The Patience and Longsuffering of God
Part One
John G Reisinger
It is a terrible shame when a preacher or church misrepresents the character of God as he has revealed himself in Scripture. We expect those who teach us to tell the truth; one of the functions of teaching is the faithful transmission of factual data. Unhappily, in some churches, the tendency is to emphasize either nothing but love or nothing but wrath. If we emphasize only the love of God, we will soon lose sight of God’s holiness and justice. The doctrine of the cross and the blood shedding of Christ as essential to propitiate God’s holy character will be lost. The truth of an eternal hell will not only be dismissed, it will be ridiculed as outdated and an affront to the God of love in the Bible. On the other hand, if all we preach about is God’s wrath and damnation, we will soon lose sight of God’s amazing love, patience, and longsuffering. The great truths of God’s grace and mercy will be forgotten and there will be no such thing as the assurance of forgiveness of sins. We must preach both love and wrath, both grace and righteousness.
I want to look at two verses of Scripture that address the patience or longsuffering of God, but from different perspectives. The word "longsuffering" appears in both verses. In both cases, the authors tell their readers to think about and praise God for his ability to be longsuffering. There is, however, a radical difference in both the objects and the purposes of God’s longsuffering in the two texts. Our thesis is that God is longsuffering to all men. He is longsuffering with both the elect and non-elect, but his reason for being longsuffering is very different in both cases. The texts are 2 Peter 3:9.and Romans 9:22 The first shows God’s longsuffering toward the elect and the second shows the longsuffering of God to the non-elect.
2 Peter 3:9 - The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (KJV)
Romans 9:22 - What if God, willing to show his wrath and make his power known, endured with much longsuffering (NIV "great patience"] the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction? (KJV)
Strong gives the following meaning to the Greek word for longsuffering.
makrothuméō
- to be of a long spirit, not to lose heart a) to persevere patiently and bravely in enduring misfortunes and troubles; b) to be patient in bearing the offenses and injuries of others; 1) to be mild and slow in avenging; 2) to be longsuffering, to be slow to anger, to be slow to punish.
The KJV translates the word as longsuffering, and patient. The basic idea is two fold. Objectively, we show longsuffering, and subjectively we exercise patience. The main idea is that longsuffering is the ability to endure everything that is necessary to reach a desired goal. Look at few other verses that use this word.
Romans 2:4 - Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? (NIV)
Hebrews 6:12 - We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. (NIV)
Galatians 5:22 - But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness …. (NIV)
God’s patience, or longsuffering, is a power in God that enables him to endure everything that is necessary to accomplish all that he has planned. God’s longsuffering is tied to both his sovereign power and his sovereign purposes. Nothing will make him act contrary to his own ultimate goal. God will never "go off half-cocked" or act prematurely. The Scripture commands us to recognize, admire and praise this power in God. We will see this when we unpack Romans 9:22 and 2 Peter 3:15. We are to realize and bless God that our sure hope of being saved or kept saved is due entirely to the amazing longsuffering of God. This is what Peter means when he says, "account [NIV – "Bear in mind"] that the longsuffering of God is salvation" (2 Peter 3:15).
You and I cannot always control our emotions and therefore often fail in an intended purpose. God never, in any sense, loses control of himself. We get mad and throw up our hands and say, "I don’t need this hassle. The goal is not worth the effort." God never acts like that. He never loses his cool! That is why every purpose of God will surely succeed. Psalm 103:8-9 provides a bit of insight into our subject.
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever … (NIV)
God is slow to anger, but he will not keep back his anger forever. When will God finally display his anger? When will he let his anger loose? When he runs out options? Nonsense! When he is too frustrated because things are not going right? Never! When the situation is so hopeless that he can do nothing about it? More nonsense! When he is at his wits’ end because he has tried everything and has nothing left to try? The answer in every case is no, no, a thousand times no. God’s anger is completely under his control and he will not let it loose until he has accomplished everything he set out to do. God will not express his anger until every elect sheep is safe in the fold. He will not show his wrath until every obstinate Pharaoh has played out his part in God’s sovereign plans and purposes. We are to praise him for his awesome power that controls his whole being in order for him to accomplish all of his purposes.
Do you see the great lesson for us? God will accomplish every purpose, without exception, that he has decreed. He will never lose his temper or his resolve. God’s love and his wrath are equally under his control and they will never run wild. He will bear patiently with the ungodly, like Pharaoh, even though they abuse his patience. He will not allow their sin and wickedness to make him act prematurely in anger. He will likewise bear patiently with his elect, even though they do not know it, and will not allow their sin to make him change his mind. You and I sometimes establish a relationship with someone and we later regret it. We say, "If I had known this about you, I never would have become your friend or mate." Do you realize that before God saved you, he knew everything you would do, or want to do but were too afraid to do? There is not one new thing that God can learn about you that he did not already know when he sovereignly chose to make you one of his sheep. That means that there is not one single thing you can do that would make God change his mind about you!
