But God

"But God" ... what a fascinating phrase. The phrase occurs in a variety of places under a variety of conditions for a variety of reasons in the Bible. Their purpose is obvious -- to contrast God with that with which the phrase is associated.

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today (Gen 50:20).

The contrast here is simple. There is what they intended, and there is what God intended. They intended evil; God intended good. That's a contrast. It's also a point of relief, of comfort. Man plans evil and God plans good. God, in fact, uses the evil that Man plans to produce the good that God plans. What a relief! "But God ..."

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (Psa 73:26).

This verse contrasts the flesh with the spirit, the temporal with the eternal, the human with God. We are finite; He is infinite. And He gives life eternal. What a glorious contrast!

There are many more, but two of my favorites provide a similar, wonderful contrast:

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person -- though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die -- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5:7-8).

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience -- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ -- by grace you have been saved -- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:1-7).

"But God ..." Contrasted here is Man's lostness and God's incredible mercy. It contrasts "sinners" with God's love and Christ's death. It contrasts "dead in sin" with God's mercy and love.

One of our most common errors as sinful humans is to try to correlate God and Man. We make God lower than He is and make Man higher than he is. It's the only means, for instance, by which we can ever think of ourselves as "deserving heaven." It was the classic mistake of Israel: "Being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness" (Rom 10:3). Bring God down to our level, and raise ourselves to His. This phrase, "but God," serves to keep us in place, to keep all things right. It contrasts God with us. It's a good contrast.