The Collision of Compassion and Justice: Lovingkindness

     Compassion and Justice work hand-in-hand to create a powerful depth to God's love that none other can match; and, with the two, the faithfulness of God becomes amplified in a way that transcends all other dimensions of love that any part of creation can attempt to muster up. That connection, between His love and His faithfulness, should always remain glued together. The very reason He remains faithful comes from His covenant love. Of course, His character is faithfulness, but to separate love and faithfulness would limit Him to earthly bounds. He loves because He is faithful; He is faithful because He loves. And, thus, His compassion and justice collide to form His lovingkindness, a type of love that combines agape sacrifice with covenant faithfulness.

    
     The opening dialogue of Daniel 9 begins with Daniel explaining that he "observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years," and the verse immediately following shows Daniel's response to this understanding: "So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed..." (Daniel 9:2-4a NASB). What a wellspring of God's lovingkindness, beloved brethren! I think this deserves some unpacking, however. I encourage you to put forth the effort to follow in God's Word as we look at this. I also implore you to comment below if anything is contrary to truth.

    
     According to 2Chronicles 36:11-21, Zedekiah led the people towards evil in the sight of the LORD. Jeremiah had already prophesied that God would destroy Jerusalem and that the people who surrendered to the Chaldeans would live (Jeremiah 21:1-10); however, Zedekiah refused to humble himself before these words of the LORD and chose to rebel against King Nebuchadnezzar. Iniquity increased, amongst the leaders and the priests as much as the people, and they defiled the LORD's house that He himself had consecrated. "And the LORD God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place" (2Chronicles 36:15).

     This compassion carries significant weight to it. God sent warning after warning with His messengers and even went to the extreme of sending them early, with enough time to repent. What great love does this demonstrate! "But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, till there was no remedy" (2Chronicles 36:16). And here, in the verse immediately following, comes the justice.

    
     Before continuing, we should explore the aspect of justice as a means of love. Justice involves destruction, and it is this character of God that many have difficulty overcoming. Many ask how a God of love could justify the destruction found in the Old Testament. The truth of the matter is that Christ came to destroy as much as He came to heal and fulfill.

     A true follower of Christ will indeed seek to please Him. Within this, believers should constantly ask God to search their hearts and weed out any evil within them. We should continually seek to cleanse ourselves from all iniquity. The blood of Christ truly covers all sins; however, we, as children of God, should seek to become more like Him. When we make such requests, we are actually asking God to destroy things—the evil and sin within us. We leap into His compassionate arms and ask for justice so that we may love and live for Him more and more. He knows every fiber of our being and accepts us with compassion, but cleanses us with justice.

     This demonstrates lovingkindness, that mixture of agape sacrifice and covenant faithfulness, that while we were yet sinners, Jesus died for the ungodly, the wretched, and the low, whom we all once were when we were of the kingdom of darkness. And in His lovingkindness, He sacrificed all He had and took on the entire wrath of God on our behalf. We will never know the full wrath of God because Christ took it all for us! And He destroyed death, sin, the grave, and the enemy. Through His compassion and justice, He has made a way for us. And by His death, He has cut a covenant with us, according to His promise. Therefore, within the combination of compassion and justice, Jesus Christ becomes for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—and demonstrates His lovingkindness.

    
     Therefore, going back to the beginnings of Daniel 9 and the context found in 2Chronicles 36, we see both God's compassion and God's justice demonstrated. This correlates with Daniel 9:2 because the justice that God speaks of in 2Chronicles 36 is the same seventy years prophesied by Jeremiah that Daniel says he understood and observed. 2Chronicles 36:20-21 expounds on this in saying, "And those who escaped from the sword he (the king of the Chaldeans) carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years."

     At surface level, verse 20-21 seems only to clarify that Daniel 9 and 2Chronicles 36 indeed correlate, but the question remains: what truth did Daniel come to realize that brought him to the point of confession and repentance? Daniel does not specifically elaborate on what he understood and observed; nevertheless, truths of God's character found in these passages should bring us to the same place that Daniel found himself—repentance.

