Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
God's Longsuffering Leads us to Repentance
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Psalm 50:16-21
The Message, a paraphrase, renders verse 21 as: “I kept a quiet patience while you did these things; you thought I went along with your game. I'm calling you on the carpet, now, laying your wickedness out in plain sight.” In other words, because the hammer had not yet fallen, the Israelites of old assumed that God did not care about what they were doing—but, as God declares, “. . . your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). Solomon speaks of this same tendency in Ecclesiastes 8:11. He observes that, because a delay in justice occurs, people conclude that crime and sin are not so terrible. This pause between cause and effect encourages them to continue in their evil. God's longsuffering is thus double-edged. For those who are serious about following God, His longsuffering gives them time to repent and change. But for those who are ambivalent about what God thinks, His delay of justice reinforces their wrong beliefs and behavior. In this vein, the Israelites mistook God's silence for His approval, and as a result, the Day they thought would bring them glory instead delivered shame and defeat. This pattern is evident in Israel's history, and we can also see it happening in the Israelitish nations of today.
David C. Grabbe
Do You Desire the Day of the Lord?
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2 Peter 3:8-9
Peter teaches that we do not look at time in the same way that God does. We are finite beings, bound by time, but God is not. As a result, our perspective is naturally short-sighted, while God keeps a long-range view beyond our ability to comprehend. Remember, these verses appear in the context of Christ's return, so what the Father and the Son consider to be a short time before the Kingdom is established can seem like an eternity to us—or as if He delays His coming. The apostle also indicates Christ's longsuffering as a reason that the end has not yet come. In our opinion, He should have returned already and put a stop to all the world's wrongs. However, His longsuffering is not due to slowness or tardiness, as the carnally-minded think. Rather, His longsuffering is a gift to us, so that we do not have to perish in His judgment. Our focus tends to be on how bad the world is getting, yet Peter subtly draws us back to our own spiritual condition. Jesus is longsuffering toward us so that we have ample time to repent, not in the sense of initial conversion, but to turn fully and have our hearts completely changed. In its fullest sense, repentance is not complete until we are finally in His image. Even though we may be frustrated that we do not see more end-time prophecies coming to pass, Peter explains it as a blessing to us because it means that Christ will not wrap things up before we have had a full and complete opportunity to repent. We can be thankful for God's timetable, not because it means we have more time to flirt with this world, but because He is providing everything we need to follow our salvation to its conclusion, including the time.
David C. Grabbe
How Much Longer Do We Have?
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