Kindness and Repentance

The relationship between God’s kindness toward sinners and sinners’ subsequent repentance from sin can hardly be overstated. But what can be overstated is one over the other, kindness at the expense of repentance or repentance at the expense of kindness — which in either case, is like only ever working out one side of your body, which leads to strange and oftentimes catastrophic results. 

All Goop, No Bone

One one side, there are those that would have us talk about God’s kindness to no end, but would never have us talk about sin and repentance. They would read Romans 2:4 and stop after the words “God’s kindness.” 

In this scheme, God is really nothing more than a gentle pushover. He might have some thoughts about your life, but mostly he just wants you to be nice, and he certainly never wants to make you feel guilty about anything. For those who would have this kind of god, Live and let live is their take on the golden rule.

But the result of following such a god is, of course, chaos. Everyone will do their own thing, and devil take it. Lawlessness and sin will responded to with… more lawlessness and sin. But if you really think about it, kindness without law and order is an oxymoron. It’s just slovenly docility, all goop and no bone. Of course, it is a strange thing, because the same folks who claim that they despise “hellfire and brimstone” will call down all manner of hellfire and brimstone upon people who preach anything that even has the faintest whiff of… hellfire and brimstone. Thus, in the end, the snake devours itself.

So as it turns out, God’s kindness is meant to lead us to repentance.

And The Terminator

But on the other hand, there’s also a loud — though now much smaller — group of folks who have absolutely no room for God’s kindness. They’re all about screaming “Repent!” at the top of their lungs till they’re bleeding from the throat, and they’ve obviously never read the first half of Romans 2:4 — nor have they read the rest of the Bible, apparently. 

In this scheme, God is the Terminator: a cold, ruthless, robotic deity who demands conformity to a standard that we can’t keep, try as hard as we might. There is no grace, no mercy, no forgiveness — there is only the cold steel of the judgment sword.

But the result of following such a god is just a different form of fascism. "Who cares about your heart and soul, as long as you keep the rules." It’s not enough for such people to say that the Law is holy and righteous and good, like the apostle Paul did (Romans 7:12). For them, God is not God — the Law is God, and that’s quite a golden calf to worship. Not to mention the fact that, according to the Law, the Law by itself has no power to make us obedient — for in the end, it is only God who can give us new hearts, it is only God who can give us the spirit of repentance from sin (Deuteronomy 30:6, Jeremiah 31:33-34). And he is willing to do so precisely because of his kindness toward us. God actually does love us, and he wants to be with us. Sweet relief. 

No Cherry Pickin’

If we just let God speak for himself and let him tell us what he’s like, we’d look less monstrous with our out-of-balance theologies. God is strong and kind; Jesus is a gentle lamb and a roaring lion; he lavishes grace and doles out judgment; he convicts and comforts; he is humble and kingly; he is the lofty one who inhabits eternity, and he is the one who dwells with the lowly. He is kind toward us even though we are filthy sinners, and his kindness is meant to lead us out of our mucky sinfulness. 

So, all that to say: let’s let God tell us what God is like, and then let’s worship him as he’s revealed himself. Otherwise, we might as well go bow down and offer incense to our own reflections, which will indeed look just as strange and pitiful as it sounds.