Messiah’s Majestic Mission to Magnify Mercy – Part 1

In my previous post I looked at a number of statements found in the New Testament regarding the mission, the purpose for Jesus Christ, God the Son, the long-awaited Messiah coming into the world as a man.  Each statement addressed what He would do on behalf of a sin cursed humanity, men and women cut off from the life with God for which man was created because of our sin, destined for Hell and helpless in ourselves to do anything about it.  Thus, His mission in total was a mission of divine mercy, with His ultimate objective being that the abundant mercies of God (Ephesians 2:4) be displayed in saving His people from the ravages of and penalty for their sin, and thus redound to the praise, honor and glory of God in the hearts of all who would be saved (Titus 3:5), such that they would glorify God for His mercy (Romans 15:8-9) (James 5:11) (Psalm 136:1-26).

That is not to imply that other aspects of God’s glory, of the diverse excellencies of His being that make Him God, such as His infinite wisdom and power, His righteousness and justice, or His divine sovereignty are not all prominently displayed in Christ’s person and redemptive work (Colossians 2:9).  However, it is His mercy which, along with His grace, is the active expression of His love, that He has chosen to exalt, as it is His mercy (also translated as loving kindness and compassion) that motivated Him to display all of the other essential aspects of His being in bringing about our salvation.

Most Bible commentators define grace as the unmerited, undeserved goodness we receive from God, both in our daily life and in salvation. The most succinct definition of mercy from a Biblical perspective was given by a former Pastor of mine who defined mercy as God’s goodness shown to people in misery, who deserve that misery.  And according to the Bible, that is all of mankind (Romans 3:9-19).  Mercy has also been defined as the lessening of the demand for vengeance and an increase in the desire for compassion by one who has been unjustly offended, harmed or wronged.

Mercy is demonstrated in the annulment of a penalty for wrongdoing or the forgiveness of a debt.  It is demonstrated in the forgiveness, kindness and goodness shown by a person to someone who has caused them great loss or harm.  Mercy sympathizes with those who are suffering as a result of living in a sinful/evil world and takes practical steps, even at great cost to the one showing mercy, to relieve that suffering.  Christ gives us an example of such mercy in what has been referred to as the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:27-37.

However, Jesus himself is the ultimate Good Samaritan, the incarnation of God’s infinite mercy.  In seeing us wallowing in the untold misery brought into our lives and His world as a result of our bondage to sin and the deceptions of Satan, and knowing God’s just judgement on our sin, wherein we are destined for an eternity of ever-increasing shame and misery under God’s judgement and wrath in Hell, Jesus comes into the world to display and proclaim the glory of God’s mercy.  At great cost to Himself (2 Corinthians 8:9), Jesus not only suffered with us while He was in this world but suffered for us in enduring on the cross the just punishment we deserved for our sin, so that we could be justly forgiven of our sin and restored to right relationship with God (1 Peter 2:24).

The Bible is filled with the revelation of the glory of God’s mercy in both the Old and New Testaments.  The history of the fallen human race is one of God patiently reaching out in kindness and compassion to our condemned, sin sick race, and in a sovereign expression of His mercy – suspending, at least while we are in this world, the full sentence of death and Hell deserved by all mankind for our sin (Romans 3:9-19) and calling men and women to repent (Acts 17:30-31).

The legacy of God’s mercy began in the Garden of Eden wherein God, after pronouncing judgement on Adam and Eve for believing the word of the devil over His (Genesis 2:16-17), does not carry out the full measure of that judgement by physically killing them and sending them to Hell.  Instead, in mercy, He clothes them with the skins of animals He kills in their place and promises a redeemer, the offspring or seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15), who would come to destroy sin and the devil, and, in mercy, restore a now sin cursed humanity back to the glorious relationship with God for which man was created.

Subsequently, in the Old Testament we see the glory of God’s mercy in His saving Noah and his family from God’s first worldwide judgement on mankind (Genesis 6:5-8), and in His calling an idol worshiping Chaldean, Abraham, to enter into a covenant with Him, promising that through Abraham’s seed (Jesus), He would display the blessedness of His mercy to all of the nations of the earth (Genesis 12:1-3). God’s mercy would be revealed most prominently in His dealings with the offspring of Abraham, the nation Israel, whom He mercifully rescues from 400 years of slavery to Egypt, the most powerful nation on earth at that time (Exodus 2:23-25).

God graciously establishes a covenant with Israel, promising to bless them above all the nations of the earth with the blessedness of His presence (Psalm 16:11) if they would obey the conditions of the covenant, which included means of receiving His mercy when they did not. God presents Himself to Moses and the nation in Exodus 34:5-7 proclaiming … “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, …”

The Bible makes it clear that Israel as a nation never obeyed God, presuming upon and ultimately spurning His mercy, and thus came under His wrath and judgement (Jeremiah 25:1-7) (Romans 2:4-6).  This is despite their greatest king, King David, sinning greatly and in repentance (Psalm 51:1-17) personally experiencing the blessedness of God’s mercy (2 Samuel 12:13).  King David would extoll the glory of God’s mercy in the many songs/psalms he wrote (Psalm 25:6) (Psalm 145:8-9) (Psalm 103:1-17), songs that essentially made up the nation’s song book (Psalm 89:1-2).

Thus, it will not be until the promised seed of King David (2 Samuel 7:12), the promised seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:16), the promised seed of the woman (Galatians 4:4) enters into the human condition that the glory of God’s mercy is revealed to and throughout the world in the person and work of Jesus Christ, wherein God’s very throne in Heaven, a throne of justice and judgement (Psalm 9:7) (Psalm 97:1-4), becomes a throne of mercy and grace to all who entrust their lives to Him (Hebrews 4:14-16).

In upcoming posts, I will look more at how God displays the glory of His mercy, as well as how those of us who are the joy filled recipients of His saving mercy are called to demonstrate and extend it to our world, a world in desperate, desperate need of it.

Grace (Mercy) and Peace ×