INTRODUCTION
THE MERCY OF GOD
GOD'S WILL AND AUTHORITY
Psalm 135:6 does tells us that God does do whatever He likes.
So then we must ask the next questions: What does God like?
What pleases God?
HARDENING OF THE HEART
Scripture also attests to sin hardening the
heart (Dan 5:20):
Proverbs describes the relationship between correction (or judgement)
and the hardening of the heart:
MERCY AND JUDGEMENT
So, lets go back to Romans 9:20:
Back in Romans 9:22 we are told that God endured Pharoah, as He
also endures a rebellious people, with much longsuffering that
they may come to repentance. God's judgement comes upon us all
(1Pet 4:17), but it is we who determine whether in judgement
we receive mercy or wrath.
Habbakuk, inspired by the Spirit of God, recognised that God was
angry. In the verses of Habbakuk 3 he describes the fearful spectacle
of the wrath of God. He prayed to God to "in wrath remember
mercy".
I would like to consider the mercy of God in this study.
The apostle Paul wrote about the mercy of God in such a way that
some people have been lead to believe that God is anything but
merciful, or that His mercy is almost irrational or whimsical.
So I would like to consider these Scriptures.
Rom 9:9-23 For this is
the word of promise: "At this time I will come and Sarah
shall have a son." 10 And not only this, but when Rebecca
also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac 11 (for
the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil,
that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not
of works but of Him who calls), 12 it was said to her, "The
older shall serve the younger." 13 As it is written, "Jacob
I have loved, but Esau I have hated."
God's work has always included the process of distinguishing and
separating (Deut 8:2-3; 13:3; Ezek 20:34-38; 34:22; Matt 13:47-50;
25:32-33; 1Cor 11:19), including the separation of light from
darkness, clean from unclean, good from evil, wheat from chaff.
But we should remember that Ishmael was still cared for by God
(Gen 16:10-14; 17:20; 21:13), and that God still desired that
mercy be extended towards Esau's descendants (Deut 23:7), even
though God hated Esau's rejection of His blessings (Mal 1:2-4;
Rom 9:13).
Continuing in Romans, Paul anticipates the human response to what
he is saying:
14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness
with God? Certainly not! 15 For He says to Moses, "I will
have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
on whomever I will have compassion." 16 So then it is not
of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose
I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that
My name may be declared in all the earth." 18 Therefore
He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
Paul then predicts the response to what he has written when he
adds:
19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still
find fault? For who has resisted (or who can resist?) His will?"
Does this mean that God exercises an absolute, capricious will
over His creation? Does God do whatever He wants solely because
he is the Sovereign God, and He can do whatever He wants?
Is what God does right merely because of His might, because He
is Sovereign and that makes it right?
I personally find quite repulsive ideas that God could be like
that. Men can be like that, exercising their will over others
on whims, and their position makes them right. If God is like
that, however, then my hope is in vain.
We'll start with a couple of things that He doesn't like or take
pleasure in:
What does He like? What does please Him? Amongst other things:
The apostles were told by Christ not to exercise leadership over
people like the Gentiles do. Surely this is because God does
not exercise His rulership as the Gentiles do. He does not lord
His authority over people in the same manner as the despots of
the world (Matt 20:25-8; Mk 10:42-45; Lk 22:22-27). So we must
keep these things in mind when considering how God exercises His
will and authority.
Paul does tell us God hardened Pharaoh's heart and raised him
up for the purpose of showing His saving power to deliver His
people from their oppressors. Does this mean that God is nasty
and manipulative? The book of Exodus confirms that God did harden
Pharaoh's heart.
Exo 9:12 But the LORD
hardened the heart of Pharaoh; and he did not heed them, just
as the LORD had spoken to Moses.
However, it also says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.
Exo 8:32 But Pharaoh
hardened his heart at this time also; neither would he let the people go.
Pharaoh was not the only one who had this experience.
We read that the same thing happened to Israel. God hardened
Israel's heart (John 12:40).
Isa 63:17 O LORD, why
have You made us stray from Your ways, And hardened our heart from Your fear? Return for Your servants' sake, The tribes of Your inheritance.
Yet Israel also hardened its own heart (1Sam
6:6).
Psa 95:8 "Do not
harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, As in the day of trial in the wilderness"
So we have God hardening peoples heart's and people hardening
their own hearts.
