Theological Commentary: Click Here
When I read
the chapter for today, I am glad that I read the chapter from a few days ago. He we go, reading a whole chapter on how
great Josiah is and how seriously he took the reforms of the Lord. We even hear God’s Word tell us that there
was no other king like him before or after [excepting David, no doubt]. Yet, we hear the Bible say that in spite of
all of this, God would not forget the wrath that he planned against His people.
Originally,
it is easy to sit back and ask how God could be unforgiving! After all, how can His people undergo all of
this reform and yet God won’t relent?
How can Josiah and the people be so faithful as to go back and unroot
the worship of foreign gods dating the whole way back to Solomon and God is
unrelenting? How is this possible, when
we profess to believe in a God who forgives with every one of our repentance
moments?
The answer
is in the end of the chapter. Listen to
what the Bible has to say about what happens after Josiah. The people rebel once more. The kings are evil once more. Everything that Josiah fights for is gone as
soon as he is.
Why does God
not relent? God doesn’t relent because
He knows what the future holds. God
stays His hand because Josiah is faithful.
But God knows the repentance is only temporary. God knows that it won’t last and it won’t
stick. It’s not that God is unforgiving
at all! It is that God is
all-knowing. He will happily forgive us
in our repentance. In our disobedience,
He will hold us accountable.
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