The Mercy Of God # 2

 The Mercy Of God # 2

But at this point a difficulty may suggest itself to some of our readers, namely, Does not Scripture affirm that "His mercy endures forever" (Psalm 136:1). Two things need to be pointed out in that connection.

God can never cease to be merciful, for this is quality of the divine essence (Psalm 116:5), but the exercise of His mercy is regulated by His sovereign will. This must be so, for there is nothing outside Himself which obliges Him to act; if there were, that "something" would be supreme, and God would cease to be God.

It is pure sovereign grace which alone determines the exercise of divine mercy. God expressly affirms this fact in Romans 9:15, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy."

It is not the wretchedness of the creature which causes Him to show mercy, for God is not influenced by things outside of Himself as we are. If God were influenced by the abject misery of leprous sinners, He would cleanse and save all of them. But He does not. Why? Simply because it is not His pleasure and purpose to do so.

Still less is it the merits of the creature which causes Him to bestow mercies upon them, for it is a contradiction in terms to speak of meriting "mercy". "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us." (Titus 3:5) - the one standing in direct antithesis to the other.

Nor is it the mercy of Christ which moves God to bestow mercies on His elect: that would be substituting the effect for the cause. It is "through" or because of the tender mercy of our God that Christ was sent here to His people (Luke 1:78). The merits of Christ make it possible for God to righteously bestow spiritual mercies on His elect, justice having been fully satisfied by the Surety! Divine mercy arises solely from God's imperial pleasure.

Again, though it be true, blessedly and gloriously true, that God's mercy "endures forever," yet we must observe carefully the objects to whom His "mercy" is shown. Even the casting of the reprobate into the lake of fire is an act of mercy. The punishment of the wicked is to be contemplated from a threefold viewpoint.

From God's side, it is an act of justice, vindicating His honor. The mercy of God is never shown in the infury of His holiness and righteousness.

From the side of the reprobate, it is an act of equity, when they are made to suffer the due reward of their iniquities.

But from the standpoint of the redeemed, the punishment of the wicked is an act of unspeakable mercy. How dreadful would it be if the present order of things, when the children of God are obliged to live in the midst of the children of the devil, should continue forever! Heaven would at once cease to be Heaven, if the ears of the saints still heard the blasphemous and filthy language of the reprobate. What a mercy that in Heaven, "Nothing evil will be allowed to enter - no one who practices shameful idolatry and dishonesty - but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life!" (Revelation 21:;27).

Lest the reader might think in the last paragraph we have been drawing upon our imagination, let us appeal to Holy Scripture in support of what has been said. In Psalm 143:12 we find David praying, "And in Your mercy cut off my enemies, and destroy all those who afflict my soul; for I am Your servant." Again, in Psalm 136:15 we read that God "overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea - for His mercy endures forever." It was an act of vengeance upon Pharaoh and his army, but it was an act of mercy unto the Israelites.

Again, in Revelation 19:1-3 we read: "After these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in Heaven, saying, "Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God! For true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication; and He has avenged on her the blood of His servants shed by her." Again they said, "Alleluia! Her smoke rises up forever and ever!" (Revelation 19:1-3).

~A. W. Pink~

(continued with # 3)