Mercy

Mercy is the disposition of God to withhold deserved punishment and to show active compassion toward the guilty and the suffering — and, derivatively, the same disposition worked into his people. The Old Testament carries it chiefly in two words: hesed, the great covenant term for steadfast love, loyalty, and kindness; and rahamim, "compassion," drawn from rehem ("womb") and so evoking the tender, visceral feeling of a parent for a child (Psalm 103:13; Isaiah 49:15). The Greek New Testament answers with eleos ("mercy, pity") and oiktirmos ("compassion"). Together these capture mercy's two dimensions — faithfulness toward those in covenant with God, and spontaneous pity toward the weak and broken who have no claim on him.

Mercy stands at the centre of God's self-revelation. When the LORD proclaims his name to Moses he declares himself "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love" (Exodus 34:6) — a confession echoed throughout the Old Testament (Numbers 14:18; Nehemiah 9:17; Jonah 4:2). It is embodied in the tabernacle, whose golden lid over the ark — the kapporeth or "mercy seat" where atoning blood was sprinkled (Exodus 25:17–22; Leviticus 16:14–15) — became the meeting place of a holy God and sinful Israel. The Psalms ground every plea for deliverance not in human merit but in this mercy (Psalm 51:1; Psalm 136:1), and Jeremiah's lament rests on it: "his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning" (Lamentations 3:22–23). The prophets press mercy into ethics, insisting God desires "mercy, and not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6) and requires his people "to do justice, and to love mercy" (Micah 6:8).

In the New Testament mercy is enacted in the person of Jesus, who is repeatedly "moved with compassion" toward the sick, the grieving, and the lost, and who answers the cry "Son of David, have mercy on me!" (Matthew 9:27; Mark 10:47–48). His parables make mercy the hinge of the kingdom — the Good Samaritan who "showed mercy" (Luke 10:37), the father running to the prodigal, the tax collector justified for pleading "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" (Luke 18:13). Paul roots salvation itself in mercy: God, "being rich in mercy," made us alive in Christ (Ephesians 2:4–5); he saved us "not because of works... but according to his own mercy" (Titus 3:5); and the redeemed are "vessels of mercy" (Romans 9:23).

Mercy received becomes the ground and pattern of mercy shown. Jesus blesses the merciful, "for they shall receive mercy" (Matthew 5:7), and warns in the parable of the unforgiving servant that those who refuse mercy forfeit it (Matthew 18:33). James declares that "mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13), and Peter marvels that by God's "great mercy" believers have been born again to a living hope (1 Peter 1:3). Thus mercy is at once the deepest note of God's character, the fountain of salvation accomplished at the cross — the true mercy seat (Romans 3:25) — and the unmistakable mark of those who have tasted it.