kindness

God’s Kindness in Salvation

Nate PickowiczBy Nate Pickowicz14 Minutes

Chapter One
God’s Kindness in Salvation 

But when the kindness of God our Savior … appeared, He saved us.
(Titus 3:4–5)

They didn’t deserve to be saved, at least that’s how Jonah had it worked out in his heart. The people of Nineveh were Assyrians—mortal enemies of Israel. In fact, God’s people had suffered greatly at the hands of the Assyrians who were often cruel to their enemies (2 Kings 19:17). Furthermore, they were an idolatrous people, worshipping false gods. By all standards, the Assyrian Ninevites deserved God’s fierce judgment.

However, the Lord sent word to the prophet Jonah, son of Amittai, that he was to, “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me” (Jonah 1:20. God Intends to send Jonah to preach repentance to this wicked people that they might turn from their sinfulness and be saved (3:8). Jonah, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with the restoration of Israel’s enemy and flees as far away as he can travel. The Lord famously pursues Jonah, sending a storm and a great fish, until finally Jonah relents and vows to obey the Lord.

In Jonah 3, he preaches against the Ninevites’ wickedness, and they turn away from their sins. We read, “When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He has declared He would bring upon them” (v. 10). But this does not sit well with Jonah at all. He becomes angry with the Lord, not because Jonah was a malicious person, but because He could not fathom the fact that God is “a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity” (4:2); Jonah cannot tolerate God’s kindness toward his enemies.

In the wake of Jonah’s unrighteous anger, the Lord disciplines the weary prophet through a series of small trials (4:4–80/ In the end, the Lord concludes that even if Jonah were able to have compassion on a tiny plant that provided shade over his head, the God was righteous to have compassion on the people of Nineveh. The final verse of Jonah’s prophecy records the compassion of God on “more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand” (v. 11)—most likely a reference to children. With a population of likely several hundred thousand people, the salvation of Nineveh demonstrates one of the greatest single acts of divine kindness recorded in Scripture.

God’s Saving Kindness And The Problem Of Sin

Many people today would not think to regard the notion of salvation as being a particular kindness of God. Why is salvation even necessary? From what are we being saved? The reason why God’s saving action is not highly valued is because of a misunderstanding of the need for salvation at all. As we briefly discussed in the introduction, the entrance of sin into the world creates a dire need for salvation. But let’s look at this again.

The word sin is an archery term meaning “A failure to hit the mark”—to “sin” the target is to miss the bullseye. However, we understand it to be a religious word, reflecting moral or ethical failing. These days, though, we often treat sin as if it were some innocuous scuff in the cosmic continuum. We tend not to regard sin as a very serious thing. We misunderstand its significance and underestimate its power. In doing so, not only have we missed the target, but we fail to realize that it is God’s standard (His bullseye) that we have missed. But what is God’s standard?

In short, God’s standard is perfection. When giving the people of Israel His commands, God told them “I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44; 20:26; cf. 1 Peter 1:16). When the Lord Jesus gave His Sermon on the Mount, He exhorted His followers once more, “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). God Demands perfection. Why does God demand perfection? Because He Himself is perfect in every way.

The Bible teaches us much about the character and attributes of God. He is all-powerful (gen. 18:14; Matt. 19:26), ever-present (Ps. 139–10; Jer. 23:23–24), all-knowing (Ps. 139:3–4; Job 37:16), unchanging (Ps. 102:25–27; Mal.3:6), transcendent (Eph. 4:6), sovereign (Rev. 1:8), truthful (Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18), etc. However, in order to better understand why sin is such an affront to God, we need to apprehend the concept of God’s holiness (Ps. 99:9; Isa. 1:4; 6:3). R.C. Sproul notes,

The Bible never says that God is love, love, love; or mercy, mercy, mercy; or wrath, wrath, wrath; or justice, justice, justice. It does say that He is holy, holy, holy, that the whole earth is full of His glory.

In Scripture, the threefold repetition “holy, holy, holy” establishes the gravity and prominence of the statement. The word holy means “to set apart,” but with regard to God, it describes the height and depth of His perfection. In all ways, He is pure, righteous, and good. By comparison, in our attempt to be righteous, we jump like grasshoppers merely inches off the ground; God’s holiness reaches the sun—93 million miles away.

In the Garden of Eden, God gave Adam a command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and if he disobeyed, the punishment would be death (Gern. 2:17). But by chapter 3, Eve is deceived into believing the lie that eating from the forbidden tree would make them like God Himself (v. 5). Not only did they fail to trust and obey God; their rebellion demonstrated a rejection of God’s righteous standard.

Surely God cannot tolerate spiritual insurrection, can He? Can He simply look the other way, pretending that this was only a little gaffe? Of course not! His perfect character will not allow it. His righteousness will not permit it. His sense of justice cannot comprehend it. Why? Because if God were to fail to oppose and punish sin, He would be guilty of aiding and abetting sin, which would impugn His righteous character. But that’s simply not possible. Even the apostle Paul exclaimed, “May it never be!” (Rom. 6:2).

Consider a man who drinks himself into oblivion and then gets behind the wheel of his truck. On his way home from the bar, he runs a red light and kills a seventeen-year-old girl on her way back from her summertime job. When the man is brought into court for his crime, would a good judge let him go scot-free? But the man is a nice guy who does volunteer work in his community. Why not let him off with a reprimand? We understand that a good judge would not allow the man’s crime to go unpunished because it would be completely unjust. Beyond the fact that the college-bound teenage girl will never live to realize her dreams, the family, who will grieve her loss for the rest of their lives, would be dishonored and sinned against if their daughter’s killer walked without punishment.

And so, Just as a goof judge would not let this driver off, a good and holy God can’t excuse our sin. In fact, what we might perceive to be even a minor sin is actually an attack on the righteous character of God. Therefore, the Bible teaches us that, apart from the saving work of Christ, God punishes even the smallest infraction with severe and righteous judgment—an eternity in hell. James 2:10 says, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” The Bible teaches that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), and further, that “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23); none are truly righteous.

Once again, if the center bullseye is God’s holiness, then to sin the target is to fail to achieve His righteous standard. It is, in essence, to “fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). But more than simply failing to hit the mark, the apostle John tells us that “sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). Further, J.C. Ryle defines sin as “doing, saying, thinking, or imagining, anything that is not in perfect conformity with the mind and law of God.” It is spiritual anarchy and rebellion. More than being simply a series of flaws, missteps, peccadillos, or blunders, sin is a serious affront to the goodness and holiness of God. It is an attack on the throne of the King.

Sin is terminal, spiritual cancer—it hardens us, defiles us, degrades us, poisons us, enslaves us, kills us. But the greater impact falls not to us, but to God. Sin enrages Him, insults Him, assaults Him, undermines Him, attacks Him. And He responds with fierce wrath, burning anger, severe judgment, and eternal condemnation. To God, sin is not a light thing; it is an immense evil that is destined to be judged and eradicated.

Does this seem too harsh? If so, it is because we tend to think of justice from a human perspective. But in truth, all sin affects someone somehow. And if we can comprehend the concept of justice in a human court, how much higher the demand for absolute justice must exist in the court of heaven presided over by a perfectly righteous God? In short, God must punish any and all sin to the fullest measure. Otherwise, He would not be truly just or righteous. Yet, in God’s own kindness, He provides a way to escape for those who have broken His law.

Excerpt taken from The Kindness of God: Beholding His Goodness in a Cruel World by Nate Pickowicz. Used with permission.

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