Most people struggle to describe themselves accurately. Their self-descriptions are so often tainted by insecurity, hesitation, or pride. Contrast that with God’s perfect clarity in His Word on who He is. When God describes Himself, it isn’t boastful self-promotion—it is an absolute, unshakable declaration of truth that invites human beings to love, trust, and rest in Him.
The Heart and Character of God
The Lord’s most comprehensive self-description is found in Exodus 34:6–7. Just after giving Moses the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone atop Mount Sinai, God passes before Moses and proclaims who He is:
The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.
This was the second time God had given His instruction to Israel. Just before this, while Moses was on the mountain, the children of Israel had grown impatient and crafted a golden calf, which they proceeded to worship. After such a blatant and heartbreaking betrayal, Israel deserved judgment, and in disgust, Moses had broken the tablets of stone.
Yet, right when they deserved it the least, God met them with mercy and a revelation of His heart. This makes His declaration of who He is—specifically His balance of forgiveness and justice—truly dramatic. He is full of grace and mercy toward an undeserving, rebellious people.
Is the God of the Old Testament Really Different?
Even so, many people look to places in the Old Testament where God appears wrathful and, in their minds, create an image of an angry God ready to smite anyone who comes against Him. Some even go so far as to think that the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament who they perceive to be more loving and forgiving.
Not only is this a misinterpretation of Scripture, which portrays an eternal and unchanging God, but it is also neither who God is nor how He sees Himself. In Exodus 34:6–7, God says He is:
Compassionate and gracious
Longsuffering (slow to anger)
Abounding in love (meaning, He provides more than we need)
Abounding in faithfulness
Maintaining love to thousands
Forgiving of wickedness, rebellion, and sin
But in that passage, God also says He does not clear the guilty. He is a righteous judge who, because He is just, punishes those who sin against Him. God’s justice does not contradict His love—it completes it. A truly loving God must be a righteous judge. If He ignored evil, oppression, and wickedness without standard or consequence, He would not be good.
Jesus, God’s Son, demonstrates these exact traits throughout the Gospels. We see this when Jesus weeps over Jerusalem’s rebellion. And we see it when He extends forgiveness from the cross to those executing Him and when Jesus restores Peter after denying Him. Consider three verses:
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:9)
Like His Father, Jesus is slow to anger, longing for all to come to Him and receive forgiveness of sin even when they are undeserving. He never changes. But also like His Father, Jesus does not condone sin. Anyone who has seen Jesus and experienced such love and longsuffering, as well as perfect righteousness, has experienced God—there is a seamless link between the two testaments. This is our God: Creator of the universe, the God of Israel, the God of the Old Testament, demonstrated in the New Testament through Jesus. It is all the same God.
Resting in the Goodness of God
Because God is unchanging, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, you do not have to exhaust yourself striving to earn His favor or fearing His unpredictability. You can lay down the heavy burden of trying to be “good enough” and simply take a break to rest in His character—His compassion, grace, patience, love, and faithfulness.
Whatever busy or stressful week or season you are coming out of, you can come to Jesus with complete confidence:
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:28–29)
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