God is merciful - almost to a fault. And anyone who knows anything knows that God’s mercy never fails. Psalms 139 says it 26 times. But you see… that’s misunderstood, and those people are wrong. God’s mercy DOES fail.To understand that, you need to have a quick primer in the concept of Mercy. See, mercy is a single word. It describes a single concept. Similarly, grace, kindness, and peace are all words, and each of which describe a single concept. They aren’t all the same, and while some might be similar, when God means mercy, He says mercy. When He means kindness, He says kindness. Many times He uses them together in the same verse, so we KNOW they mean different things.
I talk about this in other articles in more detail, but the short story on mercy is that mercy is the forgiveness of a sin. A sin that has been repented-of, and is no longer being committed. Mercy cannot take place until a judgment has been made, because James tells us that “mercy rejoices against judgment” (James 2:13, see also Zechariah 7:9, Matthew 23:23). So mercy can’t very well rejoice against judgment unless a judgment came first.
Mercy rejoices against judgment because mercy is the forgiveness of that judgment. Mercy wipes away the penalty required by that judgment and cancels it forever. But that can only happen after repentance, for Christ commands us to rebuke our brother (make a judgment against him, and tell him that He is wrong), and then - IF HE REPENT - to forgive Him. So we have a clear definition of mercy. Mercy is the forgiveness of a repented-of sin.
Mercy is not the same as kindness however, for mercy refers to that specific act and that alone - whereas kindness refers to something someone does just because they’re nice. It may be forgiveness, it may be help, or it may be a meal - but those are all acts of kindness, not mercy. Now that we understand that, let’s look at some concrete examples of where God’s mercy - His forgiveness of repented-of sin - DID fail. Read the rest of this entry »