Scripture Reading: Nahum 1:2,7
The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies…The LORD is good…
Nahum is unique among the Old Testament prophetic books. The prophets typically were messengers of doom; warning of impending judgment on God’s recalcitrant people. They were also messengers of hope. They interspersed the warnings of judgment with promises of redemption and restoration. Most of them end with some note of hopefulness.
Not Nahum. He writes three chapters of unrelenting warnings of judgment on Nineveh. Not many years before the ministry of Nahum, the city experienced a spiritual awakening under the preaching of the prophet Jonah. Under Jonah, Nineveh was given a way out. They had 40 days in which to repent before God unleashed His wrath. No such opportunity for reprieve is found in Nahum’s writing.
People struggle with the idea of the wrath of God. They read words like what Nahum wrote in 1:2 and think they were the rantings of a bitter preacher at worst, or they attribute slightly better motives and say he was primitive and unsophisticated in his thinking about God. In the opinion of modern man, Nahum, and those who say the kinds of things he said, didn’t have our modern and better understanding of God.
Of course, if you believe, as I do, that the whole Bible is inspired and that what Nahum wrote was and is the word of God, then that way of viewing Nahum is flawed. And therefore, those who say such things have a flawed view of God. They have made God in their own image, having rejected the way God has revealed Himself through Scripture.
Some would say that a God of wrath is not a good God. Nahum, as we see when we read verses two and seven, would say that the Lord is avenging and wrathful and good.
If we can manage to lay aside our preconceived notions about what a wrathful person is like (someone who flies off the handle at the slightest insult and starts indiscriminately breaking stuff), we will move toward a better understanding of God. Nahum reminds us that “The LORD is slow to anger,” (1:3). Don’t forget that God withheld His judgment when Nineveh repented under the preaching of Jonah. God doesn’t have a short fuse. Something for which we should all give thanks.
But Nahum also warns us that “The LORD will by no means clear the guilty.” That’s the rub, isn’t it? But should it be? Who wants a god who isn’t just? Do any of us really want a god who has a casual “it’s no big deal” attitude towards sin and evil? Do you really want God to pretend that all the evil in this world didn’t happen and doesn’t matter in the end? Or do you want a God who is just and punishes sin?
These are honest questions.
Do you want a god who doesn’t hold mass murderers, rapists, abusers, and thieves accountable? Or do you want a God who upholds righteousness and justice?
This raises a problem though. Nahum points it out in verse 6: Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? Since we are all sinners, who among us can stand before a God who is just and holy?
Some misinterpret the gospel message to be, “God is forgiving and therefore He won’t and doesn’t hold us accountable for sin.” In thinking this way, they are essentially saying that God ignores our sin or writes it off as nothing to be concerned about.
On the contrary, the gospel message is not that God sheaths His sword of wrath against sin. It is that God turns that sword away from us and swings it with the full force of His fury on His Son, Jesus Christ.
God is good, not because he isn’t wrathful, He is good because He is. On the day of judgment, when God’s wrath is seen in its full fury against unrepentant sinners, all of creation will say, “The Lord is good.” And every repentant sinner who is spared God’s wrath on that day will say, “God is good,” not because they somehow arbitrarily escaped judgment, but because on the Cross Jesus took the full force of God’s wrath on their behalf.