Thy Compassions They Fail Not
One of the questions I have often been asked as a pastor is why God allowed sin and misery into the world. If He is all-knowing and all-wise and even has the ability and power to do all He pleases, then why did it please Him to create a world that would nose-dive so fantastically into the turmoil and futility we experience because of sin? Couldn't He have done it differently? Wasn't there a better way?
These are essential questions that require careful answers. Thankfully, many careful answers have been given throughout church history, which we should borrow from when answering this question. For instance, many have said that God created the world, knowing full well what would happen in it because the story of sin and redemption manifested His glory more excellently than a world without a fall. Think about it this way, in a world without sin, human beings and all of creation could never get to know God in all of His fullness. While sin would not be present on a sterilized earth, there would be aspects of God that we could never understand, such as His mercy, justice, grace, forgiveness, and compassion. Without sin, there is no reason for God to be merciful. Without rebellion, there is no need for grace. This means, at least in part, that God allowed the world to fall into sin and misery so that He could showcase the fullness of His being to lost and lonely sinners, which brings Him unimaginable glory.
Understanding this, and while I am fully aware that there is more to say in matters of theodicy, we can be grateful to God for our sins. Because my sin put me in a position of need that only God could meet. My sin created a disease that only God could heal. And while we ought never to sin so that grace may abound, my sin introduced me to a savior who has offered me abounding grace that now causes me to hate my sin and pursue Him. Thus, even in the wretchedness of sin, even in our mortification of sin and hatred of sin, there are peculiar comforts and joys available to those who know the compassions of God.
And that is what I would like to talk about today. If you are new, we are in a little series on the attributes of God, talking about who God is, what He is like, and how we may know Him. Today, we look at His compassion towards sinners.
GOD IS COMPASSIONATE BY NATURE
God is compassionate by nature. He does not decide to become compassionate when a situation arises. He is compassionate as a fundamental quality of His being and person. For instance, Paul says that He is the "Father of compassion" and the "God of all comforts" (2 Corinthians 1:3). This requires that He doesn't just possess these things as if they were commodities, but He is these things in all fullness and perfection. His compassions exist on a level of robust density and purity that they are beyond our ability to comprehend or even withstand without the aid of a mediator. For instance, when the God of perfect compassions passed in front of Moses, letting all His goodness be on display (Exodus 33:19; 34:6), he needed to be hidden in the face of a rock and covered with the Lord's own hand in order to live and tell the tale. God is so unimaginably good that even His goodness threatens our unmediated flesh. He is merciful and gracious (Psalm 86:15), slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (Psalm 103:8), but His holiness and justice require that we repent and return to Him because He is compassionate (Psalm 116:5; 119:156; Joel 2:13)
GOD IS COMPASSIONATE TO ALL PEOPLE
While God's most extraordinary and intimate affections are reserved for His children, the Lord is kind and compassionate to all people (Psalm 145:8-9). Think about it this way, everyone on earth has sinned and is in rebellion against God (Romans 3:23). And since the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), God would be perfectly just and righteous to eliminate the entire human race without so much as batting an eyelash. So, the fact that billions of people loathe God every single day, either in heinous acts of rebellion or in failing to thank Him for every stolen breath of His mercy, has allowed them to live on in morbid ingratitude. If you consider all of the joys, the blessings, the relationships, the food and wines, vacations, health, and other things we do not deserve in our sins, then you arrive at the conclusion that God is far more generous than our ability to even thank HIm. This includes not only Christians but also all people.
GOD IS COMPASSIONATE LIKE A PARENT
God also does not keep His limitless compassion at a distance from His people. While He has more general blessings to bestow upon the larger world, His people receive His covenant love forever. This is true, even in our sin and misery, whereby we are wholly unworthy of His love. Yet, like a kind and benevolent Father, He draws near to the ones He calls sons and daughters (Psalm 103:13-14). He compares the intensity of His love to the affection a mother has for her newborn child. But more faithful and more loving than a mother could ever be. He says in Isaiah 49:15-16: "Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even though she may forget, I will not forget you." And this does not just refer to the times you are trying hard. If you belong to God, meaning God has claimed you as His own, He loves you consistently throughout your life, even when you live in sin's perils and foolishness (Jeremiah 31:20).
