, and dehumanized people for the color of their skin (and wealth they could generate) is a testament to the utter bankruptcy of human beings – even religious ones.

Let’s be honest about this, also: religious people who use their religion to justify their unjust ways are not doing anything different than non-religious people who are unjust. It’s just more insidious for the fact that they contort love of neighbor to love of self.

I have learned to be honest and not to look away from these contrary images of our history and our past. God calls for repentance, and repentance requires honesty. Repentance and heart change are the only proper response to the evil of idolatry and injustice.

Honesty does not mean I do not love my country, and it does not mean that I am not thankful for being born here. I still believe that the good we have brought into the world is not any less good. It’s just complicated, and I want us to live up to the ideals we ascribe to.

In case you could not tell, I am not an idealist, though I certainly do have idealistic tendencies. Not that I am any different than anyone else. We are complicated and complex creatures; human beings. Despite the polarized simplicity of social media that pigeon holes us into two-dimensional, stereotypical ideologues, people and societies are complex.

On the issue of immigration, my “awakening” happened more than a decade ago – in 2014. During the Obama administration, as I watched the Syrian refugee crisis unfold in the news, I realized that didn’t have a robust biblical view on the subject of immigration. I have written about this often, so please bear with me if you have read what I have written before.

Continue reading “Why I Write About Immigration Issues” →

Trust for Those Who Would Judge the World?

Living out our trust in God by waiting on Him

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Do you trust God? Do you have faith? Those aren’t trite questions, and they don’t discount the desperation behind those who cry out to God for justice, for righteousness, for real change in the world and in our own circumstances.

Where is the justice in this world? The writer of Ecclesiastes looked for justice and observed, “In the place of justice – wickedness was there!” (Ecc. 3:16) I have seen injustice in the American court system myself. I see injustice every day in the news. Just today, I met with people who have suffered great injustice in the local legal aid clinic I run.

The injustice in this world is undeniable, and it can be utterly crushing for those on the wrong side of injustice. In truth, we have all been on the wrong side of injustice at times in our lives, big or small. Truly, the writer of Ecclesiastes was accurate when he said:

“I saw the tears of the oppressed—
    and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors—
    and they have no comforter.“

(Ecclesiastes 4:1) Injustice feeds injustice in a seemingly never-ending cycle. (Think about the Hatfields and the McCoys or the Palestinians and the Israelis.)

In our human minds, we imagine that injustice must be met immediately with action and force. Justice cries out for redress. We lament when justice does not come. We pray and cry out to God. When justice does not come for us, we might even be tempted to believe that God does not care or worse – the God does not exist.

The questions I pose, therefore, are not glib or lightly asked: Do you trust God? Do you believe?

When we are tempted to take judgment into their own hands, we fail to trust God if we act on that temptation. We become judge and jury. We usurp God’s justice in the process. (Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.) And, when become the judge and executioner, we make a mess of it in the process. We warp God’s justice to our conceptions of justice.

“Justice is not God wielding ‘the stick.’ It’s His desire to restore, redeem, reconcile, and mend all that’s broken in the world.” Chris Gresham-Britt

When the world talks about justice, the focus is on punishment. We don’t realize it as Christians that our view of justice is often more colored by the world than by God. Worldly justice is punitive.

If we are going to trust and believe God, we accept what the prophet says: that God desires mercy, not sacrifice. (Hosea 6:6) God desires to save and not to judge. That is why God sent His only Son into the world: not to condemn the world, but to save the world. (John 3:17)

God’s goal is redemption and destruction. God is just, but justice seems to be lacking in the world. Why? Peter says, we need to trust and be patient, as God us patient with us:

“[T]he Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

God is waiting (longing) to have mercy on us! (Psalm 30:18) “[God takes] no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” (Ezekiel 33:11)

So, God waits patiently, withholding His judgment – withholding ultimate justice. He does this because He desires that none would perish, that all would turn to him and be saved. He waits to be gracious to us.

But we are impatient. We don’t want to wait. We want everything to be made right immediately, especially the injustices done to us, the people like us, and the people we know. “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8), but a day seems like a thousand years to us when are suffering or see suffering.

