The noun “forbearance” occurs only two times in the New Testament (Romans 2:4 and 3:25). The word has the sense of holding back, delaying, or showing tolerance. It is a beautiful word that teaches us that God delays His righteous wrath against sin. We all are born sinners and deserving of God’s wrath, and so it is amazing that God does not judge us immediately and send us to eternal doom the moment we are born. Instead, God gives us clemency and He allows us to thrive and grow. We are able to live in the world and feel the sunshine and the rain showers, all of which we do not deserve. God in His forbearance, does not judge us, but suspensers that judgment to another time. For believers this judgment is dealt with at the cross when God unleashed upon Christ His fury against sin. For unbelievers, God delays their judgment until they die and are sent to hell to suffer or their own sins (1 Peter 3:20; Mark 9:43-48). Either way God shows forbearance to all humanity for us to live and breathe one more second without judgment. God is so gracious that He allows sin to run its course and with great patience He waits until the proper time, determined by His infinite wisdom, that judgment should fall.
Romans 2:4 reminds us of this quality of God’s grace to us: Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? The Apostle Paul is coupling together several wonderous virtues of God as he makes His case for God’s righteous judgment that will come upon each person. One of those virtues is God’s forbearance. In answer to Paul, we as believers would say, “We do not despise God’s forbearance; we know that we deserve His judgment and are blessed beyond measure that God reserves His judgment while we were still lost in sin until we believed in Christ” (Romans 5:8). Believers understand the goodness of God in all of this. We know God tolerated our sin before we were saved until His Son could pay for those sins.
Romans 3:25-26 tells us about this: 25 Whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. God had passed over past sins, not forgiving them, but passing over them until He sent His one and only Son to deal with those sins. God restrained His wrath until He openly displayed it against Christ as He died on the cross (Isaiah 53:4-6). God’s forbearance was especially true in the Old Testament when the Messiah was still coming in the future. In the Old Testament, when they believed in the one true and living God they were saved on credit. God patiently waited as He passed over those sins (Exodus 34:6-7). Acts 17:30 would apply here: Truly, these times (that is the Old Testament times) of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. God showed tremendous forbearance in that He held back the judgment their sins deserved, in some cases for thousands of years, until Jesus could remit the sins of His people on the cross. Are we glad God is so loving? And if God has done this to us, how then shall we treat others around us?
Scripture Reference
Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?
25 whom God displayed publicly as aa propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;
26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who 1has faith in Jesus.
who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.
43 “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire,
44 where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.
45 “If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame, than, having your two feet, to be cast into hell,
46 where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.
47 “If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell,
48 where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
6 Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness and truth;
7 who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
Studies You May Also Find Interesting:
Abortion
Abortion is a subject that the Bible has a lot to say against and it is sad that many believers
Virgin Birth of Christ
The Virgin Birth of Christ is a fundamental doctrine of Christianity affirming that the Second Person of the Holy Trinity
Impeccability of Christ
The doctrine of Christ’s impeccability states that Christ lived not only a perfect and sinless life, but that He was