Sometimes atheists and antagonists of Christianity say they can’t or won’t believe in a God they perceive as mean and angry. They may think Jesus is OK, but the Old Testament God, they believe, is like the ancient gods who must be appeased, and that he happily smites people who don’t act or believe rightly.
I have been seeing declarations like this on social media, often amongst those who are in some process of deconstructing the faith in which they were raised. Because they were treated badly by religious people who used Scripture to inflict spiritual abuse, they attribute the same behavior to God. They misunderstand God to be a bully, and they want nothing to do with bullies.
I have sympathy for people who have been victimized by church people. I have counseled with some of them, and with others who have come to this position toward God for different reasons. I have listened to understand how they got there.
Don’t worry, I’m not here to fight with anyone about it.
I just want to present an alternate view, one that I was reminded of recently when I reread the book of Jonah. Jonah’s story is a goldmine of theology in this regard.
Jonah’s story reveals that God is the forgiver of the broken-hearted and repentant.
We must be careful not to get too caught up in the intriguing fish story and forget that is it really a story of God’s incredible mercy. Jonah’s story reveals that God is much, much better at mercy than people, and definitely more merciful than Jonah was.
Jonah was a seasoned prophet of Yahweh. When the word of the Lord came to him, he didn’t question the source. God had spoken, commanding Jonah to go to Nineveh and “call out against it, for their evil has come up before me” (1:1,2).
As you probably know, Jonah went in the opposite direction. He paid money to board a cargo boat headed for Tarshish, “away from the presence of the Lord.”(1:3)
Because Jonah was a leader assigned to speak God’s word, his disobedience didn’t just affect him. Aboard the boat, a “mighty tempest” arose, putting Jonah and the entire crew in danger. Jonah had told them that he was running from God, so they intuited that he was the cause of this violent storm.
But they apparently were decent people who feared whatever god or gods they worshiped. They were reluctant to throw him overboard, even when Jonah told them to do so. Instead, they tried rowing harder, but to no avail. The storm only got fiercer.
What is fascinating to me is that the crew started crying out to Jonah’s God. They asked the Lord not to hold it against them when they ultimately had to toss Jonah overboard. Once they did, the storm ceased immediately, and “they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows” (1:16).
By God’s mercy, the lives of all of the souls on the ship were spared, and they gave the glory to him.
Anyone who’s been to Sunday school knows what happened next. God appointed a fish to swallow Jonah. This fish was a creature big enough to swallow a man whole but wouldn’t harm him at all or digest him in its stomach. Only God could come up with that idea.
By God’s mercy, Jonah didn’t drown but was kept safe inside the belly of a fish.
Once inside the fish’s belly, Jonah started to pray and prophesy. He acknowledged that his predicament was orchestrated by the Lord and declared faith that God would save him. He didn’t exactly repent of his disobedience, but he did remember he was in God’s hands. God “spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land” (2:10).
By God’s mercy, Jonah was given another chance to live and serve God.
Jonah went to Nineveh at last to proclaim God’s message, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (3:4). It must have taken him a while to get the word out to such a large city–with no TV, radio, or internet!
God was not obligated to send Jonah to warn them the Ninevites that judgment was near. But when he did, all of the people, “from the greatest of them to the least of them,” put on sackcloth and started a fast.
When Nineveh’s king heard the warning, he issued a decree, making their show of repentance global and official:
“Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands” (3:7-8).
I always picture the cows, oxen, sheep, and chickens covered with sackcloth, getting hungry, surrounded by thousands of humans weeping with remorse.
By God’s mercy, the people of Nineveh were given an opportunity to repent.
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it (3:10).
By God’s mercy, the people did not receive the judgment they had earned for their extreme wickedness.
Sin is always deserving of God’s judgment, whether sin of commission or sin of omission. God spells out throughout the biblical record what he considers righteous and good, and what is wicked and leads to harm and death.
Choosing sin is what separates the fallen creation from the loving Creator.