We cannot imagine the delicate and complex balance of God’s patience in waiting for people to come to repentance so that He can have mercy and the judgment that He will inevitably allow to be imposed on those who refuse to turn and repent. All the while, God hears the outcries of people suffering the injustices of their own folly and wickedness and the folly and wickedness of others – sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.

But, we do not see as God sees, and we do not know as God knows. Judgment is God’s business. It is not our business to judge the world. (1 Corinthians 5:12) That is where real faith comes – to leave the judging to God and to love the world as God loves the world, which is His instruction to us.

The whole law is summarized in two principles: love God, and love your neighbor. (Matthew 22:37-40; Romans 13:8-10; Galatians 5:14) That’s it. Just do it.

If you see a hurting neighbor, don’t judge; just help. Like the Good Samaritan, cross the road (go out of you way) to help your neighbor. Bear one another’s burdens. By doing these things, you will fulfill the law of love. (Romans 13:8-10)

In the end, justice will come quickly, but will God find faith on earth?

Do you trust God? Show it by loving others and leave the judgment to God. Do you have faith that God will bring justice? God’s justice is always colored by his desire to be gracious and compassionate. Be a vessel of God’s justice that is tempered by mercy and love, and love your neighbor.

An Exploration of God’s Hiddenness in the Bible

The Bible on the hiddenness of God

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Divine hiddenness is an argument suggesting that God does not exist. According to J.L. Schellenberg, if a perfectly loving God exists, He would desire a genuine relationship with every person He creates. A loving relationship requires, at minimum, awareness that God exists, so a perfectly loving God would make Himself known. Some sincere and willing people who want to know God are unable to find sufficient evidence that He exists to believe in Him. Therefore, either God does not exist or He is not perfectly loving.

I don’t buy it. I think the argument is flawed, but other people have provided robust responses to this argument, so I am not going to attempt to provide a counter argument here. I am also unconvinced that arguments are the best way to achieve understanding.

On that ground, I am intrigued by the hiddenness of God, and I am intrigued that the Bible is forthright about the hiddenness of God. The Prophet Isaiah says it plainly: “Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior.” (Is. 45:15)

The entire Book of Job is about God’s hiddenness. Job assumed that God existed and had blessed him until he lost everything. When Job sought God in the desperation of his circumstances, he lamented, “Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him… I cannot behold him.” (Job 23:8-9)

David, who is held up in the Bible as a man after God’s own heart, lamented the hiddenness of God at various times in his life: “Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1); “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Ps. 13:1); and “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?… I cry by day, but you do not answer.” (Ps. 22:1-2)

Those last words were famously echoed by Jesus on the cross. Imagine, Jesus, who demonstrated and expressed the deepest and most intimate relationship with the Father, experiencing the utter absence of God at the moment of his greatest need.

I saw early in a world religion class in college when I wasn’t a believer that the Bible purports to be about the unfolding story of God’s encounter and revelation of who God is to mankind. Elsewhere, I have written about how God found in Abram a man who was able to grasp that the God of the universe is not like the gods of the provincial tribes and nations with which Abram was familiar. (For example, Abraham, Isaac and Paradigm Shift; and The Story of Abraham and Isaac Revisited: Introduction)

The revelation of God unfolded slowly as God needed to dispel notions of divine arbitrariness, capriciousness, brutality, and uncaring of the gods that Abram and ancient humanity understood. The gods of human imagination are no gods at all, and God is noting like ancient Near Easterners imagined.

While it is true that God is completely OTHER, the true God who made the heavens and the earth desires the benefit of and reciprocal relationship with the pinnacle of His creation. How does a God who is so completely OTHER than His creation communication Himself?

Consider a God who could make our universe with its vastness and detailed complexity down to the minutia of the precise intricacy of living cells and the unseeable building blocks of the physical world, like neutrinos, that are so small they can pass through your body and the core of the earth without hitting another particle. How does such a God who created such a world reveal Himself to finite creatures who live on a tiny planet in a tiny solar system among more stars, planets, and whole solar systems than such a creature can even imagine – how does such a God reveal himself to delicate, ephemeral creatures with limited perspective?

Continue reading “An Exploration of God’s Hiddenness in the Bible” →

When You Are Bitterly Disappointed and Angry at the World

God waits to be gracious

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The Book of Jonah is an important story, but not for its historical significance. Whether the story is historical fact is not what’s important. If that is our only focus as we read and think about Jonah, we are missing the point.

