God becomes angry at evil because God is love. God is so compassionate and gracious that one biblical prophet even chastised God for being too merciful!
Consider the story of Jonah and reflect on Jonah’s reaction to God’s compassionate forgiveness of the Ninevites, in Jonah 4:1–4. What does this tell us about Jonah, and about God? (See also Matt. 10:8.)
Jonah’s reaction to God’s mercy is telling in two primary ways. First, it displays Jonah’s own hardheartedness. He hated the Assyrians so much for what they had done to Israel that he did not want God to show them any mercy.
What a lesson for us! We must be careful to guard against this same attitude, however understandable it may be. Of all people, those who have received the grace of God should recognize unmerited grace and thus be willing to extend grace to others.
Secondly, Jonah’s reaction reinforces how central God’s compassion and grace are to His character. So familiar was Jonah with God’s mercy that—precisely because God is “gracious and merciful” and “slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness” (Jon. 4:2, NKJV)—Jonah knew that the Lord would relent from bringing judgment against Nineveh. God deals justly and mercifully with all peoples and nations.
The Hebrew phrase translated “slow to anger” or “longsuffering” could be literally translated “long of nose.” In Hebrew idiom, anger was metaphorically associated with the nose, and the length of nose metaphorically images how long it takes for one to become angry.
References to God as “long of nose,” then, convey that God is slow to anger and long-suffering. While it does not take long for humans to become angry, God is exceedingly long-suffering and patient, and bestows grace freely and abundantly, yet without justifying sin or turning a blind eye to injustice. Instead, God Himself makes atonement for sin and evil via the cross so that He can be both just and the justifier of those who believe in Him (Rom. 3:25, 26).
Have you ever failed to show mercy or grace to someone who has wronged you? How can you best remember what God has done for you so that you become more gracious to others in response to the abundant grace God has shown you? And how do we show mercy and grace without giving license to sin or enabling abuse or oppression?
Supplemental EGW Notes
When Jonah learned of God’s purpose to spare the city that, notwithstanding its wickedness, had been led to repent in sackcloth and ashes, he should have been the first to rejoice because of God’s amazing grace; but instead he allowed his mind to dwell upon the possibility of his being regarded as a false prophet. Jealous of his reputation, he lost sight of the infinitely greater value of the souls in that wretched city. The compassion shown by God toward the repentant Ninevites “displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.” “Was not this my saying,” he inquired of the Lord, “when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil.” Jonah 4:1, 2. . . .
Losing sight of the interests of others, and feeling as if he would rather die than live to see the city spared, in his dissatisfaction he exclaimed, “Now, O Lord, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.”—Prophets and Kings, p. 271.
The lesson [taught to Jonah] is for God’s messengers today, when the cities of the nations are as verily in need of a knowledge of the attributes and purposes of the true God as were the Ninevites of old. Christ’s ambassadors are to point men to the nobler world, which has largely been lost sight of. According to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, the only city that will endure is the city whose builder and maker is God. With the eye of faith man may behold the threshold of heaven, flushed with God’s living glory. Through His ministering servants the Lord Jesus is calling upon men to strive with sanctified ambition to secure the immortal inheritance. He urges them to lay up treasure beside the throne of God.—Prophets and Kings, p. 274.
Divine love makes its most touching appeals to the heart when it calls upon us to manifest the same tender compassion that Christ manifested. That man only who has unselfish love for his brother has true love for God. The true Christian will not willingly permit the soul in peril and need to go unwarned, uncared for. He will not hold himself aloof from the erring, leaving them to plunge farther into unhappiness and discouragement or to fall on Satan’s battleground.
Those who have never experienced the tender, winning love of Christ cannot lead others to the fountain of life. His love in the heart is a constraining power, which leads men to reveal Him in the conversation, in the tender, pitiful spirit, in the uplifting of the lives of those with whom they associate. Christian workers who succeed in their efforts must know Christ; and in order to know Him, they must know His love. In heaven their fitness as workers is measured by their ability to love as Christ loved and to work as He worked.—The Acts of the Apostles, p. 550.
The above quotations are taken from Ellen G. White Notes for the Sabbath School Lessons, published by Pacific Press Publishing Association. Used by permission.