Notice therefore the kindness and harshness of God- harshness toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness toward you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. (Romans 11:22)
God is kind beyond any person in history. He mourns every human tear and laments each grain of hatred that blows against us. Like the velveted nose of a bunny sniffing after spring grass, his soft mercy is ever tender. Because he is gentle and humble of heart, a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. God is as kind as the universe is wide.
God is more demanding than any taskmaster ever born among men. He will sever the head of evil and slam retribution onto the smallest offender. Even tiny sins of dark thinking and unkind words, muttered without volume, are judged. Every infraction is recorded in his book. Wrath will be meted in teeth gnashing hellfire. His vengeance crushes our rebellion like an iron boot upon an eggshell. God is harsh.
My narrow thinking tries to reduce God to a useless blend of kindness and harshness, where he is not very kind and not very harsh. I make him into a distant grandfather who laughs at our failure and says, “Ah, they’re only human.” It’s the oldest heresy in Satan’s playbook—imagining God to be who we want him to be instead of letting him reveal who he truly is. In reality, God is consummate kindness, and he is eternally wrathful against wrongdoing. He is both extremes.
With great genius, God resolved the paradox of his kindness and his harshness by sending Jesus Christ. Through the kindest act known to mankind, the righteous wrath of God was exhausted on Jesus at the cross. A blinding, holy, untainted God must never relent against that which is his opposite, namely sin. Thus, the substitutionary crucifixion extends God’s kindness to the saved, but still punishes every sin—either on the body of Jesus or on the unsaved in hell. No sin, no matter how small, is ignored.
The right way for me to embrace the polar diversity of God’s character is not to push him into a box of my making, but to intertwine with Jesus. Jesus is the only solution to God’s kindness and harshness.
Prayer: Jesus, keep my heart in the confluence of love and awe of God.