    
     Verse 21 of 2Chronicles 36, in particular, shines light on deeper aspects of God's character of lovingkindness. In context, God had already set up the seventy-year oppression if Israel did not turn from their wickedness. Important to note, nevertheless, comes in God's other intention for those seventy years. "...to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years" (2Chronicles 36:21). God also intended the seventy years for a gift of Sabbath to the land!

     Many know that God ordained the seventh day, the Sabbath day, as a day of rest. Exodus 23:10-11, however, takes this to an even deeper level through the seventh year Sabbath of the land. "Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow..." (Exodus 23:10-11a). God even goes on from the instruction to reveal the whys: "...that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat" (Exodus 23:11b).

     This Sabbath of the land required large amounts of obedience and faith. The produce of the land supplied every bit of the food for the people. To not cultivate and grow produce meant that no income whatsoever existed. It also would humble the wealthy by spreading equality amongst Israel. And, probably highest of all, it called for a cultivation of the grounds within the self to weed out iniquity.

     The fact of God's faithfulness in this command to a Sabbath of the land comes in Leviticus 25:18-22, which explains that if they observe this command, they will dwell in the land in safety, the land will yield its fruit, and there will always be enough. And, as for the income and food for the seventh year Sabbath of the land, God states, "I will command My blessing on you in the sixth year, and it will bring forth produce enough for three years" (Leviticus 25:21). This promise extends for three years because it takes an entire year to have produce for the next. Therefore, they would not only need produce for the seventh year, but also for the eighth and even the ninth.

     Abundance such as this meant that some carelessness might go into the gathering of the fields. According to God's instruction, any forgotten sheaf should be left for the fatherless, the widow, and the stranger (Deuteronomy 24:19-22). This abundance added onto the corners of the field, which God also instructed to be left for the poor and stranger (Leviticus 19:9-10). This means that obedience to God in the Sabbath of the land and the leaving of the abundance brought equality to all of Israel.
     On top of that, the land had time to rest and replenish its resources. In the same way, the hearts spent the entire year leaning upon God's provision. Thus, a cultivation of the hearts commenced instead of the cultivation of the land. This year would then give breakthrough for a walk of obedience, faith, and righteousness for the six years to come.

     With this entire context, God's gift of the seventy years of Sabbath to the land meant that, although the children of Israel would spend seventy years in captivity, God, all the while, was in the process of working redemption and reconciliation. The land would have finally received the Sabbaths that the children of Israel had neglected; therefore, God then would be able to abundantly bless Israel through their renewed obedience after the time of the captivity had ended. He prepared a way for forgiveness. Compassion worked hand-in-hand with Justice to display a depth of God's love that none other could/can even compete with. God brilliantly painted His lovingkindness in His Fatherly correction of Israel—with compassion and justice.

     And Daniel ecstatically gets it! Well, maybe with less outward enthusiasm, but his spirit, nevertheless, rejoiced for the healing to come. With such a beautiful display of the character of God's lovingkindness, Daniel exhibits the only true response:

So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed and said, "Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances. Moreover, we have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers and all the people of the land. Righteousness belongs to You, O Lord, but to us open shame, as it is this day--to the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those who are nearby and those who are far away in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of their unfaithful deeds which they have committed against You. Open shame belongs to us, O Lord, to our kings, our princes and our fathers, because we have sinned against You. To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against Him...for we are not presenting our supplications before You on account of any merits of our own, but on account of Your great compassion."

-Daniel 9:3-9, 18b

    
     Beloved brethren, our God deals in great measure with compassion, but justice cannot be separated from this attribute of God's love. True understanding of God's lovingkindness brings us to our knees in repentance and cries out for both compassion and justice. Righteousness belongs to the Lord. Our own merits, systems, or paths cannot justify us. The LORD has/is sending "warnings to [us] by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He [has] compassion on His people and on His dwelling place" (2Chronicles 36:15). People get ready...Jesus is coming. And even so, come Lord Jesus, COME!

But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?

-Romans 2:2-4