Articles
What It Takes to Be Saved (4): God's Part - A God Slow to Anger
What It Takes to Be Saved (4): God's Part
A God Slow to Anger
Mike Willis
In several passages of Scripture, the Bible speaks of God being “slow to anger” (some translations read that He is “long suffering”):
“The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, SLOW TO ANGER, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. . .’ ” (Exod. 34:6).
“And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, ‘The LORD is SLOW TO ANGER and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation’ ” (Num. 14:18).
The same slow-to-anger description of God is given in Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Nahum 1:3 and several other passages.
Had God been a hot-tempered God, long ago He would have destroyed the world because of mankind’s rejection of His gracious efforts to bring mankind to repentance. One would think that God would have completely destroyed the universe and all living things when He sent the Flood (Gen. 6-8). But, even though only eight people survived the Flood, God continued to reach out in His grace to save mankind. God started all over again with eight people because He is a God who is slow to anger.
It would have been a good time to destroy all of mankind when both Jews and Gentiles colluded to put to death God’s incarnate Son. Watching miserable men insult, mock, spit upon, blaspheme, beat, and then crucify His Son Jesus, one would think that the omnipotent God immediately would have blasted the entire universe out of existence.
Not only is God slow to anger with the world, He is also slow to anger with individual believers. After the Flood, Noah got drunk and lay naked in front of his children, but God was patient with him (Gen. 9:21) and the New Testament writers describe him as a man of faith (Heb. 11:7). King David lusted after a woman named Bathsheba, brought to her to his palace, committed adultery with her, attempted to cover up his sin of adultery when he learned that Bathsheba had become pregnant. He brought her husband home from war (hoping she and her husband would cohabit) and, when that failed, arranged for his murder to prevent people from finding out what he had done. But God was long suffering toward David and allowed him to live. The New Testament records the Apostle Paul saying that David was “a man after my heart” (Acts 13:22).
We should be thankful that our God is “slow to anger” (long suffering) toward mankind whom He created. Were that not the case, none of us would have hope of eternal life. What would be our fate if God gave each man one sin after which a second sin would result in being eliminated?
We should praise God for being slow to anger.
