In Praise of a MERCIFUL SAVIOR (Part 1)

I now swing back from the soul sobering horror and despair of God’s certain, terrifying and just final judgment of man’s sin to the present hope and eternal joy found in God’s joyful display of divine mercy and grace in His forgiveness of that sin which we receive through faith in Jesus. (Psalm 103:8-17) (Hebrews 12:2).

While God’s holy and righteous nature compels Him to hate, condemn and punish all who sin, all who slander and suppress His glory by rejecting His purpose for and rule over their lives,  which is everyone (Romans 3:9-18) (Romans 3:23), the Bible makes clear that it is His mercy and grace, which are expressions of His goodness and love, that He longs to display most prominently in His relationship with man (Isaiah 30:18) (Micah 7:18-19) (Exodus 33:19).

In two of the most descriptive passages in the Bible revealing the nature and character of God (Exodus 34:5-7) (Psalm 145:1-21) we find His goodness, grace, mercy/loving kindness and compassion dominating these revelatory passages, with wrath and judgement given only minimal mention (Psalm 145:20) (Exodus 34:7b).

Lamentations 3:31-33 speaks of God’s reluctance in inflicting judgement upon mankind. Isaiah 28:21 refers to His judgement as His unusual, foreign or strange work depending on the translation.  In Ezekiel 33:10- 11 and Ezekiel 18:31, God himself makes it clear that He takes no pleasure in judgement but would rather see men repent, turn from their sin and receive His mercy, forgiveness and restoration to the glorious life with Him for which man was created.

The question thus becomes how, on what basis, can a holy, just and righteous God, who being rich in mercy and who delights in displaying His mercy, justly forgive sinful men and women that He has justly condemned as deserving of death and Hell, and declare or count them to be righteous, worthy of eternity in Heaven with God, which no sinful man or women could ever deserve (Ephesians 2:4) (Psalm 7:11) (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)?

The answer to this question is found first in Isaiah 53:1-12, which is the prophesy of the “suffering servant”, of one who despite being in Himself glorious in holiness and righteous in all of His ways, the one to whom all praise and worship, all devotion and obedience is due, would voluntarily set aside these prerogatives for a season, leaving the eternal riches and joys of Heaven to come into this sin cursed world to display the tender mercies of God (Philippians 2:5-8) (2 Corinthians 8:9) (Luke 1:76-79).   He would come in the weakness of human flesh and experience all of the griefs and sorrows inherent to life in an evil sin cursed, sin condemned world, that He may deliver sinful men and women from its curse and final judgement (Isaiah 53:3) (Galatians 1:4).

He came as one described in Isaiah 53:2 as a shoot out of dry ground, conceived supernaturally in the womb of a young virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20).  We are also told in Isaiah 53:2 that He had no physical beauty or majestic form that would cause us to be attracted to Him, to see Him as anyone special, extraordinary or worthy of our attention, despite Him ultimately being revealed as the eternal King of Glory (Psalm 24:7-10).

To the contrary, we are told in Isaiah 53:3 and later in John 1:10-11, that He would be despised, rejected by the vast majority of people of His day, particularly the religious leaders.  These leaders saw Him as a friend of sinners, which He was, at least to those who acknowledged they were sinners, deserving of God’s judgement and in need of His mercy.  And He was so despite being in Himself, holy, harmless, undefiled, without sin, which He must be if He is to save them from God’s judgement on theirs (Hebrews 7:26) (1 John 3:5).

As a man he was tempted to sin but never did, as He achieved on behalf of those He would mercifully save, the perfect righteousness necessary for their acceptance into the intimate presence of a Holy and righteous God, a right standing with God that all who humbly seek His mercy will receive by faith (Hebrews 4:15) (2 Corinthians 5:21) (Romans 3:21-22).

In the course of His sinless life, He would demonstrate God’s mercy and compassion toward men, women and children who were suffering the just wages of sin – namely death and all of the miserable precursors of death found in this sin cursed world (Matthew 14:14, (Luke 7:11-15) (Luke 17:11-15).  He would speak of His kingdom and its glory – its infinite value and would invite all who would repent of their sin and believe the gospel, the good news of what He would accomplish through His sinless, sacrificial death and miraculous resurrection to become citizens of that kingdom (Mark 1:14-15) (Matthew 13:44-45).

He would call to Himself all who were burdened and weighed down, overwhelmed with the guilt, shame and misery of their sins, and their fruitless self-efforts to overcome them. He promised that in Him they would find rest and relief from them by trusting Him to be their all-sufficient savior, submitting to Him as their meek and merciful Lord, seeking Him alone as the object of their deepest love and source of their greatest joy (Matthew 11:27-30) (Romans 10:9-11) (Isaiah 55:6-7).  And He solemnly promises that all who do come to Him for this rest, He will in no way cast out, but raise them up to everlasting life (John 6:37-40).

And the ultimate basis for Him being able to offer all of this to justly condemned sinners, is that He would voluntarily take the just penalty for our sin, death and Hell, upon Himself (John 10:17-18).

And we will look at and hopefully come to rejoice in this wondrous and glorious display of God’s saving mercy in my next post.

Grace and Peace ×