The Character of God
חסד
ואמת - chesed we ’emet - grace and
truth/faithfulness
André H. Roosma
10 July 2015 (NL original: 3 March 2013)
In and for the practice of Christian faith it is important that we are
aware of the Character of our God. The Bible teaches us, that YaHUaH,1 the God of the Bible, is
pure goodness (and He only! cf. Luke 18:
19), and advises us to taste and see that first-hand:
Taste and see that YaHUaH is good;
blessed is the man who seeks refuge in
Him. Psalm 34: 8/9
When man first fell into sin, as described in Genesis 3, the central
issue was the trust of man in the goodness of God. The adversary tried to
sow distrust with regard to God’s goodness – and he succeeded,
with consequences that we may well call disastrous. Only after the moment
when Eve started to believe the evil words of the adversary, she perceived
one tree as attractive – the one tree of which God had forbidden
them to eat! Distrust towards our Creator, the Eternal One, ruins
everything that is beautiful and good. I see that in my pastoral practice
as well.
So, for us as believers it is important to increase our awareness of the
Character of God, as nourishment to be more conscious of the various
aspects of His goodness.
In this article I want to dwell especially on the two character-traits
of YaHUaH that we encounter most often
in the Bible. That is the combination of the two Hebrew words חסד - chesed and אמת - ’emet;
translated as lovingkindness and faithfulness
or as grace and truth.
Elsewhere I already explained these words as follows:
חסד [H2617] - chesed - lovingkindness, mercy, grace, goodness.
In the older script:2    - originally this
probably represented physically removing (to enter (with
a knife): ) of the
awkward ‘skirt’ ()
of the palm tree (),
consisting of old, brittle and sharp fronds hanging around the trunk.
Metaphorically it refers to allowing entrance () to inside the fence () around the Tree of Life (), so to give new (eternal) life, out of grace. It is as if God peels the hard shell
of sin away and does not hide Himself behind a hard shell of condemnation
but allows us to come near to Him, receive new life and enjoy Him; in
about the same way as the one who climbs into a date tree can enjoy its
fruits when the awkward old, dead ‘skirt’ has been removed
first.
אמת [H571] - ’emet - faithfulness, truth,
steadfast love; in the older script:    ; pictographically this is the sign of the
first abundance or the first water – possibly referring to the
unmeasurable abundance of God that was there in Paradise (and which we will taste once again!) or to the abundance that is
there in the womb, where the body of the mother lets all nourishment go to
the child, even at the expense of her own body (). It can also be read as: the signature or completion
() of a healthy mother ( - ’em), who faithfully and
completely gives everything for the life of her child. The relationship
between truth and faithfulness is easily seen when we think of being true to
each other, which includes being faithful. As all these concepts in the Bible,
these two words have to be interpreted foremost from a relational
context (not primarily a moral, ethical or legal
one).
One of the first times these two words are mentioned in the Bible,
is in Genesis 24: 27, where the servant of ’Abraham praises God
because He has helped him so wonderfully to quickly find a good wife for
Yitschaq (Isaac):
And he said: “Blessed be YaHUaH, the God of my master ’Abraham, who has not forsaken
His steadfast love and His faithfulness toward my
master. As for me, YaHUaH has led me in the way
to the house of my master’s kinsmen.”
Later also Ya‘aqobh praises YaHUaH as
he becomes aware that he owes so much to these two aspects of God’s
Character (Genesis 32: 9-10):
And Ja‘aqobh said, “O God of my father
’Abraham and God of my father Yitschaq, O YaHUaH Who didst say to me, ‘Return to your country and to your
kindred, and I will do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness which
Thou hast shown to Thy servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan;
and now I have become two companies. ...”
In an article specially about that passage,
I already mentioned that God YaHUaH says in
Exodus 34: 6-7 about Himself that He is great
in חסד
ואמת - chesed we ’emet -
mercy/lovingkindness/steadfast love, and faithfulness.
Likewise, in the Psalms we often encounter these two wonderful traits as
description of the Character of YaHUaH, the God
of the Bible. Among others in Psalm 25: 5-7,
10; 26: 3; 31: 6-8; 40: 11, 12; 57: 4, 11; 61: 8; 69: 14; 85: 11-12; 86: 11-15; 117: 2.
