“My song forever shall record
the tender mercies of the LORD;
Thy faithfulness will I proclaim,
and every age shall know Thy name.
“I sing of mercies that endure,
forever builded firm and sure,
of faithfulness that never dies,
established changeless in the skies.”[1]
God’s merciful nature is beautifully portrayed in the Old Testament book of Jonah. If you recall the story (it’s a short book, so you should be able to read it in just a few minutes), God send Jonah to Nineveh to warn them, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4). But verse 5 says something pretty astonishing, “The Ninevites believed God”! The king proclaimed a nationwide fast, saying, “Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish” (verse 9).
And that’s precisely what happened. Verse 10, “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.”
Tony Evans says,
“God was going to destroy Nineveh because of its sin. God does not change His mind about sin. But what changed was that the people of Nineveh repented. When they did, they appealed to another part of God’s character, His grace and mercy. God was dealing with them from one part of His changeless character, His wrath against sin. But their repentance brought them under another part of His changeless character.”[2]
All of us who are Christ-followers have been the recipient of this same act of mercy. But mercy is far more than just an act. Mercy is what God is! A.W. Tozer says it this way:
“[M]ercy is not something God has but something God is. If mercy was something God had, conceivably God might mislay it or use it up. It might become less or more. But since it is something that God is, then we must remember that it is uncreated. The mercy of God did not come into being. The mercy of God always was in being, for mercy is what God is, and God is eternal. And God is infinite.”
Here’s just a sample of what the Bible says about God’s merciful nature:
There is one interesting fact about God’s mercy that A.W. Tozer speaks about in his Attributes of God. He says,
“You could go to heaven and say to an angel, ‘Isn’t the mercy of God wonderful?’ He’ll know that it is, but he won’t understand it the way we do…. [Angels] cannot appreciate the love and mercy of God as we can. They talk about the holiness, the judgment and the justice of God, and they sing to Him, ‘righteous are thy judgments’ (Revelation 16:7), because they have never known sin. Therefore they are not in need of mercy as you and I are.”[5]
Arthur Pink expands on that idea. In describing the difference between God’s mercy and His grace, he explains,
“It helps us thereto if we carefully ponder His dealings with the unfallen angels. He has never exercised mercy toward them, for they have never stood in any need thereof, not having sinned or come beneath the effects of the curse. Yet, they certainly are the object of God’s free and sovereign grace.”[6]
Without question we, the human race, are the recipients of God’s mercy. But since mercy is considered one of God’s “communicable” attributes, we also have a mandate from our heavenly Father to not only receive mercy, but also to show it. The parable of the good Samaritan is instructive here. In this story (see Luke 10:25-37), we see some who saw a need and ignored it, but we see one who saw a need, crossed cultural and social barriers and met the need. That is mercy in action.
Further, we read in the Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, “Jesus made it an essential ingredient of the life and manner of the believer when He spoke the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount; ‘Blessed are the merciful, because they will be shown mercy’ (Matt. 5:7 HCSB).”[7]
We will close with this thought-provoking quote from Rev. D.H. Kuiper:
“The mercies of God are new every morning, after the hours of darkness have passed. It is during the night watches that we have time to reflect upon our sins and weaknesses after a busy day. This leads us, often times, to tears and lamentations in the night. When we are alone with God at night there is no pretending; we see things as they really are. And we sometimes wonder how we can continue, how we can get up in the morning and face the new day with its labors and demands. Then, after God gives His beloved sleep, we are awakened unto the new day, and we find ourselves wondrously equipped to carry on! We are refreshed not only in body and mind, but in soul and spirit as well! The reason is that God's mercies have revived us and renewed us. We are refreshed by His mercy every morning anew!”[8]
Very truly we can say:
“Because of the Lord’s great love [hesed] we are not consumed, for his compassions [rahamin] never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” – Lamentations 3:22-23