At the beginning of another year, it becomes us to consider anew, the revelation that God is giving of Himself in His own Word, as a promising and threatening God. It ought to be of the greatest concern to us in what relation He stands towards us. Is He to us a promising or a threatening God? While many in our day regard the revelation that God is love, as necessarily excluding any revelation of Him as an angry God, yet this is not so. Rather are they different aspects of the nature of the same infinitely glorious God, the God of eternity. The One who reveals Himself as a sin-pardoning God in Jesus Christ, is at the same time the sin-hating and sin-avenging Jehovah. With regard to the rejection of the Jews and the ingathering of the Gentiles, the Apostle had to say: “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God.”
God revealed Himself to man at the very beginning of his existence in this world, when he was still in the Garden of Eden, as a threatening God. The terms of the covenant, into which God entered with man at the beginning, had embedded in it this proviso: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” The faithfulness of God to His threatening rendered it certain that, if our first parents ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would die. It was no idle threat, such as a man might make yet never fulfil. It was a most solemn threatening, and would necessarily be carried into effect on the breaking of the Covenant. Man had nothing to lose, but everything to gain by adhering to the Covenant. It held out to him not only the continuance of the enjoyment of God, which he then possessed, but future blessedness unto eternity. What folly, what madness took possession of our first parents when they gave place to the lie of the devil when he said that they would become as gods, knowing good and evil.
God — the God of whose glory they were not unaware, and in whose favour is life — had made it plain to them that by disobedience they would incur the divine displeasure and come under the wrath and curse of God. He had left them in no doubt of this yet, through the subtlety of the evil one, they became blind to the threatening of God and yielded to the temptation. Immediately, they fell from their first estate, and the voice of God, instead of filling them with holy delight, as had formerly been the case, filled them with fear and dread. Had God changed? No, He was still the same, infinitely glorious Being, but they had changed in their relationship to Him. Because of this, He was to them now a threatening God and they fled from Him.
When God delivered His people Israel out of the land of Egypt what tokens they received of His favour to them. He was a promising God to them, though these promises were contingent upon them being obedient to His revealed will. When this people, who had been so highly favoured, turned aside from the God of their salvation, who had delivered them out of the house of bondage, and made a golden calf and worshipped it, while Moses was on the Mount, the anger of God was kindled against His people. He is jealous for His own glory, and will in no way pass over such idolatry as the children of Israel were guilty of at that time. To Moses the Lord said: “I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people: now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.” Only the intercession of Moses prevented this outcome, yet the Lord plagued the people, because they made the calf.
On the heathen, the Lord has often poured out His wrath and indignation. The cities of the plain perished in their ungodliness and unnatural vices. Fire and brimstone from heaven destroyed them. The old world because of its godlessness perished in the flood. Because of the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up. In every age of time God has been revealing Himself as the sin-avenging Jehovah. He will by no means clear the guilty. He has declared that sin shall not go unpunished, and so it shall be. Men and nations that go on in sin shall surely be punished. As it is said of God in relation to His people: “Verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth”, so it can be said in relation to the wicked. God is angry with the wicked every day.
How very solemn is this revelation of the glory of God! He will be glorified in the destruction of the wicked. If men will go on in sin, if nations will go on in sin, the end is inevitable. They must meet God in His wrath. We are warned in the Word of God that “our God is a consuming fire”.
If the kings and rulers of the earth are warned: “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his anger is kindled but a little,” how will it be with those against whom His wrath is kindled greatly? When Israel provoked the Lord to jealousy with strange gods, He had to say: “A fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell.” Edom was called: “The people against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever.” These are solemn matters and ought to be weighed up by every one, lest the day should come when the Lord will meet us as an angry God.
Another revelation altogether is given to us of the God of eternity in His Word where He is made known as a promising God. He is so in Christ Jesus to all His people. All the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. In this aspect of the glory of God, that is, in His goodness and mercy and love, we have a revelation which ought to draw out our love to Him in Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament God was a promising God to His people as well as in the New Testament. Yet all these promises were bound up with the promise of a Saviour who has to come. It was through faith that the Old Testament saints embraced the promises. Indeed in embracing the promise of Christ as the One who was to come, they embraced all the other promises in Him. The New Testament saints embraced a Saviour who had already come and all the promises of God’s Word became theirs in Him.
The good news of the Gospel declares to sinners in need of salvation that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” What a promise of blessing is contained in that declaration, even the promise of everlasting life to all who believe on the name of the only begotten Son of God. The invitations of the gospel do not set forth promises that may or may not be granted, but promises that will indeed be fulfilled for all who believe. The soul that is truly brought to seek salvation in Jesus Christ, will find in Him the salvation that their soul needs, and they will be made heirs of eternal life. The promise of eternal life includes in it all the other promises of God’s word. All who are brought into a reconciled state with God, through faith in Christ’s name, have a right to the blessings held out in the promises. Christ has purchased all spiritual blessings for His people at infinite cost. He is the store-house of all good to His people. They may come to Him, pleading the promises, being assured that what God has promised He will surely fulfil.
God was saying to Abraham: “Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.” To Jacob He said: “I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest.” To His people Israel He had to say through His servant Isaiah: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” To His covenant people He had to say again, through the prophet Isaiah: “For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed.” Again, “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.” When the great Prophet of the Church came, He could say to His followers: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” To His people, He also had to say: “Fear not, little flock; for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” The Apostle Paul had to declare: “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things.” These form but a selection of the promises given in the Word of God on which His people can rely and by faith appropriate to themselves, so that they may be strengthened on their way Zionwards.
What of the promises concerning the prosperity of Zion? In a dark day what encouragement they should be to the Church of God! To Moses the Lord said: “As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.” Through David, He declared of Christ: “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river into the ends of the earth.” Through Habakkuk He proclaimed: “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” At the dedication of the first temple, the Lord honoured that temple with His presence, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple, and He declared to Solomon: “I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put any name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.” When the work of the building of the second temple was held up for a time, God sent His servants Haggai and Zechariah to stir up the people to the work, encouraging them with the promise that the glory of this latter house would be greater than of the former. To His disciples as they were sent forth with the glorious gospel of His grace to disciple all nations, the Lord encouraged them with the assurance: “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”
In the light of all these promises given to His people as individuals and to His Church collectively, it should be clear to us that God is a promising God to those who serve Him and that He will never leave them nor forsake them. Though having much reason to be cast down by the darkness of the day at this present time yet, when the Church of God remembers that God, who is a promising God to His people, is the same yesterday, and today, and forever, they have cause to rejoice in the Lord their God, and encourage themselves in the Lord their God, as David did in his time of distress. The Lord is the One who maintains His Cause and He will uphold it in its darkest day. In His own good time, He will make it “to blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing; the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God.” For this let the Church of God pray, pleading the promises of His own Word.