The Heart of God

Thousands of Christian Bible studies, sermons, and devotionals have used as their focal point the heart of the Son of God. Jesus’ heart and the depth of His love for us are both wonderful news for us, so they are both certainly great study topics. However,  I think Bible studies and churches don’t always do a good job of representing the true heart of God the Father. I have seen that in my own life, as I’ve grown up with the notion that the ‘God of the Old Testament’ was vengeful and unfair, and that He doled out wrath without hardly blinking an eye. Whether or not this was just my own poor interpretation, the teaching I was getting, or a mix of both, I have had many other friends confess to me that they saw God the same way throughout their growing up years. While this is a somewhat fair opinion to draw out of Scripture at first glance, as the Old Testament does include many accounts of God destroying people and cities, there is so much more to understand about the true nature of God. I have had my views of God throughout the Old Testament completely shifted in the past couple of years through lots and lots of hardcore and in-depth teaching, but this isn’t something most people have access to. Knowing this, and knowing God the way that I do now, makes me feel extremely obligated and excited to share how wrong the idea of a quick-tempered and vengeful God is. The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament, specifically expressed through the work of Jesus Christ, are the exact same. God is never-changing, God is merciful, God is loving and just, and in this blog post, I am going to try to lay to rest any idea you may have that He is anything else.

One of the main misconstrued thoughts I had about God when looking at the Old Testament was that He was quick to anger and would ruin entire cities to somehow get back at His people for going against His commands. One of the stories I would like to cite to instantly disprove this myth and instead show how merciful and gracious God is, is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Perhaps you might be thinking, “God destroyed both of those cities, how does that show mercy?” Well, it does if you focus on the right part of the story: when God is speaking with Abraham in Genesis 18.  

To give a brief summary, God is speaking with Abraham as he looks out over the city, and the Lord tells Abraham of His plan to destroy it. God says that there is simply too much wickedness, and He can no longer tolerate the blatant evil going on. I want to explain a little bit to help you understand just what was going on in Sodom and Gomorrah at this point, and what made them so sinful that God felt he had to wipe them off the map. The Bible shows us in Genesis all the sin going on in that city, and it is mostly sexual sin and violence towards one another. While these are obviously sinful and offensive to God, the Nation of Israel, God’s very own people, committed the same sins over and over again, and God doesn’t choose to destroy them. So why Sodom and Gomorrah? What is so terrible about them? To fully understand this, I want to look at the book of Isaiah, where it says: “For Jerusalem has stumbled, and Judah has fallen, because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord, defying his glorious presence. For the look on their faces bears witness against them; they proclaim their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves” (Isaiah 3:8-9 ESV). Here, Isaiah is talking about the nation of Israel, and comparing them to Sodom and Gomorrah. And did you catch the thing he says they have in common? “Their speech and their deeds are against the LORD,” meaning that the people are openly defying God, and they don’t care. Their hearts have turned against Him and that’s how they will stay. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah were very openly evil and violent, but they had hearts that were set against God, and that is why the Lord had to destroy them.

Going back to Genesis and the conversation between God and Abraham, we see Abraham questioning God and His plan to destroy the city. Abraham asks the Lord, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then not sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it” (Genesis 18:23-24 ESV). The Lord acquiesces to Abraham’s request, and says that if there are fifty righteous people within the city, it will not be destroyed. Abraham asks God again and again: “What if there are forty-five?” “Forty?” “Thirty?” “Twenty?” “What if there are even ten righteous, will the Lord still destroy it?” Abraham pleads with God 6 different times, asking Him to spare the city for the righteous living within it. And God, being so loving and merciful and in favor of His children, says that if He finds even ten righteous people within the city, He won’t touch it. 

If you know how the rest of the story goes, you know that the city does get destroyed, meaning there must have not been even 10 righteous people living in it, so they were obviously over-populated with wicked inhabitants. But my point here is that God is so merciful that He was willing to save the entire city for the sake of even ten people’s lives, because that is how precious we are to Him. God does not take delight or even remote pleasure in causing pain or suffering to His children. On the contrary, He designed and created each person in the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, and I know His heart just broke having to destroy them. God did not create human beings to be wicked, but because of the Fall our hearts have become deceitful and sinful. When the people in this city turned against the Lord and their hearts hardened against Him, that was the last thing God intended. However, they had free will and had made their choice, and they were unwilling to repent, so the Lord was forced to put an end to their sin and wickedness because His nature is to be perfectly just and righteous. 

I want to close by saying that while God is not wrathful or vengeful, He is also a God of justice and perfection. There are times when His good and perfect plan has involved the destruction of a wicked people that turned their heart away from God, and we simply cannot question that with our limited human minds and knowledge. While God sometimes does have to enact judgment, we can also look at stories like this and know beyond a doubt that He is full of deep love, forgiveness, patience, and sympathy for our broken and sinful human race. He has never been anything else, and He never will be. God has loved and wanted communion with us since He created us, and that is what He showed us through the death and resurrection of Christ. Jesus wasn’t the only one suffering, His Father was suffering immensely by having to let go of His only Son so our debt could be paid. If you are ever feeling unsure that God loves you, or that He won’t forgive you, look at the many, many places in Scripture where God has shown us the vast extent of both His great love and forgiveness. We do not serve a God who is, or ever has been, anything but merciful and just towards us. Sodom and Gomorrah are not the only Old Testament example;  there are lots of others (Jonah going to Nineveh, the Israelites finally entering the Promised Land, Joseph saving His family from a famine through God's miraculous plan, to name a few). Believe me when I tell you that even though none of us deserves it even a little bit, the King of the Universe has a heart of nothing but deep, deep love for you. He always has, and nothing you do will ever change that.