When You’re Tempted to Hate People, Part 9: Justice and Mercy
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We’re exploring God’s foundational description of himself, on the assumption—well founded in Scripture—that we ought to treat others the way he does. We’re getting to the end of the list, where there’s a cluster of attributes that we really need to discuss together.
Exodus 34.7 puts it this way:
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Do We Even Want Peace on Earth?
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“The hatred of others implied in Lewis’s account of Hell is something with us today as well. Indeed, recent events have surfaced that hatred in particularly dark and ugly ways. Consider the appalling reaction to the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson… with figures on both the left and right offering various versions of ‘I’m not condoning murder, but.’” - Mere Orthodoxy
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When You’re Tempted to Hate People, Part 6: Loyal Love
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The fourth characteristic that God emphasizes about himself is that he is “abounding in lovingkindness.”
If you’ll compare the different ways that last word is translated, you find that it has a broad range of meaning and significant theological depth—
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When You’re Tempted to Hate People, Part 4: Grace
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In his foundational self-description, the first thing God tells us about himself is that he’s compassionate. By nature, he feels deeply for the hurts and trials of his creatures—even the animals (Jon 4.11), but most especially those in his image.
He cares.
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When You’re Tempted to Hate People, Part 3: Compassion
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In his primary description of himself, God includes a list of related attributes (Ex 34.6-7):
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When You’re Tempted to Hate People, Part 2: How God Describes Himself
As we’ve noted, even Jonah the bigot knew that God had revealed himself as a God of compassion, who extends mercy even to the most wicked, upon their repentance—and who seeks that repentance from them.
When and where did God reveal this?
It begins with Moses.
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