GOD IS COMPASSIONATE IN TIMES OF TROUBLE
Because we live in a fallen world, our lives will be filled with many trials, tribulations, and troubles (John 16:33). Some of these moments of suffering are self-induced because our sin and rebellion led us to do wicked things that brought consequences upon us or the ones we love. When this kind of sin proliferates on the national level, God is gracious and compassionate to give His people over into the hands of their enemies so that we may repent and learn to trust Him (Nehemiah 9:28). When this occurs on the individual level, when we go through periods of great vice and a great giving of ourselves to sin, God will often hide His face from us in that season, starving the sickly sin-loving soul from the only countenance that will heal and restore it. By doing this, God takes us to the point of Spiritual despair and longing, which reminds us to stop chasing after idols (Isaiah 54:7-8). In both instances, God graciously chastizes us for our sins. And when we finally wake up and remember that He is Holy, full of compassion and forgiveness for those who seek Him (Nehemiah 9:17), His compassions are even more gloriously displayed in welcoming us back and blotting out our transgressions again and again (Psalm 51:1-2).
Yet, there are other times when troubles or pains come upon us when we have not sinned. At least not in any meaningful way connected to real-life consequences. In all these troubling moments, God promises to bring His compassions upon His suffering and beleaguered people. How is this demonstrated in Scripture?
The heavens and the earth break forth in joyful shouting because God exuberantly brings comforts and compassions upon His afflicted people who suffer innocently (Isaiah 49:13). Likewise, when we cry out to Him in our suffering, in His love, He hears us (Exodus 22:27) and provides for all our needs (Matthew 6:33). When the sinful society we are living in is crumbling around us and our nation feels like it would break apart at the seams, God will extend His compassion upon His covenant people (2 Kings 13:22-23) and will do good by His faithful remnant to a thousand generations (Deuteronomy 7:9). He promises to bring His people out of the pit (Psalm 40:1) and in their bitter distress to shine His face upon them, blessing them with the love of His presence (Psalm 69:16-17). This God we are looking at is not aloof. He looks forward to pouring out His compassions that never fail (Lamentations 3:22) on the people who are His forever (Isaiah 30:18).
In all suffering, whether due to our sin or not, God is our true comforter, and His compassion will never fail. We can know this most assuredly, without wavering or blind faith, because His compassions never fail. They never fail because they are anchored and fixed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, where we see God's compassions most clearly!
GOD'S COMPASSIONS SEEN PERFECTLY IN CHRIST
While God is under no obligation to give us anything good, at just the right time, He sent to us His one and only Son, who, being in the very form of God, humbled Himself and underwent the kind of punishment you and I cannot even imagine, so that He could take our place. He took the sin and misery we perpetrated. He took the punishment we were owed. So that we, though entirely undeserving, could experience the manifold compassions and grace of Almighty God!
In God's great love for us, He gave us His Son (John 3:16). While we were totally weak and helpless, that Son came as a high priest who could sympathize with our weakness (Hebrews 4:15). In accordance with prophecies utter long ago, He came to show us the compassion of God (Luke 1:72). Like the Prodigal's father, our Father felt great compassion on us, and with our True older Brother, welcomed us back into the home at His own expense (Luke 15:20). And that expense would cost our compassionate Father the ultimate expense, the life of His one and only Son in crucifixion (Romans 5:6-8) in order to make us alive together with Him in His resurrection (Ephesians 2:4-5) and to bring us back to the Father we had sinned against totally clean; wholly forgiven (1 Peter 3:18). In the Gospel of God, He made the one who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf, so that we may be called the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). This is why John could say that we do not love God. No, we are saved because the all-compassionate God loves us (1 John 4:9-10).
In Christ, we get to see the fullest expression of the compassion of God. While we were yet sinners, our perfect Lord had compassion on us, died for us, and restored us to the compassions of His Father. Because we are in Christ, we will live in those compassions forever. As the hymn "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" accounts:
"Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
there is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
as Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be." - Thomas Chisholm
