Handout for Jonah Part 2 - Mercy and Justice in the Godhead

After much cajoling, God reveals his "attributes" to Moses.  These attributes reveal that God's mercy outweighs his justice.                                                                       

                                                                       

Moses reminds God of his “attributes in order to persuade him that his mercy ought to outweigh his justice.

 

Jonah finally explains why he has been so negligent in fulfilling his prophetic obligation: he knew that God would be merciful. In Jonah’s eyes this is not to God’s credit! God ought to be just.

 

 

Theological Problem:  Moses as a prophetic intercessor shows us the urgent necessity of human intervention on behalf of Israel/humankind.  God's involvement with Israel is so profound and deep that God raises up prophets whose job is to represent God before Him.  They speak on behalf of Israel to God, reminding God of what His stated purposes with Israel are.  Though this scenario makes a powerful and profound case for prayer (it really matters, in fact, it’s a matter of life and death), and the participation of Israel in the life of God (who God is in Exod 32:7-14 is the combination of the what Moses and God say;  a "type" we might say of the relationship of Jesus to the Father), it is still troubling.  Would God continue to rant and rave and veer out of control if there were no Moses?  With the book of Jonah we can see that these worries are misplaced.  Should the prophet do the wrong thing and side with justice against humanity then God will assume the position of mercy – the exact reverse of what God does in Exodus and Numbers! 

 

The lesson to be learned here is that we cannot make solid decisions about the character of God from reading one story.  Given the Bible's commitment to realistic narrative (God is a true "character" in the narrative account, growing angry, changing his mind, etc.), any larger doctrinal picture we might wish to draw about the character of God will require us to consider all of the evidence that the Bible provides.  Just as with the doctrine of Election where we saw that all the stories in Genesis are necessary to see what God is up to regarding the peculiar choice of Israel as his very own.   Given the three texts listed above, I think it is fair to say that God is unchanging in regard to his steadfast love toward Israel/creation even if in individual stories the picture looks quite the opposite.