“Who is God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance? You do not stay angry forever, but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; You will tread our sins underfoot and hurl our iniquities to the depths of the sea.” –Micah 7:18-19
I’ve read all of the minor prophets through numerous times. But this part of Micah, at the end, is one of my favorite parts of the whole Bible. I think it’s that expression, “who is God like you?”. Sin deserves punishment. The more I see my own life the more I see my sin. The more I see of the world the more I see sin. And the more I see sin the more I see that sin justly deserves God’s wrath. There is no reason, as people whom sin has corrupted, that we shouldn’t be destroyed. If I were God, I would have destroyed humans a long time ago and just started over.
But God isn’t like me (and a hearty amen for that). He isn’t like any other gods. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; a God of covenant promises. The last verse in Micah, 7:20, says “You will be true to Jacob, and show mercy to Abraham, as you pledged on oath to our fathers in days long ago”. He made a promise to Abraham (“I will make of you a great nation, and through your seed all the nations of the world will be blessed”) and because he is a God who keeps his covenants, He shows mercy.
But God doesn’t show mercy simply because he HAS to, because he made a promise and now has to keep it. He delights to show us mercy. One of my favorite verses in Isaiah is 30:18, where it says “The Lord longs to be gracious to you, He rises to show you compassion”. He loves to pardon sin and forgive our iniquities. His desire is that all of us would come to repentance.
It was God’s delight to send Christ, and Christ’s delight to come—who for the joy set before him endured the cross scorning its shame. No other God would empty Himself to come and live in this sinful world. To be so surrounded by the injustice and mess of humanity? How could he bear it?
Because even more than sin’s punishment is God’s love. Jesus entered the world as a child so that through His death and resurrection he could take the punishment of our sins and we could forever be pardoned of our sin. He came and now this forgiveness is an eternal and permanent forgiveness. This punishment for sin was destroyed for those who accept the free grace offered.
On the way back from my grandmother’s house yesterday I was listening to a lecture from the great Dr. Sinclair Ferguson. It was called “The Free Offer of the Gospel”, and it was on 2 Corinthians 5:11-21. The major point of his lecture was on evangelism, and how we must not simply offer up the benefits of the gospel, for that is no gospel at all. Rather, we must lift up Christ and Christ alone. A very timely lecture for me to hear, personally, and really, really, really convicting.
Jesus came. He came as a baby into this sinful mess of a world, the solution to the problem of sin. He came and it was such a big deal that angels came to announce it, that even the cosmos had a part to play in this story. He became nothing. This is Christmas.
But it doesn’t end there. Jesus’ story doesn’t end at the manger, and any Christmas in which we forget that is no Christmas at all.
Jesus lived the life I couldn’t live, perfect and sinless. And he died the death that should have been mine. He took my sins that deserve God’s punishment, took that punishment on himself and through his death hurled my iniquities eternally to the bottom of the sea. Now, through nothing I have done, on no merit of my own, he has freely given me a new life.
“Who is God like You”, indeed.
