7 Minutes
God’s mercy does not cancel the consequence of sin! Mercy is God leaving the door open for a return of the faithfully repentant. It begins with His love giving us conviction, repentance, and restoration to a fellowship that we run to God. Mercy is being compassionate or forbearing when justice is due. It is the withholding of what is due or owed in a retributive sense as well as giving what is needed in a restorative sense. God is so merciful that He lowered Himself, becoming man, in order to suffer and die in reparation for every sin that would ever be committed by all mankind. In this way, justice and mercy are connected. Justice demands payment for offense, while mercy is knowingly withholding or at least ameliorating the penalty that is deserved. Mercy is the compassion that is based upon the welfare of another. But many grow audacious and presumptuous as it is mercy that prolongs their impunity rendering them insensible of not only the wrath to come, but forfeited life. The identity of God as a God of compassion and mercy is God’s self-identity. He could have described Himself by His other incredible attributes, but He chose to use compassion and mercy. This dispensation of mercy, as revealed in scripture, is not a peripheral theme but is central to God’s narrative throughout the bible. True repentance glorifies the sovereignty of God in His mercy.
When we hear Jesus’ sermon on the mount, we hear the guiding principles of moral values. These attributes are set in the context of being those in which God holds in high regard. In fact, He blesses them. These qualities are to be prioritized in the life of Jesus’ followers. Please do not twist the content away from its intent. God’s word is imbued with mercy. The world wants to dominate the people of God and prevent us from being who we were created to be and to live in the freedom that Jesus bought for us. The word of God is the holistic gospel that seeks to liberate the faithful among the people spiritually, mentally, physically, socially and even economically. As much as God’s people realize our being here is due to God’s mercy, we still have a strong sense of justice. And though we have not yet ceased to sin, and are deserving of justice, it is the wounding of the Word of God over and over that is grievous to us. When justice becomes foundational to our faith we will cease to sin. But our desire for justice, as righteous and biblical as it is, should not prevent us from experiencing and extending mercy according to our calling. Entering into a position of judgment literally and spiritually impedes us from being the conduit of God’s mercy and grace.
Micah 6:8
Please never fail to reason with God to come to the wisdom of His truths. If we be the people of God, we are to discern the voice of God and speak on God’s behalf. That means calling to repentance every act, every word of violence and violation of God’s law. This is our burden, warning of the justice through judgment. We serve God as we love our fellowman. Upon whose hand will the blood be found? There is this fateful day coming...think on the appropriation of mercy toward us as we look to the justice at the cross. Though we receive mercy, sin is literally killing us. For sin to end, mercy must cease. That is why judgment precedes justice. One truth, however, that is apparent than any other, is that judgments, even the most terrible of them, do not in themselves produce a satisfactory repentance in the minds of men. The terrors of the Lord produces blasphemy, but they did not produce repentance. God’s justice is undiluted in its full strength. There is the cup of life to drink from in the hand of Christ or there is the wine of the wrath of God. God has a cup full of mercy. But He is pouring out that mercy and the sediments remain, the lake of fire, to drink.
Psalms 75:8
We who are learned of the portion of justice to be meted out have sorrow upon sorrow for there will not be a no-death mercy extended for the guilty. If these had only looked to the cross of Christ. Jesus was fully engaged in why he had to bear the sins of all mankind. The circumstances he experienced, he endured, his time in Gethsemane, and later, on Golgotha, Jesus willingly bore for the iniquity of us all. It is by his offering that we might see into the window of the heart of his Father. Because of what Jesus did on the cross the most righteous condemnation meets the most gracious pardon. The greatest justice meets the greatest mercy. The fiercest wrath meets the most bountiful favor. And what such love. God does not want people to face this fate, and only by refusing His “salvation” plan through His Son Jesus will some people endure this awful destiny.
John 3:36
Even in His wrath, God remembers mercy. God demonstrates His mercy in wrath by never pouring out His wrath without warning. Also in this is the bountiful love of God. Those who love Him and are faithful to His commandments will escape this unfathomable horror to meet unsurpassed beauty of an eternal life. Mercy withdrawn is God giving expression to His wrath. In a concrete way this is His hatred for sin. This is not an emotion that God experiences. It is a focused intensity on the severity of sin that touched all of creation. There is no rescue, no mercy extended in this intensity. Jesus dying on the cross, God was effectively pouring out His wrath on Jesus so that we could be forgiven for our sins. Jesus dies the second death for us and suffered the separation from his Father, yet he did not incur the torment of the lake of fire. The lake of fire is reserved for those who must pay the penalty for their own unrepented sins...Jesus dies not for his sin, for he did no sin.
God’s righteous wrath is so intense, so severe that even the Son of God himself prayed that if it be possible to allow God’s cup of wrath to pass from him; not “my will, but yours be done”. The judgment for every sin will match the offense. When the judgment is done, every mouth will be stopped because everyone will know that God judged in righteousness and justice. God has a people who declare their love for His truth, yet attempts to co-fix mercy to His wrath. The wrath of God is His steady, unrelenting, unremitting, uncompromising antagonism to the evilness of sin in all its forms and manifestations. When we speak about the wrath of God, remember that it is the “wrath of God”. So, everything we know about God – that He is just, He is love, and He is good - needs to be poured into our understanding of His wrath. Human wrath is unpredictable, petty, and disproportionate. God’s wrath is none of these. God’s wrath is the just and measured response of His holiness toward evil. The wrath of God is not something that resides in Him by nature; it is a response to sin. It is provoked. God is love. That is His nature. God’s love is not provoked. He does not love us because He sees some wisdom, beauty, or goodness in us. He loves us because He loves us, and we can never get beyond that.
Deuteronomy 7:7
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