Jonah is the story of a reluctant prophet. When God commands him to go to the wicked City of Nineveh and warn them to repent to avoid judgment, Jonah heads the opposite direction by ship. God stirs up a great storm, and Jonah is swallowed by a whale. After three days, Jonah prays and submits to God, and the whale vomits him up on the shoreline.

Unable to run from God’s command, Jonah heads off to Nineveh where he delivers the warning. The wicked people of Nineveh repent, and God relents from the judgment He planned, but God’s mercy on Nineveh causes Jonah to be bitterly disappointed and angry.

Jonah was disappointed because Jonah wanted what Jonah wanted. He didn’t want what God desired. He was focused on what he thought should happen. He thought Nineveh should pay the price for its wickedness, but God had different plans.

God was patient with him and went to great lengths to show Jonah His heart for a people Jonah despised. We might credit Jonah for his (reluctant) obedience, but Jonah doesn’t understand God’s sovereignty, mercy, and compassion, even at the end.

God’s determination to spare the people of Nineveh “seemed very wrong” to him, “and he became angry.” (Jonah 4:1) If it were up to Jonah, the people of Nineveh would have been destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah. Jonah identified with God’s judgment, but he didn’t understand God’s compassion.

Jonah reminds me of Elijah, who was known for his boundless faith in (and preoccupation with) God’s power. Elijah is known for calling down fire to consume a sacrificial bull that he soaked with water, showing up the false profits who could not get their gods to consume a dry sacrifice. When Elijah exposed them for the false prophets they were, he agitated the crowd to march the false prophets down the mountain where Elijah slaughtered them.

I imagine Elijah and Jonah would have gotten along well…. Or maybe not. Though they are much alike, Elijah was a loner, and perhaps Jonah was also. Elijah complained that he was the last of God’s prophets, though 100 of God’s prophets remained in the land. Perhaps, Elijah thought he was too good for them.

Jonah and Elijah wanted to see God’s judgment. They wanted the people to burn for their wickedness. They were personally affronted when God showed patience and reluctance to rain judgment down on the people who deserved it.

Despite the awesome display of God’s awesome power summoned by Elijah’s undaunting faith before King Ahab and his prophets, the wicked Queen, Jezebel, was not moved. She ordered Elijah to be arrested and killed on sight.

When Elijah heard her decree, he fled into the desert, where he sat down under a broom tree in bitter disappointment and anger at the way things turned out.  

Couldn’t Elijah call fire down on Ahab and Jezebel? Why didn’t he do it? Elijah had just slaughtered all the King’s prophets after showing them up with fire from the heavens. When Jezebel wasn’t phased, Elijah fled in fear.

Elijah may have run in a moment of fear, but his fear turned to anger and disappointment, like Jonah. Both of them ended up under a tree that provided them shade. God ministered to both of them in their dejected state.

Elijah kept going south, all the way to the mountain where God met Moses on the Sinai Peninsula. In the cave where he took shelter, God came to him, asking, “Elijah, why are you here?” Then, Elijah let God have the full weight of his disappointment and anger:

“I have been most zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, but the Israelites have forsaken your covenant. They have destroyed your altars and murdered your prophets by the sword. I alone remain, and they seek to take my life.”

1 Kings 19:10

But, God was patient. He told Elijah to stand at the mouth of the cave so the Lord can “pass by”. “A strong and violent wind rending the mountains and crushing rocks” came, but the Lord wasn’t in the wind. Then an earthquake came, but the Lord wasn’t in the earthquake. After the earthquake, came a fire, but the Lord wasn’t in the fire. (1 Kings 19:11-12)

Finally, “a light silent sound” came, and the Lord said to Elijah, again, “Why are you here?” God was not in the mighty displays of wind, earthquake, and fire. God was in a still, small voice.

Yet still, Elijah was fixated on his own disappointment and anger and responded exactly as he did before:

“I have been most zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, but the Israelites have forsaken your covenant. They have destroyed your altars and murdered your prophets by the sword. I alone remain, and they seek to take my life.”