Do you see the awesome implication of this great truth? To the saint, it is the source of great encouragement, assurance and hope. We are in the hands of an unchanging God who has covenanted to bring us to glory. He has purposed us to conform every saint into the image of Christ and nothing can or will stop him from accomplishing that feat. Look at Hosea 11:9.
I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city. (KJV)
Did Ephraim deserve to experience the fierceness of God’s anger? Yes. Did God have every opportunity and the ability to punish them? Yes. Again, we ask, "Why did God not give them the just desserts that their sin deserved?" The answer is clear; it is because God is not like men. God had purposes of grace for Ephraim and nothing was going to change those purposes. God does not act like men and change his intentions. God is too powerful to allow anything or anybody to interfere with his ultimate goals in sovereign grace. His emotions do not go up and down like a thermometer.
God’s purposes are just as immutable as God himself is. He should execute wrath against us. He could easily do so. We surely deserve it. However, if we are God’s people, we will never taste an ounce of that deserved wrath because God does not act like a fickle man. He is the unchanging God. He deliberately does not execute wrath until he accomplishes his purposes, because he is God and he is not like a man. Why does he not execute wrath right now? It would frustrate his eternal purposes.
You and I let our anger loose when we lose heart or get frustrated. We allow circumstances to control our emotions, but not so with God. He can, and does, suffer as long and as deeply as is necessary to accomplish his purpose. Did you ever sit down with a teenager and say, "We are going to have a calm and rational discussion"? About ten minutes later, you were banging your fist on the table and shouting, "You stupid kid, don’t you have any sense at all?" So much for your ability to be patient and longsuffering! How many of your projects and sincere purposes have been ruined and never reached, simply because you lost your temper and did something rash? Ah, how different is our powerful God!
Proverbs 16:32 - Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city. (NIV)
Notice again that the ability to control one’s emotions is a sign of great strength. He that can best control his tempter is the mightiest of all, and that would be God himself.
Nahum 1:3 illustrates this idea.
The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power . . . (NIV)
Again, the verse stresses that the ability to be slow to anger is an exhibition of power. The more one can control anger, the greater his power. This ability to control anger is one thing that makes God so powerful. He controls his anger; he will not let it loose until he accomplishes his purposes. Malachi 3:6 spells out the clear implications of God’s great power in controlling his anger.
For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. (KJV)
Do you see the force of the word therefore? Did the sons of Jacob deserve destruction? Absolutely, yes. Did God have the power to consume them? Of course he did. Would you and I have acted like God or would we have quickly consumed them? Without a doubt, we would have destroyed them. Then why were they not consumed? Simply because God is not at all like us. God never changes or gives up on any purpose. Nothing can make God act prematurely, just as nothing can make God change his mind. We change like the weather, but God does not. Everything without exception that God ever purposed to accomplish, he will accomplish and nothing or nobody, including man’s sin and all the devils in hell, will provoke him to do something that frustrates his ultimate purpose.
Let us draw some lessons from this great truth. First, God clearly reveals himself as patient and longsuffering, and we are to see this longsuffering as an exhibition of God’s great power and praise God for being such a powerful God.
God patiently entreats sinners to repent and come to him and find forgiveness. It is our duty, and if we understand correctly, our great joy, to preach God as longsuffering.
Isaiah 65:2 - I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts;
Verse 5 - These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day. (KJV)
The outstretched hand means to beckon, to get attention, and to invite men to come. In verse 2, God called and promised "all day long" and in verse 5, his wrath burned all day. Yet God withheld his wrath for a long time and continued to stretch out his hand of welcome. Oh, the amazing pity and patience of our great sovereign God!
Secondly, we must not misunderstand God’s patient entreaties, as many people who reject sovereign grace often do. God is not longsuffering because he is weak or powerless. His patient entreaties do not result from lack of power or purpose in either his character or his person. Some people wrongly assume that the fact of God’s longsuffering somehow proves the false doctrine of free will. They use God’s patient longsuffering to try to demonstrate that man’s will is stronger than God’s will. You will hear these people say, "God has done all he can do and can now only plead with sinners to give him a chance." The implications of that concept create a "wheelchair God" who cannot help himself, let alone help sinners like you and me. When preachers say, "God has no hands but your hands, no feet but your feet, etc." they are preaching, in effect, a helpless God in a wheelchair. Do not inadvertently use God’s patience and longsuffering to mock him instead of worship him. Paul warns about that very thing in Romans 2:4, 5.
Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. (NIV)
Others feel that the longsuffering of God proves that God is so loving and kind that he just cannot bring himself to punish the sinner. He is like an indulgent parent who shouts and threatens to spank, but never does because he "loves the child too much." My mother was a very education-oriented person. She had a broken pie board that she knew how to use as a teaching instrument. She believed in applying the "board of education to the seat of knowledge." If you believe that "love never spanks," you probably will have spoiled children. Likewise, if you believe God does not punish sin, you will soon have no real doctrine of sin and hell.
