Devotional 34: God is Forbearing!

In our last devotional we learned that God is slow to anger. However, when we provoke Him to anger, we rightly deserve it.  Furthermore, God’s character of being slow to anger is closely linked to His qualities of kindness, forbearance, and patience.  In fact, there is a passage in the New Testament that links these three attributes together in a context of judgment that warns people not to take advantage of these loving qualities by persisting in their own self-righteousness and sinful rebellion against God. Paul warns that the person who does this is actually storing up God’s future wrath against himself:

We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. Romans 2:2-5

Let’s focus on God’s forbearance. First of all, “What is forbearance”?  Webster’s 1828 dictionary says it is “the cessation or intermission of an act commenced, or a withholding from beginning an act.” Forbearance is a “command of temper” or a “restraint of passions.”  The Greek word anoche basically means, in reference to God, “restraint in judgment” (TDNT) or simply “a holding back” (ISBE).  God is withholding from us the judgment we deserve. Scripture clearly states that the “wages of sin is death.”  Death is what we deserve for our sin!  God’s forbearance, along with a host of His other attributes, moves and enables Him to withhold His judgment and provide a just forgiveness as a gift.  Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Romans 5:8 reads, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”   Jesus Christ took our punishment upon himself. He was the substitute who took the wrath of God’s righteous judgment upon Himself.  God’s restraint provided the time for God’s redemptive plan to work out in human history as Romans 3:21-25 clearly explains:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it– the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

God’s restraint can be seen over and over again throughout the redemptive history as revealed in the Bible. His withholding of immediate justice and judgment started with Adam and Eve and continued right to the crucifixion of Christ and then beyond into our present age. God gives each of us time to repent and trust Christ because of His “divine forbearance”.  Jesus Christ has not returned yet because of God’s forbearance. 2 Peter 3:9-10 says, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”

Are you ready for His return?  God’s forbearance will someday come to an end!

With Prayer, Mark |

© December, 2011       Scripture quoted: ESV – Emphasis added

Verses for our meditation:  God Is Forbearing  

Romans 2:2-5, We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man–you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself–that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

Romans 3:21-25,  But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it– the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

Job 16:1-5,  Then Job answered and said: “I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all. Shall windy words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer? I also could speak as you do, if you were in my place; I could join words together against you and shake my head at you. I could strengthen you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain. “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged, and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?

Jeremiah 15:11-15, The LORD said, “Have I not set you free for their good? Have I not pleaded for you before the enemy in the time of trouble and in the time of distress? Can one break iron, iron from the north, and bronze? “Your wealth and your treasures I will give as spoil, without price, for all your sins, throughout all your territory. I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you do not know, for in my anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever.” O LORD, you know; remember me and visit me, and take vengeance for me on my persecutors. In your forbearance take me not away; know that for your sake I bear reproach.