6. How does God rule heaven and earth?
God rules with gracious regard for the well-being and salvation of all, to the glory of his name.
—
When Moses encountered God on Sinai, God revealed his essential character to him as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex. 34:6). God’s involvement with human beings is not capricious nor is it vindictive. It is guided by—and exhibits—mercy, forbearance, generosity, and reliability. This statement about God’s character from Exodus reverberates throughout the Old Testament (see Num. 14:18; Neh. 9:17; Joel 2:13) and is echoed in every worship context where the Psalms were recited or sung (86:15; 103:8; 145:8). God can be trusted, and God’s default position is to be for human beings rather than against them. This is an important foundation for the scriptural witness to what God is really like, since many people have at one point or another thought of God as out to get them rather than out to redeem and restore them! And, of course, the Son’s mission, sent out by the Father to accomplish our redemption, is the ultimate demonstration of God’s sovereign purposes and intentions toward humankind—the proof of the “mercy” and “the great love with which he loved us” (Eph. 2:4–5; see also John 3:16).
The Scriptures are also clear that God rules with a view to establishing justice on the earth. The Psalms affirm that “he comes to . . . judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness (96:13 NIV; see also 98:9). John assures his congregations that the time “for judging the dead, for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints and all who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying those who destroy the earth” is coming (Rev. 11:15). In the face of the injustices, the oppression, the ravaging of human life that so many have experienced, “gracious regard” from God will look a lot like vindication—God’s intervention to affirm that these ruined lives had enormous value, and that God restores that value by giving judgment for them against their oppressors.
It is important that we keep both facets of God’s character and rule before us, sacrificing neither God’s love and mercy to his justice, nor his justice to his love and mercy. And if we wonder why God has not intervened already in the mess of human affairs to right all wrongs, Peter reminds us that it is only God’s mercy and “regard for the . . . salvation of all” that holds back God’s judgment (2 Peter 3:9).
—
“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Ex. 34:6–7)
The Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion. (Ps. 116:5 NIV)
The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)
See also Ps. 104:31; Joel 2:13; Mic. 7:18–20; John 3:16; Eph. 2:4–7; CoF I
—
This is an excerpt from Christian Faith and Doctrine: An Annotated Catechism for the Global Methodist Church. Seedbed is pleased to partner with The Global Methodist Church to offer this companion resource to A Catechism of Christian Faith and Doctrine for the Global Methodist Church.
Perfect for:
- Teachers and leaders discipling and catechizing others
- New Believers in the Global Methodist Church and Christianity in general
- Seekers curious about the Christian faith or the Wesleyan tradition
This resource will help you:
- Encounter faithful teaching about God’s character and his saving work in our world
- Train disciples to understand, recall, profess, and enjoy the church’s essential teachings
- Understand and internalize the beauty of historic orthodoxy
- Become catechized in the richness of Wesleyan faith and practice