God's Mercy

Reposted attribute of God post from 2004.

God’s mercy is another one of the attributes that comes from his goodness, so it, too, is closely related to his love and grace. Specifically, mercy has to do with God’s characteristic attitude toward people who are in trouble. It is God’s pity for those who are suffering or needy and helpless in their situation, but it includes more than just an attitude of pity, for his mercy has his rescuing power behind it. Out of God’s mercy he rescues those in difficulty, saves the powerless, and heals the sick. God’s delivering activity toward the oppressed, the afflicted, the poor, and the fatherless are all described as coming from his mercy. Since all of his creation is dependent upon him, the psalmist can say that “his tender mercies are over all his works (Psalm 145:9).”

Like all of God’s attributes, God’s mercy in intrinsic to him. He is called “the Father of mercies” and a “God of mercy” (2 Cor. 1:3, Neh. 9:17). His mercy is boundless—higher than the heavens and filling the earth. Scripture refers to “the multitude of his mercies” (Lam. 3:32) because the acts that have their source in the mercy of God are so numerous.

God’s mercy is eternal and unchanging. His mercy is “from everlasting to everlasting” (Psalm 103:17) in the same way that God himself is from everlasting to everlasting. His mercies don’t cease or fail, because they are new every morning (Lam. 3)—constantly fresh and perfect and never fading with age. His mercy, we’re told, endures forever.

It is from God’s constantly enduring mercy that he brought His people out of bondage in Egypt. They were helpless to save themselves, but God saw their desperate situation and redeemed them out of their trouble. From Psalm 136’s recounting of God’s merciful deliverance of Israel from Egyptian slavery, we learn one more thing about God’s mercy:

To Him who struck Egypt in their firstborn,
For His mercy endures forever;
And brought out Israel from among them,
For His mercy endures forever…

It’s a jarring juxtaposition, isn’t it? Out of God’s mercy He rescued Israel, but the merciful deliverance of his people resulted from an act that was not kind toward the people of Egypt. His act of mercy toward one group of people was at the same time an act of judgment toward another group of people. God’s mercy, then, like his love and grace, is particular. While his people can count on his mercy never being turned from them, there are times when he is not merciful to some people.

God is sovereign and free in his mercy. He is never compelled to express his mercy, but rather, he  is merciful because he delights in his mercy (Micah 7:18). To show mercy is his own choice according to his own purpose: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy.” That God shows mercy toward us does not depend on our action or our desire, but on “God who has mercy.” (Romans 9)

There is a tension in the truths of God’s mercy, and it’s important that we maintain that tension. While it is true that God is completely free in his acts of mercy, and that he acts mercifully according to his own purpose and as it fits his own plan, it is also true that those who seek his mercy will find it. God is always merciful to the truly repentant. If we confess, he faithfully forgives. We would not be correct in thinking that he is compelled to be merciful to us in response to our repentance, or to presume upon his mercy; but it is right to trust that our genuine repentance will be met with his willing and abundant mercy.

Although God’s mercy is over all his works, delivering us from sin through Christ was the supreme act of God’s mercy. It was because of God’s tender mercy that Christ was incarnated to be our Savior (Luke 1:78). It was on the basis of God’s mercy that he saved us from our state of helpless—and at the same time intransigent—disobedience (Titus 3:3-5). The ultimate sacrifice of Christ and all the saving actions of God on my behalf come because God is “rich in mercy”.

By his great mercy he gave us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, that is, into an inheritance imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. (1 Peter 1:3,4 NET)

The certainty of our inheritance and the new life we are born into both come to us by way of God’s mercy.

A first step toward understanding the depth of God’s mercy is understanding the depth of our own neediness. We are without hope without God’s merciful activity on our behalf. By recognizing that we come before God bringing nothing but our own sinfulness, just as the publican in the parable brought nothing when he prayed, “God be merciful to me a sinner (Luke 13:18)”, we get a glimpse of the abundant richness of God’s mercy.

Because God has been merciful to us, we are to act mercifully toward those who are in need. We must “be merciful, just as [our] Father also is merciful (Luke 6:36 NET).” Mercy is one of God’s communicable attributes, which means that he shares it with us and expects it from us. Our Father is motivated by mercy when he sees the plight of the needy, and the poverty of others—both material and spiritual—is  an opportunity for those who are God’s children to be like their Father.

If we belong to him—if we are being delivered from sin because of God’s mercy—we have a reason to be  forever grateful to our heavenly Father. God’s own should be singing right along with the psalmist, “I will sing of the mercies of the LORD forever (Psalm 89:1).” Or with Horatio Spafford when he writes in his hymn, It Is Well with My Soul:

….Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

….Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

It is because of God’s mercy that we are “born again to a living hope.” God’s mercy is a ground for our hope.

…[H]ope in the Lord;
For with the Lord there is mercy,
And with Him is abundant redemption.
(Psalm 130:7)

The Lord takes pleasure in those….who hope in His mercy.
(Psalm 147:11)