1 Kings 19:14

Elijah’s disappointment, anger, and indignation turned toward God. “They destroyed your alters and murdered your prophets!” Elijah said. It’s everyone’s fault but his. It’s ultimately God’s fault, right? Because Elijah knew what God could do. God could have destroyed Ahab and Jezebel in a ball of fire, but He didn’t.

In similar fashion, God asked Jonah twice, “Why are you angry?” (Jonah 4:1 and 4:9) Twice Jonah responds exactly the same way: “It is better for me to die!” (Jonah 4:3 and 4:8) It’s the same pattern for Elijah and Jonah.

At the end of Jonah, God asks the rhetorical question, “Should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh?” But, Jonah doesn’t respond. (Jonah 4:10) Jonah didn’t want God’s compassion for Nineveh. He wanted them to burn.

We don’t know what became of Jonah, but we do learn the rest of the story of Elijah. God sends him back to Damascus to anoint a new King and pass his prophetic torch to Elisha. (1 Kings 19:15-18) When Elijah pronounced God’s judgment on the wicked King Ahab, the King humbled himself and repented, and God spared him (just like Nineveh). (1 Kings 21:27-29)

Eventually, Ahab’s son, Ahaziah, took over, and Elijah continued with his righteous taunts. Ahaziah sent fifty men to summon Elijah before him, and Elijah called down fire to destroy them. (2 Kings 1:10) Ahaziah sent another company of fifty men to summon Elijah, and Elijah called down fire again to destroy them. “(2 Kings 1:12)

Elijah is the prophet who called down fire. He was a man of great faith. He had great confidence in God. He was a firebrand, himself, in his sense of God’s righteousness and communication of God’s righteousness to the false prophets, the unrighteous and wicked leaders of his time, and even on the remnant of God’s prophets who escaped the sword only hid away in a cave.

Jonah had similar confidence in God. After the people of Nineveh repented and God relented, Jonah said, “I knew it! That’s what I said! That’s why I went the other way, because they don’t deserve it! Just take my life.” (Jonah 4:2-3)(my paraphrase)

Jonah and Elijah are held out in the Bible as God’s prophets and men of great faith, but they are flawed. They are self-righteous. They have a hard edge. The desire judgment, and they don’t love as God loves.

Their disappointment and anger stems from their desire to see the wicked people destroyed. God’s desire is ever to save, to have compassion, and for people to repent so God can show mercy. God’s great desire is not to judge, but to be gracious:

Truly, the Lord is waiting to be gracious to you,
    truly, he shall rise to show you mercy;
For the Lord is a God of justice:
    happy are all who wait for him!

(Isaiah 30:18) God’s justice is ultimately to be gracious and to show mercy. Justice and mercy are not divorced from each other; they are intertwined. His judgment is meant to bring us to repentance so that He can have mercy on us.

When we have our act together and have great faith, our temptation is to desire judgment for its own sake, but God is not like that. Jesus, who was the exact representation of God in the flesh, shows us God’s heart when his disciples returned from traveling the countryside to tell people about the kingdom. The disciples wanted to call down fire on the people who rejected them and refused to welcome them, and Jesus rebuked them.

When we find ourselves disappointed and angry at a world full of sinners who deserve judgment, we need to think of Elijah and Jonah and the counterexample of God in dealing with Nineveh and Jesus in rebuking the disciples. God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” (Exodus 34:6-7) God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. (Ezekiel 18:23 and 33:11)

We can laud Elijah and even Jonah for their faith and (ultimately) their obedience, but we need to recognize that they didn’t understand God’s heart of compassion for people. They didn’t understand God’s desire for mercy and grace. God ultimately wants more than our raw belief and cold obedience; He desires “mercy, not sacrifice.” (Hosea 6:6 and Matthew 9:13)

God wants out hearts, and He wants us to see the world as He sees it. He wants us to love even our enemies (the wicked) and to sacrifice ourselves for the good of others as He sacrificed Himself for us in Christ. Thus, Jesus emphasized forgiving as we have been forgiven and showing mercy as God has shown mercy to us:

“Judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

(James 2:13) When we are tempted to be judgmental and righteous, we need to remember that God has been gracious to us, and He desires – above all – to be gracious to the world. When we are bitter and angry at the sin in the world, we need to remember that Jesus came into the world not to condemn it, but to save it, just he saved us.