What is lovingkindness in the Bible?

Four qualities of God come before us — love, mercy, kindness and grace (verses 4 and 7). Love is the nature of God, the spring of all His actions, and the source of all our blessings. If God acts according to the love of His heart, the blessing that results can only be measured by His love. The question, then, is not what measure of blessing will meet our needs, but what is the height of blessing that will satisfy the love of God. Grace is love in activity towards unworthy objects, and goes out towards all. Mercy is shown to the individual sinner. Kindness is the bestowal of blessings upon the believer. God acts, then, “because of His great love”, not because of anything that we are. Who can measure His “great love”, and who can measure the blessing that is according to that love?

Surely! And we read that mercy had its origin in the love of God. Moreover, it is characterised by grace — the divine favour into which He has brought us — and it is all summed up in a fourth thing, "His kindness".

"Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens." This word "mercy" is the same word as that which is translated twice in this Psalm as "lovingkindness." It appears to be a compound word which can be translated as mercy; love; kindness or, as here lovingkindness. That mercy was towards us in the heavens. It is the fruit of the love of God, and this had its beginning in the heavens. One is reminded at once of the great chapter where the sinful need of mankind is so clearly stated, Ephesians 2. In that chapter the mercy of God, springing from His great love, shews the attitude of God towards us as sinners, and as the fruit of the great blessing He has brought us into in sovereign mercy, He will one day shew His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

The kindness of God! What a precious theme to engage our hearts in these days of self-assertion and violence! Kindness — the word itself contains the suggestion of "serving usefully." How familiar we are with the "term," found as it is in both Old and New Testaments; but as seeing such an expression intimately linked with the blessed God Himself — One so great and powerful — our hearts are filled with praise and worship. Wondrously indeed has our God shown His kindness in the movements of His most precious love!

It is a remarkable and truly blessed fact that in the Old Testament writings the kindness of God is mentioned in circumstances of failure and departure on the part of God's people. The graciousness of God shines like a brilliant jewel against the dark back-ground of sin. In Nehemiah 9 we hear the lament of the Levites as they recount the absolute failure of the people to respond to the promises and tender care of God. Pride; hardening of the neck; disobedience; no appreciation of what God had manifested amongst them; rebellion with desire to refuse all that God had done in a return to the bondage of Egypt! "But" — says the word — "Thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and forsookest them not." In the face of "great provocation" God in His "great kindness" visited them with "manifold mercies;" protection and guidance by night and by day; giving them "His good Spirit to instruct them;" and the manna and the springing well for their sustenance; "so that they lacked nothing." Truly the kindness of God is without compare!

There is an expression of great beauty also frequently found in the English version of the Psalms, and occasionally accompanying that now under review; viz., loving-kindness,* which, being an associated thought, indicates the spirit, the grace, in which our God accords His protection. The expressions are directly connected in Psalm 36:7: "How excellent is thy loving kindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings." The tenderness of divine affection is involved in His care. for us. Comfort is ministered with the protection. Such favour meets us not only under circumstances of oppression from without, as in Psalm 17:, but in trial experienced within, should this even be the agony felt by those newly awakened (as Israel in the Psalms) to a sense of guilt under a broken law. Refuge is needed for an overwhelmed heart, as well as from the persecution of enemies. Both needs are linked together in Ps. 61:2-4; just as the means of comfort and protection are connected in Psalm 36 above noticed. In the great penitential psalm (Ps. 51.) God's loving-kindness is David's resource; and we may take him here to be representative of those truly exercised as to guilt before God. It is worthy of observation, that what leads us to trust Him resignedly, when subjected to outward trials, is the knowledge of His loving-kindness learned through deep-soul exercise. This primary, though unquestionably outward trial, is helpful and often necessary in preparing a soul for the ministration of grace (Job 33:14-33; and outward and inward trials simultaneously descending on Israel by-and-by, will be the furnace by which Jehovah will purge away its dross, and teach it to value the mercy which it now despises. How sweetly then will they who come forth purified sing of the mercy that "endureth for ever," as in the words of Psalms 107, 118 and 136.

(*It occurs at least twenty-three times, and six times elsewhere in the Old Testament. The same Hebrew word is also translated "mercy," and rendered in the Septuagint by that used in Heb. 4:16. Eph. 2:4, 1 Tim. 1:2, etc., where we read "mercy.")

Kindness is a characteristic of divine love (1 Cor. 13:4). It is gentle and charming (Prov. 19:22). ‘Bowels of compassion’ emphasise the deep inward feeling from which the action proceeds whereas ‘kindness’ emphasises more the character and spirit of the individual carrying out the action. These qualities give confidence and build up relationships among the saints. They too strengthen the practical unity of the local assembly.

Kindness is a characteristic of divine love (1 Cor. 13:4). It is gentle and charming (Prov. 19:22). ‘Bowels of compassion’ emphasise the deep inward feeling from which the action proceeds, whereas ‘kindness’ emphasises more the character and spirit of the individual carrying out the action. These qualities give confidence and build up relationships among the saints. They too strengthen the practical unity of the local assembly.

(*The same Hebrew word in verses 1, 8, 15, 21, 31, 43 (plural in this last), variously translated mercy, goodness, loving-kindness.) It occurs in its several inflections frequently throughout the five books.

The connection between the "mercies" and the "Pious" One is not seen in English. The words are really the same — and this both in Greek and Hebrew; and some would make them so in English, by translating, "Thy Merciful One;" but I do not take this to be the connection. It is not as being merciful that God could not suffer Him to see corruption: nor for anything that He is towards men. As "Thy Pious One" is undoubtedly a good translation, so it is one that suits the place in which we find it here. But the word used in relation to Jehovah, as in the first case, cannot mean this; we cannot speak of Jehovah's "piety"; and here the alternative rendering as "mercies," "benefits," is evidently right. The word in Hebrew, in its radical meaning, speaks of affection abundant and ready to flow out, whether God ward or manward, and needing therefore to be variously expressed. In the One before us, the true David, or "Beloved," is found the abundant outflow in both directions; and here is the connection between the passages as far as this word is concerned. In the Mediator standing between God and man, both God and Man are found in full, ideal relationship. And it is in the Risen Man that this is clearly established, never to be disordered any more.