And what is so wonderful about the Bible in its unity, in the New
Testament we encounter this couple as well. In the first chapter of his
Gospel, Yahu-chanan (John) wrote about Jesus /
Yeshu‘ah:
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us
(and we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only Begotten from the Father),
full of grace and truth.. Yahu-chanan (John) 1: 14
One of the remarkable character traits of Jesus / Yeshu‘ah was that He was full of grace and truth. By His entire Being and through all of
His life and ministry He radiated this. Check it out... This is unique, for
no man has ever been so graceful and so true.
At the same time this is great evidence that Yeshu‘ah and YaHUaH are indeed One.
Only YaHUaH God Himself has the Character, to
be full of grace and truth.
That’s why in Yeshu‘ah we
get to know the heavenly Father!
Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor My
Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father as
well.” Yahu-chanan 8: 19;
Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the
Father, and we shall be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I
been with you so long, and yet you do not know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you
say, ‘Show us the Father’? ...” Yahu-chanan 14: 8-9; (cf. Yahu-chanan
1: 18; 10: 38)
So when we desire that the influence of God, and of His grace and
faithfulness, increases in our lives, we can begin by looking up to Jesus
a lot...
There is much to learn from the way in which Jesus related to the people
He met. But also Jesus’ teachings about this are most clear.
For example the parable that Jesus told, aboute two sons (Luke 15: 11-32). We see there that the youngest son had left for a
journey and had wasted all his money and his entire inheritance.
In the end, so Jesus said, he worked as a low servant, longing to fill
his stomag with the peels he had to give to the pigs.
That made him think. HHe thought of his father, and in his mind he saw
that even the lowest servants wre better off at his father’s than he
himself at that moment. Jesus literally told: “But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my
father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish
here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him,
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; ...”
...’ ...”
What drove this son to turn back, was his remembering the goodness of his
father! (Compare also Hoshea 2: 6.) And he was not
disappointed! At the time of his home-coming the father was waiting for him
and welcomed him back with open arms, he got a good bath and clean clothes,
and a big party was celebrated, because he had returned back home!
Likewise, at all times we can trust that God the heavenly Father and His
only begotten Son Yeshu‘ah
(Jesus) welcome us back with open arms when we return to Him in repentance.
That is because it is God’s Character to be full of חסד ואמת - chesed
we ’emet. He surely is graceful and true, certainly towards His
beloved children!
Hallelu YaH !
Notes
| 1 |
The glorious Name of God I presented here - as well as
I could - from the oldest Hebrew original, instead of replacing this grand
personal Name of The Most High by a common word, such as ‘Lord’.
For more background information on this see:
André H. Roosma, ‘Life, security and belonging in joyful adoration,
from the hand of God’  , brief Hallelu-YaH article about the Biblical Name of God in the earliest
Hebrew (old Semitic) script, January 2011.
André H. Roosma, ‘The Shema‘ – the First Testament declaration of faith (1)’, Hallelu-YaH! web article, February 2012.
André
H. Roosma, ‘The
wonderful and lovely Name of the God Who was there, Who is there, and Who
will be there’ , extensive Accede! / Hallelu-YaH! study, July 2009. |
| 2 |
The word explanations given here are based in part on
an extensive study of the oldest pictographic Bible script. See: André
H. Roosma, ‘The Written
Language of Abraham, Moses and David – A study of the pictographic
roots and basic notions in the underlying fabric of the earliest Biblical
script’ , Hallelu-YaH Draft Research
Report, 1st English version: 18 April 2011 (1st Dutch original: January
2011). |
In Proverbs 3: 3, the writer calls us to חסד ואמת - chesed we ’emet - grace/lovingkindness and
truth/faithfulness as well, where he says: “Let not loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them about your
neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. ...” (RSV; other translations have: “mercy and truth” ((M)KJV),
“kindness and truth” (ASV), “loyalty and
faithfulness” (HCSB), “truth and mercy” (NET),
“gracious love and truth” (ISV)).
|