God’s desire is that we would choose the righteous and good. He wants us to choose him over our selfish desires. It pleases him and causes his life and blessing to flow into our lives. We come into alignment with his divine order.
God knew before he gave commandments to Moses at Sinai that the Israelites would never obey them consistently. Giving the law was an act of mercy. It was a demonstration of his covenant with them. God clearly revealed his nature and character in his law, showing a standard to which his people could aspire.
This God of the Jews was unique amongst the pagan gods of antiquity, and unique amongst the gods as portrayed in other religious systems today. Their gods remain at a distance. They don’t communicate clearly what they expect from those who worship and serve them. Or their god is an impersonal and arbitrary force that doesn’t communicate at all.
Our God came down and showed us himself, in the face of his beautiful Son, Jesus Christ. God revealed that he is a person who has compassion for us.
By God’s mercy, he tells us who he is, who we are in our relationship with him, and how he wants us to live as his children.
As Jonah’s story draws to a close, we see that Jonah is the character in the story most reluctant to repent or embrace God’s mercy. Jonah doesn’t like God’s mercy, except when it comes to keeping himself comfortable. When it comes to sinners, he figures, let them burn.
I pray that if you hear someone say something like, “God hates homosexuals,” or “God sends people to hell,” or “God is too harsh to be a God of love,” you’d take a moment to remember the abundant mercy God displays in the story of Jonah. He gives all of us many chances to grow and change. Please don’t hold God or all Christians responsible for these merciless and untrue statements. They dishonor God.
There have been many abuses in the church and in the history of Christianity—bloodshed, sexual abuse, abuse of power, manipulative leadership, financial exploitation and corruption, etc. In those cases, perpetrators should be brought to justice. God himself supports this ethical mandate.
Parties who are victimized ought to be heard, validated, and supported in their healing. Kind, supportive Christian friendship can lead to forgiveness and restoration, instead of the divorce from the church we sadly see happening quite often these days.
I heard someone make a very important point the other day. While abuses should never be denied or minimized, sometimes individuals interpret discipline as abuse. They become outraged when someone in the church points out to a brother or sister a pattern of sin they have observed. It feels threatening, and the receiver wrongly interprets this as abusive.
Like it or not, this kind of truth-telling to one another should be a normal part of discipleship within the body of Christ. And we are a long way from consistently doing it well. People do get hurt, irreparably sometimes.
Sometimes God will send a person to tell us that we need to repent, as God did in Nineveh. Sometimes Holy Spirit will directly stir up our own consciences. He brings conviction, and conviction often doesn’t feel very pleasant.
We have to ask, are the words of reproof coming to us because of hate, or because of love?
Was God abusing the people of Nineveh by telling them that their behavior was evil and worthy of judgment? No, he wanted to give them an opportunity to accept the truth and change. He wanted them to be saved.
God disciplines because he loves. He disciplines us toward repentance, and repentance brings salvation and good fruit to follow.
By God’s mercy, he disciplines us.
The irony in Jonah’s story is that Jonah himself was the one with an abusive attitude. He preferred to see people suffer and die because they didn’t live up to his religious standards. He spewed condemnation, like the bullies that have unfortunately hurt many vulnerable souls in the church.
God’s purpose, on the other hand, was (and is) always grounded in love, because that is who he is. He causes his mercy to triumph over judgment, time and time again. Jonah couldn’t get on board with God’s motives, despite God’s repeated attempts to convince him.
I will end here with a passage from Romans 2. This firm doctrinal statement by Paul beautifully summarizes the heart of God we witness in Jonah. What we receive, now and forever, ultimately hinges on repentance. This is how we access his everlasting mercy.
Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. (3-5, emphasis added).
It is people, not God, who harden their hearts and store up wrath for themselves.
Lord, help us to be less like Jonah, and more like you. Let us accept the gift of your mercy and kindness, and keep meek, teachable, repentant hearts. Amen.
