I will not pretend that I understand all that there is when it comes to any topic. Read the scriptures, read the Catechisms, ask others that you trust and most importantly pray to the Teacher to teach you. With that said, to understand salvation it is important to understand two basic characteristics of God: His Justice and His Mercy.
God revealed Himself to us through Moses. In these beautiful verses, we learn a lot about God. It is important to remember that we cannot grasp God without Him revealing Himself to us. Due to our tendency to be harsh with ourselves, I want to focus on God’s goodness for now. Later we will get into His justice which is equally important and timely for our present hour.
Exodus 34:6,7 Revised Standard Version
6 The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
To give context to this verse, this is after God had delivered Israel from Egyptian slavery. They were now on their journey to the Promised Land. This is after the giving of the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. This is after the children of Israel told Moses to speak to God for them because they were too afraid to speak with God, even though God wanted to speak with them. And this is after the golden calf idol debacle. And this is after Moses prays to God to see His Glory, to which God replied that no man should see His face and live, but that God would hide Moses in the cleft of the rock and pass before Him.
This is what God does. He calls Moses back up Mount Sinai and descends to Moses (isn’t it beautiful that the Greater descends to the inferior). God passes by Moses and proclaims that He is merciful, gracious, patient or slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love or goodness and faithfulness.
This theme of God’s goodness and mercy is repeated often through the Law and the Prophets. Let’s look closely at these adjectives that God describes Himself with.
Merciful, Webster’s 1828 edition says this of mercy:
That benevolence, mildness or tenderness of heart which disposes a person to overlook injuries, or to treat an offender better than he deserves; the disposition that tempers justice and induces an injured person to forgive trespasses and injuries, and to forbear punishment, or inflict less than law or justice will warrant.[1]
God’s mercy is divine. His ability to forgive us is greater than we can comprehend. His mercy is as an ocean which one drop of would clean and wipe away our sins forever. You can never exhaust His mercy!
Second word, graciousness, the Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines gracious this way:
1. Favorable; kind; friendly; as, the envoy met with a gracious reception.
2. Favorable; kind; benevolent; merciful; disposed to forgive offenses and impart unmerited blessings.[2]
God is gracious, in other words He is disposed to forgiveness! That is the best news of the day!
Thirdly, slow to anger, also translated in other versions as patient. God’s patience is divine. We cannot understand or comprehend just how patient God is. He does not give up on us! He keeps giving us chance after chance.
Lastly, He says that He is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Even when we are not faithful, He remains faithful.[3] He is unwavering in His love for us. How beautiful. This is the sheer goodness of God.
God revealed Himself to Moses and ultimately the world as merciful, gracious (disposed to forgiveness), patient and abounding in love and faithfulness. Many people will interject here and say, what about His Justice, God is Just. And He is but His justice does not detract from His mercy and His mercy does not detract from His justice. We will get into His justice as He reveals in verse seven of Exodus 34. For now, though, let us meditate on the beginning of His revelation to us.
He is merciful, gracious, patient and abounding in love and faithfulness.
Live repentance. Be zealous. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen
April 25, 2025, Easter Friday
[1] Webster’s 1828 Dictionary: Mercy
Be Zealous 
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