In His forbearance

“whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,” - Romans 3v25

I am seeing the book of Romans in a whole different light this time through. From the very start Paul is pointing out two things – man is really, really bad, and God is really, really, righteous. Man is so bad that he deserves nothing but destruction. There is absolutely nothing good in man. Since the Garden of Eden every man, every woman, every boy, and every girl have deserved nothing but God wrath and punishment. God would have been totally right to have ended it all with Adam and Eve.

Yet, He didn’t. Why not? Why did God not just wipe the slate clean and start all over. Maybe this time make man so that he had no choice but to obey.

Good question, but asked from our limited, finite, sin cursed perspective. What God did do was righteous. He knew in His eternal plan that He would make the ultimate sacrifice for mankind. So, the world goes on. Bad people do bad things. Good people suffer. Sin has cursed this world in every way possible, yet still it goes on.

Why does God let it go on? So that He can demonstrate his righteousness through the blood of Christ. Therefore He exercises some kind of divine self-restraint that we can’t really understand.

I do know this. If God can exercise His own forbearance we are not like Him when we are calling down His wrath on a lost world around us. He was righteous and loving enough to exercise self-restraint and not wipe me out when I was in sin. He doesn’t kill me on the spot when I sin today.

There is no excuse for sin and we cannot tolerate or condone it. Yet, there is at least of measure of how we should act when we see God’s self-restraint. Maybe we ought to consider His forbearance the next time we call down fire and brimstone on the murderer in the news story. Maybe we should stop and consider His forbearance the next time a brother falls into sin. Maybe we should stop and consider His forbearance the next time we are tempted to draw and quarter a brother in Christ because he has stepped outside our expectations and man-made regulations.

Maybe I should simply take time to consider His forbearance with me.