“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Matthew 5:7
Mercy is refraining from harming or punishing offenders, enemies, or persons in one’s power. For the one who receives mercy, it is not getting what you deserve. Mercy is very different from grace. Grace is receiving something you don’t deserve, like forgiveness or gifts of the Holy Spirit; these are not earned but are freely given. Mercy has to do with what you don’t get that you deserve to get, and grace has to do with what you do get that you do not deserve.
We all want to receive mercy; we don’t want to get what we deserve.
Jesus gives us the secret to obtaining mercy, be merciful. Speaking practically, people are much more prone to extend mercy to people who have previously been merciful to them. Or, from the other side of the coin, if I hold someone’s feet to the fire to get something done according to my expectations and then later I need leniency from them, I am more likely to get revenge than mercy.
Mercy is costly. To extend mercy, we must carry the burden of the wrong for which we are demanding justice.
A neighbor is exhibiting some improper behavior that intrudes on my life. I have to make a decision. Will I prosecute the situation and get compensation, or will I show mercy and not require just payment? If I choose mercy, it costs me whatever the just compensation was. Mercy is costly.
For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
James 2:13
In the Old Testament, God’s presence was manifest over the Ark of the Covenant. Specifically, it hovered over that part of the Ark known as the mercy seat. The extension of mercy from God at the mercy seat was costly; it cost the life of a lamb without blemish as his blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat, symbolizing what was to come when the blood of Jesus was sprinkled on the mercy seat in heaven to satisfy the wrath of God that we deserved. From God’s standpoint, the cost of mercy was the life of his Son.
Blessed are the merciful, that is, those who choose not to require others the penalty they owe. Those merciful people will receive mercy. The mercy spoken of is primarily that which God gives but is often manifest through humans who have received mercy. Do you want mercy? Be merciful.
Another definition of mercy that is more often the term’s meaning in the New Testament is something more akin to compassion. We read it often in the stories of Jesus.
And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.”
Matthew 9:27
And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.”
Matthew 15:22
And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”
Mark 5:19
When used in this way, mercy is a matter of empathy issuing forth in compassionate action to alleviate the suffering of another. It is still costly whether we are being merciful or God who is being merciful. In His case, the price of mercy that provided healing and deliverance is found in Isaiah 53.
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.4 Surely he has borne our griefs
Isaiah 53:3-5
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
This was the price for the mercies of God.
The essential lesson is still if we want to set ourselves up to receive mercy, be merciful. The mercy we receive will first be from God and then from our fellow humans affected by our merciful treatment.
Our ability to behave mercifully is dependent on our being filled with the Holy Spirit, who enables such Godly character to be in us.
