where mercy and justice meet

The LORD is slow to anger and great in power,

and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty.

His way is in whirlwind and storm,

and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

Nahum 1:3

God will not abide with human evil without bringing His justice to bear. He cannot be holy and at the same time ignore sin. He will judge those who do wrong. This is a fundamental truth about God revealed clearly from even the earliest pages of scripture.

The prophet Nahum, like Jonah, preached to Nineveh a message of judgment. In the book of Jonah we see a God Who is slow to anger and great in power, graciously suspending judgment when Nineveh repented at Jonah’s message. Now, in the book of Nahum, we see God great in power and in the storm of judgment, with Nineveh and the Assyrian empire again in sinful rebellion against God. And God cannot clear their unrepentant guilt. His justice will roll in like a gathering storm and His decrees through His prophet will bring a final end to Assyria’s cruel violence and oppression.

Yes, God is a God Who is great in mercy. We should be thankful that He is slow to anger even as He is great in power. And of course, we know His grace intimately in the cross of Christ. Jesus saves us because He took God’s righteous wrath for our sakes in His mercy and forbearance! 

Simultaneously, the God of mercy is also a God of justice. And His judgment is decisive and final. We either know His judgment poured out on His Sin, by faith clinging to Jesus for eternal pardon, or people will know the alternative of eternal judgment, cast from God’s presence and care in punishment with the devil and his demons. God’s great power extends to both points of this spectrum… He is powerful in mercy at the cross. He is powerful in justice in that same cross. The cross is where both mercy and justice meet.