Still others think that God is like Esau. Esau hated his brother Jacob for stealing the birthright. He fully intended to kill Jacob, but could not find the right opportunity. Esau said in his heart, "the days of mourning for my father are at hand, then I will slay my brother" (Gen. 27:41). Both the wrath and the intention to kill were in Esau’s heart, but he was forced to wait for the right opportunity. This is not at all the case with God! He can reach any sinner, any place or any time, and cut him off instantly.
We must mention one more group who misunderstand God’s patience. They are hyper-Calvinists, and some of them may be reading this message. These people see the invalidity of the doctrine of free will and embrace God’s absolute sovereignty. They see that God has a wrath and will punish sinners in hell. They feel compelled to protect God’s character against those who picture God as helpless and man’s will as supreme. However, in their sincere desire to protect God’s character, they deny the universal proclamation of the gospel. They believe that the gospel is only for the elect and it is not to be preached to all men. They will not proclaim the gospel promises to sinners, and they view any preaching of God’s pleading with sinners to repent and be saved as a rejection of the Doctrines of Grace.
These people seek to protect God’s sovereignty by denying his patient longsuffering, but they wind up warping and destroying both sovereignty and longsuffering. We must preach both parts of John 6:37. We must preach that God has an election of grace and every one of those sovereignly chosen ones will repent and believe the gospel. That is what Jesus meant when he said, "All the Father giveth me will come to me" (John 6:37a). In heaven, there will be no empty houses catching cobwebs. All of the elect will come. However, John 6:37b continues, "and him that cometh I will in no wise cast out." That is a sure promise to every sinner who comes, and we are to preach it as such.
Sometimes people say to me, "How do you get the truth of election and the free and universal proclamation of the gospel together?" I respond, "I do not have to get them together. Jesus has already put them together in verses like John 6:37." The real question is, "How do you get them apart?" How dare anyone deny either one of these two truths? My friend, what God has joined together, let no man ever seek to separate.
What then is the "patience" and "longsuffering" of God? John Flavel, one of my favorite Puritans wrote, "Longsuffering is an ability or power in God not only to delay the execution of His wrath for a time towards some, but to delay it in order to show grace in the salvation of others." We must see that God is patient and longsuffering toward all men without exception, elect and non-elect. However, some from whom he now withholds his wrath for a period, still will experience that wrath in the future. He withholds that same wrath from his elect in order to show mercy to them later. God was just as patient and longsuffering with Pharaoh as he was with Saul of Tarsus, but for entirely different reasons.
Pharaoh is a classic example of God’s patient longsuffering to the non-elect. God will put up with his fake tears, false repentance, and insincere promises. He will endure, with much longsuffering, all of Pharaoh’s sin and rebellion; (1) until every miracle God purposes to perform is performed; ( 2) until every lesson God intends to teach is taught: 3) then, but not one second before, Pharaoh will let the people go with all their back pay; (4) and then, and not until then, God will destroy Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea. God will be glorified in his patience with Pharaoh as well as in his ultimate destruction of Pharaoh. We must see that it was for the very purpose of showing his power and fulfilling his purpose that God raised Pharaoh up in the first place (Romans 9:17). How did God show his power in his dealing with Pharaoh? All that took place, including God’s amazing patience, was an exhibition of God’s awesome power to be longsuffering until he had accomplished his ordained purposes. Could you put up with Pharaoh and his antics with the kind of patient longsuffering that God did? I think not.
Just as Pharaoh is an illustration of God’s longsuffering with the non-elect, Saul of Tarsus is an exhibition of God’s longsuffering with the elect. God will put up with Saul’s hatred and wrath. Saul will sit at the feet of Gamaliel and learn a twisted view of the Old Testament Scriptures. He will hate and beat Christians and do all in his power to destroy the Christian faith and rid the world of Christians. He will aid in the stoning to death of Stephen. He will fight truth and his conscience. If you had been God, watching Saul of Tarsus hold the coats of those who stoned Stephen, you would have said, "Election or no election, no one is going to treat one of my people like that." You would have "fixed Saul’s clock" in short order. God had a purpose for Saul, however, and exercised longsuffering toward him. God reveals that purpose to Saul and to us; as Paul Harvey says, "… and now the rest of the story." In God’s time, the Holy Spirit will arrest this violent hater of God’s people. God’s amazing grace will beat him to the ground and then raise him up in the sure hope of the gospel. It will happen just as God planned and purposed. The worst enemy that the gospel ever had will become the greatest preacher of that same gospel that ever lived. It was the depth of that ignorant hatred that equipped Saul of Tarsus to become Paul the Apostle and "endure all things for the elect’s sake." Could you put up with Saul’s wrath and persecution with that kind of patience?
Both Pharaoh and Saul of Tarsus are an exhibition of God’s awesome power to withhold his anger in order to accomplish his sovereign purpose. We are to praise him for that power.
To be continued.