The Kind of God He Is

                     In that day you will say: “I will praise you, Lord. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense^; he has become my salvation.” (Isaiah 12:1-2)

 

This is one of those passages that doesn’t make sense until it does. People often think of God as some version of the Hulk. Don’t make Him angry.  You wouldn’t like Him when He’s angry. Tick Him off, and His response is, “God smash.” Think of the world in the days of Noah, Sodom, and Gomorrah and the prophecies about the end times. If those aren’t “God smash,” what are they? Break His law and expect a lightning bolt. This is what we’re told and what we might believe, even if we don’t want to admit it to ourselves.

But in today’s passage, God puts words in our mouths, and part of what He says we’ll say is that He has turned His anger away from us. He has chosen not to destroy us. Instead, He’s going to comfort (strengthen) us. According to today’s passage, the vindictive god we hear so much about doesn’t exist. Other passages clarify that God does and will judge, and He judges justly, but given His preference, He’d rather save.

On this basis, we can approach God and trust Him to provide salvation instead of the lightning bolt. But we need to be careful to trust rather than to presume. He forgives because that’s the kind of God He is, not because of the kind of people we are.