[Preface]
Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Luke 6:36
“Mercy”. What is it? Translators have a difficult time with this word. But remember, we are not just trying to define a word here. We desire to gaze upon the face of God. We want to know Him more deeply. We do that by immersing ourselves in who He is. Today we want to know more about a particular aspect of His nature, that He is mercy. Our “Father is merciful”. What does that mean and what does that mean for us as we follow and worship Him?
When God directed Moses to build the Ark of the Covenant, it was designed with a lid of solid gold upon which sat the two cherubim. This golden lid was called the Mercy Seat. God spoke to Moses about this part of the Ark and said:
There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you…. (Exodus 25:22)
It is significant that it is here, at the Mercy Seat, that God meets with Moses. Without the mercy of God, there would be no meeting between God and man, there would be no communion, no covenant, no relationship. The fact that God called this the Mercy Seat is significant, and it highlights the weighty import of this attribute of God. I almost feel as if we should approach it on our knees and in all the awe that Moses must have felt when he was allowed to meet there with God.
What is “mercy”? What does this aspect of God’s nature mean? Who is this God who is Mercy?
The difficulty we face when we come to this attribute is that it is so intertwined with others. Certainly, the fact that God is love bears heavily upon the reality that He is merciful. It is also easy to see that God’s kindness and goodness are linked as well. However, the mercy of God is most closely associated with His compassion. It is not unusual in the various Bible translations to have places where one translation will use “compassion” and another will use “mercy”. For example, in Matthew 12:7, Jesus is quoting from Hosea 6:6 and the New American Standard reads “I desire compassion rather than sacrifice” and the English Standard Version reads “I desire mercy…” We see these two words interchanged frequently.
How do we contemplate this aspect of God’s nature without getting it confused with “compassion”? Does it matter?
I think it does.
The Mercy Seat is not the Compassion Seat. There is a distinction here that is important, and we will try to isolate the uniqueness of “mercy” so that we can best understand it at its core and therefore be in awe of it.
So, recognizing that there is some overlap, we will nevertheless make these distinctions:
compassion is the tender-hearted desire to alleviate the suffering of another
mercy is the willful desire to withhold consequences from those who deserve those consequences
With these distinctions, let’s then look at an example. If your neighbor was starving, you might have compassion for him and be motivated to alleviate his hunger. If your neighbor was starving and subsequently arrested for stealing bread from your pantry, you might be driven by mercy to drop the charges. Hopefully, you might then be driven by compassion to feed him. The second situation involves a benevolent action that relieves consequences for wrong behavior whereas the former involves a benevolent action that does not.
This brings us back to the glory of the Mercy Seat. God meets with Moses not because of His Compassion, but because of His Mercy. God is, in this Old Covenant shadow, willfully setting aside the barrier that exists between the Holy God and sinful man.
And now, in the New Covenant reality, this Mercy of God has been extended to us through Christ:
Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:10)
He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we did in righteousness, but in accordance with His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit… (Titus 3:5)
Our salvation, of course, is a great amalgamation of God’s nature in action. What all can we see in this great saving act of God? His love and grace? Yes. His kindness and goodness? Yes. His justice and wrath as they were poured out upon Jesus? Yes. His power and majesty in the Resurrection? Yes. We are presented with much of this in Ephesians:
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… (Ephesians 2:4-5)
And there in the midst of all of this, we find this amazing attribute of God, who extends mercy to those who were “dead” and trapped in the consequences of sin and transgression, without hope. He “saved us…in accordance with His mercy…” (Titus 3:5)
And, praise God, we see His mercy extended to us in our daily lives. How many of us are keenly aware of God’s mercy as He continually acts to relieve us of the consequences of our own sin and stupidity? For this, we should be constantly and most humbly thankful.
Scripture describes this mercy of God as “great” (Daniel 9:8) and “abundant” (Psalms 51:1). It is “tender” (Luke 1:78) and God is “rich in mercy” (Ephesians 2:4). No wonder David cries, as we should as well:
I will sing aloud of Your mercy in the morning… (Psalm 59:16, NKJ)
But, before we conclude, we must look at one more critical, and to some, a troubling aspect of this attribute of God:
And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. (Exodus 33:19)
This is a very important, though difficult passage for us. First of all, note that the ESV above uses “mercy” and yet the NAS uses “compassion”. These are my top two favorite literal translations, and they use different words! But we must not miss the point. These acts of God, whether it be His act of compassion or His act of mercy, are not driven by an unbounded, unbridled emotion that extends mercy or compassion in every circumstance where one might “feel” compassionate or “feel” merciful. As we have stated elsewhere, these things must be bridled by truth and wisdom and righteousness. With God, this is never a problem. He never extends mercy or compassion when it is unwise to do so.
We aren’t as wise.
We live in a day in which “compassion” has become the prime ethic in our culture. But unfortunately, this ethic demands that compassion be extended in every case at all times. It is totally unbridled and can therefore become malevolent by fostering poor and harmful conduct. We have written elsewhere of the critical danger that this rise of “malevolent compassion” brings to our culture for it can move us to affirm that which is unholy in the sight of God and therefore destructive to individuals as well as the culture at large. There is a wholesale difference between true compassion and malevolent compassion.
Finally, we must ponder what true “mercy” means to us. Clearly, God calls us to be merciful. Jesus said that those who are merciful would be blessed with mercy (Matthew 5:7). Here are but a few:
For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6)
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)
For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment. (James 2:13)
In the parable of Jesus concerning the unmerciful servant, we read this:
“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. (Matthew 18:32-34)
The Lord calls us to be a people that reflect the nature of our Father in heaven. We are to be compassionate and merciful as is He. The Royal Law, to love our neighbor, offers us sufficient opportunity to extend both. But to reflect Him rightly, we must keep in mind that our mercy and compassion must always be bridled by truth and wisdom and righteousness.
Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! (Romans 11:33)
[previous: Love] [next: Narrow Gate/Door]
Some verses to ponder this week:
Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. (Micah 7:18)
But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (Psalm 86:15)
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. (Psalm 103:8)
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. (Matthew 5:7)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort… (2 Corinthians 1:3)
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. (James 3:17)
As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. (James 5:11)
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead… (1 Peter 1:3)
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