I read through the Bible at a young age. I remember getting to this passage in 2 Kings and being devastated. I had assumed that the nation of Israel was supposed to be the good guys! I thought they were supposed to be holy and righteous and obedient, and everything was supposed to go well for them; I thought Bible stories were supposed to be happy! If the holy nation itself did such a horrible job of walking in righteousness, and if they met such an evil result, what hope could there be for the people of God?
We’ve all been conditioned to immediately respond “Jesus!” to questions like this one. And we’re right to do so, but the Bible takes a long while to get to him. Throughout the majority of the Old Testament, the stories force us to stew in the enormous, grotesque reality of sin and death. The great contrast between God’s perfect standards of holiness and mankind’s pathetic failures to come close cannot be overstated. Ultimately, the countless stories of Israel’s sin culminate in punishment; God abandons them to the powerful and vicious Assyrian empire. No one should have been surprised—God had been warning them about this for ages.
I know, not exactly the cheeriest Bible story. But the Bible mandates that we come to terms with just how serious and destructive sin really is. We really are utterly hopeless left to our own devices. But it is only in light of the enormity of sin that we can fully, properly understand the enormity of the gospel of Jesus Christ!
What hope could there be for the people of God? Christ alone. And it’s a truly incredible hope, because the Lord has triumphed over great sin with even greater grace. As the song goes, our sins are many—his mercy is more. The more we come to terms with the cosmic proportions of sin, including our own, the more we understand how beautiful the gospel is. The exiled Israelites didn’t have Jesus yet; their world was only unchecked chaos. But they were desperately waiting for a Messiah to come and make all things new, to redeem ever the lowest depths of evil, and to be worthy of their constant worship and gratitude. Sin in a big deal; praise God for the gospel of grace!
