I have been reading Abraham Heschel's "The Prophets." In the section on Justice (great stuff!) I found some interesting observations.
"The prophets did not conceive of the ethos as an autonomous idea, as a sovereign essence, higher in the scale of reality than God Himself, standing above him like a supreme force. God to them was more than a more principle or a more exemplar."
"There are no ultimate laws, no eternal ideas. The Lord alone is ultimate and eternal."
"Mercy, grace, repentance, forgiveness, all would be impossible if the moral principles were held to be superior to God. God's call to man, which resounds so frequently in the utterances of the prophets, presupposes an ethos based, not upon immutable principles, but rather His eternal concern. God's repenting a decision which was based on moral grounds clearly shows the supremacy of pathos." (p. 217)
"Divine ethos does not operate without pathos." (p. 218)
"To the biblical mind the implication of goodness is mercy. Pathos, concern for the world, is the very ethos of God." (p. 219)
It seems that Heschel has identified a key to understanding the God of the Bible -- especially in the OT. He refutes the hellenistic idea of justice and being unbiblical, and shows how all of God's concern for justice and morality is rooted in his pathos for man.
"Cain, slaying his brother, does not receive the punishment he deserves. Though justice wouuld require that Able's blood be avenged, Cain is granted divine pardon and protection." (p. 220)
"A father is disqualified to serve as a judge. Yet the judge of all men is also their Father. He would be unjust to His own nature were He to act in justice without being compassionate." (p. 220)
It seems so clear, yet we do not see. "God is Love" (1 John 4:16). He always has been and always will be.
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