The Amazing Comfort, Concern and Care of God

God’s parental love for his children is a real tonic:

Here are some basic biblical truths we believers must always keep in mind: One, we have been created in God’s image as male and female. Two, God himself is beyond gender. Three, God has overwhelmingly revealed himself using male imagery and pronouns. Four, sometimes however feminine imagery and pronouns are used of God in Scripture.

Thus masculine traits, images, characteristics and terminology are in the main used of God, but not always. Most of these points I have looked at in more detail in earlier articles, such as this one: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2015/10/29/god-and-gender/

Here I want to look at three texts which do run with feminine terms or pictures. I have discussed all three before, but here I want to discuss them further, and draw upon some expert commentary in the process. And I do this for a few reasons.

First, we all hurt, grieve, know betrayal and feel rejection. Having a God that we can relate to – usually depicted as a strong supportive father, but at times as a caring, compassionate mother – can help us all as we deal with these painful experiences in our life.

Second, I have a friend who just recently posted on the social media about her sad upbringing. In addition to all the health problems and other issues she is now dealing with, she revealed that as a child she had known abuse, betrayal and rejection from her own mother.

Third, I was contemplating all this last night, and as I fell asleep, I had a very brief dream in which my mother was bending over and comforting and caring for me in my sleep. However, I was a full-grown adult in my dream, and not a young child when she would have done such things many decades ago. It made me think of God’s continuous loving care and attention of me and of his children everywhere.

Here then are the three key texts which portray God and his deep passion for us using images of family, of a caring parent, and of a loving, committed and devoted mother attending to her children:

Isaiah 49:15-16

Can a woman forget her nursing child,
    that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
    yet I will not forget you.
Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
    your walls are continually before me.

The context of this text is how God will restore Israel, even though it seems that he has abandoned them as they languish in Babylonian captivity. Paul Wegner puts it this way:

The Israelites exiled in Babylon wondered whether God had forgotten them and would ever again act on their behalf (see 40:27). The LORD immediately reassures them that this is not the case; that his love for his nation is much too strong for him to abandon them: Can a mother forget the baby at her breast… God affirms that even if a mother could forget her baby (something highly unlikely), he could never forget Israel. God’s love far exceeds every form of human love.

 

The dramatic imagery of verse 16 underscores God’s love for Jerusalem and how personally invested he is… In this context ‘engraving’ implies cutting with a sharp object. Even though Israel was forbidden from tattooing and self-mutilating by cutting (see Lev. 19:28), God uses this image to reinforce how permanent is his love for them. His engraved hands and Israel’s walls serve as a constant reminder to God of Israel – he could never forget them.

And Tim Keller reminds us of the New Testament application: “When Isaiah writes those words, they’re simply a graphic image of God’s commitment to his people—like people who write reminders to themselves on their hands in pen. It’s as if God has tattooed our names on his hands. But these words have added power for us because God’s commitment to us is written in the scars on the palms of Jesus. He can never forget his people.”

Hosea 11:1-4, 8

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
    and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more they were called,
    the more they went away;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals
    and burning offerings to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk;
    I took them up by their arms,
    but they did not know that I healed them.

I led them with cords of kindness,
    with the bands of love,
and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws,
    and I bent down to them and fed them….

How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
    How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
    How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
    my compassion grows warm and tender.

Explicit language of mother care may not be used here, but the picture presented certainly leads one to think in those terms, given the high level of emotion being shared here. The parental pathos of God is on full display here. Says Richard Phillips:

Hosea 11 is a little-known Old Testament gem, clearly depicting the gospel message that arrived in the New Testament through Jesus Christ. Israel’s betrayal prompts an emotional conflict within God that would not find its answer until Jesus prayed to his Father in the garden of Gethsemane and cried out in anguish from the cross. Derek Kidner comments: “This chapter is one of the boldest in the Old Testament – indeed in the whole Bible – in exposing to us the mind and heart of God in human terms. . . . God as a father rebuffed, torn between agonising alternatives, may seem too human altogether; But this is the price of bringing home to us the fact that divine love is more, not less, ardent and vulnerable than ours.

 

The New Testament counterpart of Hosea 11, of course, is Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son, in which the height and depth of God’s love is reviewed precisely because of the sin that he is already to forgive. One key difference is that, according to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is actually present in this Old Testament story, since the loving claim of Hosea 11:1 is fulfilled in the coming of Jesus: “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son’” (Matt. 2:15).

He goes on to comment on the divine attributes of justice and grace:

Given his Holiness, we would expect that God’s justice would win over grace, rather than the other way around. Yet instead of justice triumphing over grace, the opposite occurred. If we wonder why God’s holiness results here in mercy, we should remember that holiness extends beyond the attribute of moral perfection, encompassing to the entire transcendence of God’s being. God is infinitely above all manner of human conception, feeling, and action. Stuart writes that “his holiness embodies all that makes him different from humans, and especially the qualities that elevate his thinking and moral behaviour above their usually petty standards.” The holiness of God includes his love, which is a holy love, and for this reason Israel was not underly consumed. John Newton wrote that “the patience of man, or of any mere creature, would have been overcome long ago by the perverseness of Israel; but he who made them, and he only, was able to bear with them still.”

Matthew 23:37

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

These words of Jesus to a wayward Jerusalem clearly lay out the imagery of motherhood and a deep love of one’s offspring. Leon Morris comments:

There is compassion in his words, and it is very moving to find him likening his desire for the city’s inhabitants to that of a hen gathering her chickens. There are the thoughts of the helplessness of the chickens, of the care of the mother hen for them, and for their safety under her wings. All this applies to Jerusalem. Jesus is saying that he had had a deep affection for the inhabitants of this holy city and that he had wanted them to commit themselves to his care. Under his wings they would have found safety. But the final condemnation is put in the simple words, “you would not.” The words mean “you were not willing”; the will of the inhabitants was directed elsewhere. They could join with the Galilean pilgrims in welcoming Jesus at the triumphal entry, but this was no more than a passing enthusiasm. When matters got serious they did not will to seek the shelter that he offered them. They preferred to send him to the cross.

And Craig Blomberg puts it this way:

“Jerusalem” is a metonymy (the use of one name or object to refer to a closely related item) for the corrupt leadership of the people. Jesus’ words betray great tenderness and employ maternal imagery. God transcends gender and displays attributes that humans often associate with women, as well as those commonly associated with men. Here Jesus wishes he could gather all the recalcitrant “children” of Israel, to love, protect, and nurture them like a mother hen does with her baby chickens. Similar imagery recurs frequently in Jewish literature (e.g., Deut 32:4; Ps 36:7; Ruth 2:12; Isa 31:5)

These biblical truths should powerfully and wonderfully comfort and provide succour to those who grieve, who hurt, who suffer, and especially to those who feel betrayed and rejected. What a wonderful God we serve.

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