Micah 7:18-20--God's Steadfast Love and Compassion

Micah 7:18-20
English Standard Version

God's Steadfast Love and Compassion
18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
    and passing over transgression
    for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever,
    because he delights in steadfast love.
19 He will again have compassion on us;
    he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
    into the depths of the sea.
20 You will show faithfulness to Jacob
    and steadfast love to Abraham,
as you have sworn to our fathers
    from the days of old.

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The book of Micah ends on a high note unlike so many other books we've studied that end showing us the depravity of man.  Instead, Micah looks to God and praises Him that in the midst of His judgment, He is still the same loving and compassionate God they have always known, and that will be the same yesterday, today, and forever.

He does pardon iniquity and passes over transgression for those that are part of the remnant of His inheritance.  His anger does not last forever because He delights in His covenantal, steadfast love that is so intertwined with who He is and what He does.  It is what we are talking about when we say "God is love."

Though the people will go into Exile for a time (the prophet Jeremiah tells the exact number of years to be seventy), the day is coming when God's compassion will once again be upon them.  He will conquer their sins and iniquities (their rebellion) by trampling them underfoot--an image of the promise from Genesis 3 that the seed of the woman would one day crush the head of the serpent underfoot, but the serpent would in the process bruise or strike His heel.  This is a promise of the greater atonement that is coming in the future for Micah but that we look back to that happened at the cross where our sins were not just covered over, but defeated.

The sins of the people will be cast out (no longer will they be cast out for their sins), and they will be buried in the depths of the sea (in the coming kingdom there is no more sea for them to be buried in because they have been done away with).  The LORD will show faithfulness and steadfast love to the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that He made a covenant with.  Because the LORD is unchanging, His word that He spoke to their forefathers can be trusted today and tomorrow and through all generations.  The LORD loves His people, forgives them, and is one day going to deal with their sin by destroying it so that He can once again have perfect fellowship and unity with them like they had before the Fall.  We look forward to that day.