Perhaps the greatest love common to human experience is the love of a parent for a child. The Bible often uses the imagery of the parent-child relationship to depict God’s amazing compassion for people, emphasizing that God’s compassion is exponentially greater than even the deepest and most beautiful human expression of the same emotion.
Read Psalm 103:13, Isaiah 49:15, and Jeremiah 31:20. What do these depictions convey about the nature and depth of God’s compassion?
According to these texts, God relates to us as His beloved children, loving us as a good father and mother love their children. Yet, as Isaiah 49:15 explains, even a human mother might “forget her nursing child” or “not have compassion on the son of her womb” (NKJV), but God never forgets His children, and His compassion never fails (Lam. 3:22).
Notably, the Hebrew term raḥam, used for compassion here and in many other texts describing God’s abundant compassionate love, is believed to be derived from the Hebrew term for womb (raḥam). And thus, as scholars have noted, God’s compassion is a “womb-like mother-love.” Indeed, it is exponentially greater than any human compassion, even that of a mother for her newborn.
According to Jeremiah 31:20 (NKJV), God views His covenant people as His “dear son” and “pleasant child,” despite the fact that they often rebelled against Him and grieved Him. Even so, God declares, “My heart yearns for him” and “I will surely have mercy on him.” The term translated “mercy” here is the term used above for divine compassion (raḥam). Further, the phrase “My heart yearns” can be translated literally as “My innards roar.” This description is the deeply visceral language of divine emotion, signifying the profound depth of God’s compassionate love for His people. Even despite their infidelity, God continues to bestow His abundant compassion and mercy on His people and does so beyond all reasonable expectations.
For some of us, recognizing that God’s compassion for us is akin to that of a loving father or mother is deeply comforting. However, some people might struggle because their parent or parents were not loving. What other ways could God’s compassion be revealed to them?
Supplemental EGW Notes
You have probably heard of the sad story of the mother who, with her husband and child, attempted to cross the Green Mountains in midwinter. Their progress was arrested by night and a storm. The husband went for help and lost his way in the darkness and the drifted snow, and was long in returning. The mother felt the chill of death coming upon her, and she bared her bosom to the freezing blast and the falling snow, that she might give all that remained of her own life to save that of her child. When the morning came, the living babe was found wrapped in the mother’s shawl . . . wondering why she did not awaken from her sleep.
Here is seen love stronger than death, that binds the mother’s heart to her child. And yet God says that the mother will sooner forget her child than that He will forget a soul that trusts in Him. That the Lord loves us is enough to call forth deepest gratitude, every hour of our lives. God’s love is speaking to you. . . . Only trust the love of Jesus, and you will realize the deepest joy.—Letter 12, August 9, 1873, to Edson and Emma White.
Christ’s love for His children is as strong as it is tender. It is a love stronger than death, for He died for us. It is a love more true than that of a mother for her children. The mother’s love may change, but Christ’s love is changeless. “I am persuaded,” Paul says, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38, 39).
In every trial we have strong consolation. Is not our Saviour touched with the feeling of our infirmities? Has He not been tempted in all points like as we are? And has He not invited us to take every trial and perplexity to Him? Then let us not make ourselves miserable over tomorrow’s burdens. . . . He who gives strength for today will give strength for tomorrow.—In Heavenly Places, p. 269.
In the gracious blessings which our heavenly Father has bestowed upon us, we may discern innumerable evidences of a love that is infinite, and a tender pity surpassing a mother’s yearning sympathy for her wayward child. When we study the divine character in the light of the cross, we see mercy, tenderness, and forgiveness blended with equity and justice. In the language of John we exclaim, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.”
We see in the midst of the throne One bearing in hands, and feet, and side the marks of suffering endured to reconcile man to God, and God to man. Matchless mercy reveals to us a Father, infinite, dwelling in light unapproachable, yet receiving us to Himself through the merits of His Son.—Reflecting Christ, p. 284.
The above quotations are taken from Ellen G. White Notes for the Sabbath School Lessons, published by Pacific Press Publishing Association. Used by permission.