Heb 3:13 but exhort one
another daily, while it is called "Today," lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
However, James 1:13 tells us that God is not the agent of sin.
So what's going on? Who hardens whose heart?
Prov 29:1 "He who
is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck will suddenly be broken beyond healing."
When God intervenes with judgement and discipline on an individual
or a people there are, it seems, two possible outcomes: repentance
or bitterness and greater stubbornness.
So whose fault is it?
God's acts of judgement did harden Pharaoh's and Israel's heart.
If God had not intervened with His acts of judgement, then Pharaoh
would not have hardened his heart.
However, it was because Pharoah - and later Israel - was unwilling
to listen to and to repent in the face of God's judgement and
discipline that he became more hardened. Therefore God does
harden hearts. His intervention to judge can further harden a
stubborn heart. And God's acts of judgement are executed with
vigour (Isa 10:22; Rom 9:28; Heb 12:25-29; Deut 4:34; 26:8).
However, mercy can only come through judgement.
It is not separate from it. If we are to receive God's mercy
them we must respond appropriately to His judgement (Joel 2:10-14;
Matt 12:39-42). But do we? God's judgement reveals or makes
apparent the submissiveness or hardness of a man's heart (Rev
11:13; 16:9,11,21). Mercy can only come after the appropriate
response to correction or judgement.
Consider Paul's description of the relationship between sin and
the law in Romans 7 as also revealing the relationship between
God's judgement and the hardening of the heart:
Rom 7:7-12 What shall
we say then? Is the law sin? (Does God manipulatively harden someone's
heart?) Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known
sin except through the law (I would not have known the hardness
of my heart except through God confronting me in judgement). For
I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, "You
shall not covet." 8 But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment,
produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law
sin was dead (apart from judgement my heart was not hardened).
9 I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came,
sin revived and I died (when judgement came, my heart's hardness
was exposed and condemned). 10 And the commandment, which was
to bring life, I found to bring death. 11 For sin, taking occasion
by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me (sin, indignant
at being "unfairly" judged, deceived me). 12 Therefore
the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good (God's
judgement is fair).
Just as the law is not responsible for sin, so too God and His
judgements were not responsible for the hardness of Pharaoh's
heart. When a commandment or judgement is given by God, then
sin has its opportunity to accuse God of being unfair, restrictive,
or of denying our freedom to choose (Gen 3:1-6). This is why
the power of sin lies in the law (1Cor 15:56; Rom 7:8,11).
20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against
God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why
have you made me like this?" 21 Does not the potter have
power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for
honour and another for dishonour? 22 What if God, wanting to show
His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering
the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 and that He
might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy,
which He had prepared beforehand for glory,
Again we ask: "Is God unfair"? Did Pharaoh have any
other choice but to do what he was raised up for: to show God's
ability and power to rescue His people from their oppressors?
Paul clarifies our responsibility in this in 2 Timothy:
2 Tim 2:20-21 But in
a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but
also of wood and clay, some for honour and some for dishonour.
21 Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will
be a vessel for honour, sanctified and useful for the Master,
prepared for every good work.
So there are many vessels in the household of God. Yet these
vessels do have a choice. We can neglect our calling, reject correction and be vessels of
wrath prepared for destruction, or we can cleanse ourselves from
what is dishonourable and become vessels for honour and mercy,
ready for every good work.
Rom 2:4-5 Or do you presume
upon the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience?
Do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
5 But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath
for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment
will be revealed.
THE EXERCISE OF MERCY
When we read that God "has mercy on whom He
wills, and whom He wills He hardens", we now realise that
this is not a statement of a God of whims. Rather, it shows us
that God extends His mercy consciously and deliberately, based
on sound and just reasons. It is men who extend their mercy on
whims and for irrational reasons. We also realise that in some
situations it is actually wrong to extend mercy. Without
the appropriate responses such as repentance and the seeking of
wisdom in the face of judgement (Matt 12:39-42), it is wrong to
extend mercy (Matt 18:17,23-35; Jer 6:9-21; 15:6; Jer 19). Mercy
must not be extended indiscriminately, but on the basis of the
Word of God.
Psa 50:22-23 "Now
consider this, you who forget God, Lest I tear you in pieces, And there be none to deliver: 23 Whoever offers praise glorifies
Me; And to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation
of God."