Not Wishing That Any Should Perish

God’s patience is not that of someone who has stopped paying attention. Scripture tells us what He wants while He waits, and in one place He swears to it by His own life.

“As I Live”

Ezekiel 33:11 Say to them: As I live (chai חַי khah'-ee), declares the Lord GOD, do I delight in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live? Turn, turn from your evil ways; and why will you die, O house of Israel?

Here God takes an oath. As the letter to the Hebrews observes, He has no one greater to swear by, so He swears by Himself. What He swears comes as a question with an obvious answer: “do I delight in the death of the wicked?” The word for delight is chafets (חָפֵץ), to take pleasure in, to want with the heart. He does not want the death of the wicked. What He wants is “that the wicked turn from his way and live.”

Then the command comes twice: “Turn, turn from your evil ways.” The verb is shuv שׁוּב shoob, to turn back, to return. And the verse closes with a question that sounds less like a judge than like a father pleading with a son: “and why will you die, O house of Israel?”

Ezekiel had already heard the same thing earlier in his book, in almost the same words:

Ezekiel 18:32 For I do not delight in the death of the one who dies, declares the Lord GOD; so turn yourselves back, and live.

Ezekiel was a prophet of judgment. He saw the glory leave the temple and heard the sentence on Jerusalem. Yet the God who sent him to announce judgment also told him that He takes no delight in the death of the one who dies.

Rend Your Heart

Joel heard the same call in a time of disaster, when a plague of locusts had stripped the land and the prophet saw in it a warning of the day of the LORD.

Joel 2:12-13 And even now, the declaration of the LORD, return to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. And rend your heart and not your garments, and return to the LORD your God; for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and relenting over the evil.

“And even now.” Even after everything, even with the day drawing near, the door is open. “Return to me with all your heart.” And the reason given is, once more, the name proclaimed to Moses, “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness,” with the same added line Jonah used, “and relenting over the evil.” From Exodus to Jonah to Joel, the same words return as the reason there is still time.

“Rend your heart and not your garments.” Tearing one’s clothes was the outward sign of grief. The LORD asks for the grief itself, a heart torn open before Him, and a real return.

The Kindness That Leads to Repentance

The apostles carried this into the New Testament without changing it.

Romans 2:4-5 Or do you despise the riches of His kindness and forbearance and makrothymia μακροθυμία mak-roth-oo-mee'-ah(patience, long-suffering), not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to metanoia μετάνοια met-an'-oy-ah(repentance, spiritual domain)? But according to your hardness and ametanoeton(unrepentant, spiritual domain) kardia καρδία kar-dee'-ah(heart, soul-domain), you are storing up orge ὀργή or-gay'(wrath) for yourself in the day of orge(wrath) and revelation of the dikaiokrisia δικαιοκρισία dik-ah-yok-ris-ee'-ah(righteous-judgment) of God,

Paul names the riches of God’s kindness, His forbearance and His makrothymia, the same patience that, as Peter says, waited in the days of Noah. And he says what the patience is for: “the kindness of God leads you to metanoia.” The waiting has a direction. It is meant to lead somewhere.

But the next verse gives the other side. A person who despises that patience, with a hard and unrepentant heart, is “storing up orge(wrath)” for “the day of orge(wrath) and revelation of the dikaiokrisia(righteous-judgment) of God.” The patience does not cancel the day. It is the time given before it.

Patient Toward Us

Peter warned the believers that scoffers would come in the last days, asking, “Where is the promise of His parousia παρουσία par-oo-see'-ah(coming-presence)?” His answer is about the patience of God.

2 Peter 3:9-10 The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward us, not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach metanoia(repentance, spiritual domain). But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night; on that day the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the stoicheia(elemental-forces) will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works done on it will be burned up.

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness.” What looks like slowness is something else. He “is patient toward us,” and the verb is makrothymeo, to be long of spirit, the Greek counterpart of Hebrew’s long of nostrils. And Peter gives the reason plainly: “not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach metanoia.”

This is the heart of the waiting. The day of the Lord has not yet come because He is waiting for more to turn. Each day that judgment is held back is a day of love, kept open so that one more soul may come in. A few verses later Peter says it again, as plainly as it can be said:

2 Peter 3:15 And count the patience of our Lord as Salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the sophia σοφία sof-ee'-ah(wisdom) given him,

“Count the patience of our Lord as Salvation.” His long patience does not cancel the certainty of judgment; it is the time in which salvation is still offered.

Yet Peter does not let his readers forget what the patience is holding back: “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” The patience is real, and the day is real, and they stand side by side in two verses.

The Son Wept

All of this could still be read as a teaching about God from a distance. But the Son of God came close enough to the city that rejected Him to weep over it.

Matthew 23:37-38 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!

“How often I wanted to gather your children together.” The verb is ethelesa, “I wanted,” “I willed.” Their answer was “you were unwilling,” in Greek ouk ethelesate, the same verb turned into a refusal. His will to gather them stands face to face with their will to refuse, and the verb is the same on both sides. He gives them the picture of a hen gathering her chicks under her wings, a picture of shelter. And then the cost of refusal: “Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!”

Luke records what happened as He drew near and saw the city.

Luke 19:41-44 When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for eirene εἰρήνη i-ray'-nay(peace)! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the kairos καιρός kahee-ros'(appointed-time) of your visitation."

“He saw the city and wept over it.” The verb is klaio, to weep aloud, to cry, not merely to shed a quiet tear. And what He said through His weeping holds all of this together. “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for eirene(peace)!” Then He described the siege that was coming, the barricade, the city leveled to the ground, until “they will not leave in you one stone upon another.” That was not a threat spoken in anger. It was a sentence foreseen through tears, “because you did not recognize the kairos(appointed-time) of your visitation.” Less than forty years later it came to pass: in AD 70, the Roman armies besieged Jerusalem, destroyed the city and burned the temple.

Here is a tension that Scripture does not resolve away, and neither should we. The One who wept is the One who foretold the judgment. The tears are not a sign that He could not judge; the sentence is not a sign that He did not care. He is a righteous God who must judge, and He holds back the day with a grieving love.

But the day does come. The prophets who announced it called it by two words, great and terrible, and the last of them told what God would send before it arrived.