Micah 7:18 Who is a God like to you, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage?… Micah is so struck with the Divine patience as to break out in the adoring language of the text, "Who is a God like unto Thee?" He sees a day coming when the promises, frustrated so long by man's unbelief, shall be fulfilled to the letter, and the reproach of prophecy shall be rolled away. God's matchless way of redeeming man is the subject for wonder presented by the text. I. GOD IS WITHOUT HIS; LIKE IN FORGIVING OUR SINS. Micah has an eye to the notorious sins of the nation. In saying that God retains not His anger forever, he means to say that there was cause for anger. A patience that bears daily with many provocations, when it can deal summarily with its objects, is, indeed, a wonder. It is more agreeable to God to forgive than to punish. He delighteth in mercy, and judgment is His strange work. He forgives to the uttermost, and that is only saying that He forgives like Himself — royally, absolutely, omnipotently. We honour God when we magnify His saving power. And God is a very ready God to pardon. His compassion is ever ready to awake at the call of penitence. Compassion kindles within His merciful bosom without any constraint. He is ever only too ready to turn to us, and it takes far less to turn Him to us, than it takes to turn Him from us. Our sins do hurt the fatherly heart of God. We must not think that God cannot be grieved. II. GOD IS WITHOUT HIS LIKE IN SUBDUING OUR SINS. When Micah said, "He will subdue our iniquities," he probably had in view the beneficial effect of the captivity on the religious future of the people. Babylon would give the deathblow to their besetting sin. It did so. They never returned to idolatry after the severe lesson of those seventy years by the rivers of Babylon. They were cured of that great defect in their national life; but even Babylon could not cure them of their iniquities. Idolatry vanished, but their iniquities, like the fabled Hydra, were not long in repairing the loss of this one severed head by throwing out the seven new and deadly heads of pharisaism. The words teach us to believe in a power which is death to sin, even as sin at first was death to man. Man's conqueror is to be in turn conquered by man. If Satan had the brief pleasure of nailing our Saviour to the accursed tree, it was at the expense of being himself crushed to death beneath His subduing heel. We learn from this promise that it is the purpose of God to renew us in His own image, to fill us with that hatred of iniquity and love of holiness that distinguish His own nature. With the Gospel freedom, there comes the call to take on the yoke of Christ, the yoke of obedience, and consequently the yoke of peace and joy. Our faith, being assured of the reality of Christ's victory over sin, gives us an assurance of our own victory over it, and summons us to the attempt. Ideally, in the mind and purpose of God, we are already complete, already without sin, already with the earnest of eternal life, already without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. This ideal is not to be thought of as a picture of the imagination. It should be the very best help to the working out of a high practical aim. III. GOD IS WITHOUT HIS LIKE IN REMOVING OUR SINS. Micah here warrants us in believing that the forgiveness of our sins by God is irrevocable. When he says, "And their sins Thou wilt cast into the depths of the sea," he prophesies a complete forgetfulness of them, a total burial as of something sunk in mid-ocean. What is sunk in the depths of the sea never rises up to the surface again. Such will be the merciful dealing of God with us if we ask Him to forgive our sins. He will not even mention them again, as having no desire to raise one thought of shame in the pardoned breast ever after. (David Davies.) Parallel Verses KJV: Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. |
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