Satan works to separate mercy from justice. He has charged God with being unfair and selfish. He says that it is impossible for God to be fair and just at the same time in dealing with humanity. That we must be cast out as he was because we too have sinned. This is justice. He cannot do otherwise and maintain His justice. On the other hand if He does not allow fallen man to live, He has no mercy.
We know otherwise by reason and experience. Justice and mercy met at the cross when God paid for the sins of all humanity. "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." Psalm 85:10 Thus justice is served and all who will be transformed, who seek forgiveness for their sins will be granted eternal life. Satan continues today in his attempt to keep justice and mercy separated. How many times have we heard "if you God is so powerful, why does He allow bad things to happen to good people?" That is to say your God cannot be both loving, forgiving of sin, and just, allowing evil to exist. We understand, the wise will. Those whose wisdom is not from above do not understand.
How is Satan working to keep the character of God from the world and the church? He brings in deceptions such as saying God is love, He is too good to punish the wicked or even expose them. So, today we read that Jesus did not just stand by and watch the leaders in Israel continue to deceive the people without doing anything which is what we hear in the church today. Just be nice, do not reprove anyone. God allows the wheat and tares to grow together. Of course that is true, but not in the manner false teachers say. We need to ask for more of His Spirit that we might discern the truth so that we do not err.
We need to be both merciful and just hating sin and loving the sinner. At times there is need to be stern about what we see. Is this the example Jesus set for us?
The Pharisees believed in the resurrection, and they could not but see that this miracle was an evidence that the Messiah was among them. But they had ever opposed Christ's work. From the first they had hated Him because He had exposed their hypocritical pretensions. He had torn aside the cloak of rigorous rites under which their moral deformity was hidden. The pure religion that He taught had condemned their hollow professions of piety. They thirsted to be revenged upon Him for His pointed rebukes.
There are times when there needs to be "pointed rebukes." "He had exposed their hypocritical pretensions." It was not just His "pure religion that He taught" that angered them. "He had exposed the evil practices of the priests, and had irreparably hurt their influence. He had injured the effect of their maxims and traditions, declaring that though they strictly enforced the ritual law, they made void the law of God." In the church today we hear that Jesus never argued, but just presented the truth. Jesus did not seek an argument, but neither did He neglect to address the error when it served His work to save man. Those seeking to destroy Him, always were left in dismay, He "by a word silenced their angry roaring."
Unlike many today who are quick to argue and condemn, where is the love for the sinner? So it is that justice and mercy are separated by those who call themselves Christians. We misrepresent His character of love and justice when we only choose one side. It is not His Spirit that is leading when we do this. While we have read of His character of justice to a very small degree, let us consider this:
Jesus had now given three years of public labor to the world. His example of self-denial and disinterested benevolence was before them. His life of purity, of suffering and devotion, was known to all. Yet this short period of three years was as long as the world could endure the presence of its Redeemer.
His life had been one of persecution and insult. Driven from Bethlehem by a jealous king, rejected by His own people at Nazareth, condemned to death without a cause at Jerusalem, Jesus, with His few faithful followers, found a temporary asylum in a strange city. He who was ever touched by human woe, who healed the sick, restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and speech to the dumb, who fed the hungry and comforted the sorrowful, was driven from the people He had labored to save. He who walked upon the heaving billows, and by a word silenced their angry roaring, who cast out devils that in departing acknowledged Him to be the Son of God, who broke the slumbers of the dead, who held thousands entranced by His words of wisdom, was unable to reach the hearts of those who were blinded by prejudice and hatred, and who stubbornly rejected the light.
When we are persecuted how do we respond? Do we know that the strong are to bear with the infirmities of the weak. If so, then we ought to reflect the whole character of our loving Father and our Savior. One last thought. How did Jesus labor with Nicodemus? How many times did He rebuke him in the garden? We understand the need and why it was that Jesus continued to reprove Nicodemus since it it clearly explained in the reading in the Book. But, we also understand that it was not separated from mercy. Nicodemus saw in Jesus a love that Christ did not hide. And, Jesus offered him the opportunity to be transformed and eternal life. He told Him what he must do in order to be saved. Let us do likewise and not separate justice and mercy when laboring for the lost.
