If his children forsake My law, and walk not in My judgments.
God’s displeasure at His people’s sins
I. The conduct described.
1. Far from uncommon.
2. Exceedingly heinous.
3. Very ungrateful.
4. Highly inconsistent. How unlike Him whose name they bear!
5. Truly lamentable.
(1) In itself.
(2) In its influence upon others.
II. The punishment threatened.
1. Most righteous.
2. Absolutely certain.
(1) His character requires it. He is a holy God.
(2) His Word declares it (2 Chronicles 7:19-22).
(3) The whole of His conduct confirms it. The history of the Jews is full of instances, written for our admonition.
3. The ways in which He corrects His children are characterized by great diversity
(1) As to the means He employs.
(2) As to the measure in which they are inflicted.
(3) The period to which they extend.
III. The mercy proclaimed. “Nevertheless, My loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him,” etc. Two reasons are assigned.
1. His regard for the Son of His love. There is a change of person in this verse; it is not said “them,” but “him.” The claims of His Son, on the one hand, and the pleadings of His Son on the other, are the grounds why we are not altogether consumed.
2. His regard for the word of His truth. “Nor suffer My faithfulness to fail.” Everything else may fail--the labour of the olive, the fruit of the vines, the herd in the stalls; but for His faithfulness to fail is impossible. (Expository Outlines.)
The Lord’s jealousy against backsliders consistent with His unchanging love
It is taken for granted that the seed of Messiah shall go astray; but their sins, it is added, do not break the covenant, which stands fast for evermore; for it was not made with us, but with the Son for us.
I. The seed of the Messiah stand in His relation to the Father, sons by grace because He is the Son by nature.
1. They are more precious in God’s sight than all the universe, and He loves them with a real father’s love. It is not different love the Father bears to Christ’s people from what He bears to Him (John 17:23). Our capacity, indeed, is limited, but if we are Christ’s we are loved with the very same love in kind--yea, taken within the bond of that very love that from eternal ages has knit the Father to His only Son.
2. As they have borne the image of the earthy, they shall also bear the image of the heavenly; and at last they shall be like Him, when they see Him as He is. Yet a little while and the reviled sons of God shall shine brighter than the sun in a glory that will make kings and great men wonder.
II. The Lord narrowly observes the new obedience of His children, and whether they will go astray. Allusion is made to that declension as proceeding step by step. We have begun this departure if our thoughts turn not naturally and habitually unto God as the needle to the pole. Let us labour that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of Him, and count it all joy to meet the trials which strengthen faith.
III. God, jealous of His honour, cannot pass over the transgressions of His children without chastisement (Psalms 89:32). What He can bear with for the present in the children of the wicked one, He cannot bear in those who are a people near Him. Judgment begins at the house of God on those who bear His image; for more heinous in God’s account, and more ruinous to souls around them, is sin in God’s people than in others.
IV. Our declensions do not utterly remove God’s loving-kindness, because it is not founded on ourselves, but on another. The Father’s love to the Son is the very foundation of the Gospel. The great triumph of the Cross is that He who hung there was more pleasing in the Father’s sight than even sin was hateful--that the sin could be consumed, and yet the love remain entire. These words, “My loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him,” show us the proper motive to be brought to bear on backsliders and the Lord’s way of restoring them. If any presume on such words of tenderness--halt! they are not spoken unto you, but to the downcast child of God, at a loss to know how God can love him with so little that is pure and lovely--ready to doubt how a worm, a rebel, an enemy, can be endeared to God. (G. Smeaton.)