Tag: Mercy

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Scripture

Mercy In The Bible

Dr. Peter Brown

March 28, 2023 3:32 pm March 28, 2023

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What does it mean to say that Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is a merciful God? A good place to start in unpacking the idea is the Hebrew term chesed. Chesed (pronounced…

What does it mean to say that Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is a merciful God?

A good place to start in unpacking the idea is the Hebrew term chesed. Chesed (pronounced with a guttural sounding ch) is one of those delightfully untranslatable terms one finds in the Bible. It has the idea of “the giving of a break” but means much more than that. It combines the notions of “kindness,” “faithfulness,” “truth,” “persistent and steadfast loyalty” and, most of all, “love.”

We see it frequently in the context of the “unfailing love” God shows for Israel in the context of the covenant.

Though untranslatable, chesed captures an important dimension of divine mercy: steadfast and true kindness based on the covenant. Chesed is a wonderful word, but one that still fails to capture the fullness of mercy. Its relational dimensions make it too powerful to convey the idea of the seemingly random act of kindness toward someone you don’t really know well or who doesn’t deserve it. For that we need the term rachamim (again with the guttural ch sound). This one has a near English equivalent: “pity” or “compassion” — something akin to the sentiment that causes you to fall for the three-legged puppy who is neither cute nor potty-trained, but whose attraction is precisely that no one else wants him. In some cases rachamim even extends to family members.

Joseph is overcome with it in dealing with his brothers with whom by all rights he should have been angry (see Gn 43:30). God was furious with Israel, too, after the creation of the golden calf. Yet in one of the Bible’s most famous declarations of mercy, God turns away from his anger declaring in his sovereignty, “I who grant mercy [rachamim] to whom I will” (Ex 33:19).

The Greek New Testament unsurprisingly talks a great deal about “mercy,” too — using different language, of course. The most common term is eleeos, made famous in the Kyrie Eleison rite at Mass right before the Gloria where Catholics say, “Lord, have mercy.” Eleeos truly does mean something very close to what English speakers mean by “mercy,” combining the Hebrew ideas of chesed and raham. It is precisely because he is the “Son of David” with all that implies in terms of God’s covenant that Jesus is asked to take pity on blind Bartimaeus (see Mk 10:47-48; Mt 9:27; 20:30-31; Lk 18:38-39).

What the New Testament adds to “mercy” is splankna, another term difficult to capture perfectly in English, which suggests warm feelings from the deepest innards of the human person. The “deepest innards” is often translated “heart,” although splanknonpoints anatomically to the “guts” below the rib cage. Confusion on this point led to the Douay Rheims’ famous translation of Philemon 1:7 as “the bowels of the saints have been refreshed” when the idea is that the innermost being of the people of God was being renewed. When it comes to God, splankna is a “tenderizer” seasoning added to God’s mercy. The famous Canticle of Zechariah’s “tender mercy of our God” (Lk 1:78) combines the terms splankna and eleeos together.

So now with a little philology under our belt, we are now in a position to do a little biblical theology. We know roughly what God’s mercy is, but who gets it and how?

One central idea advanced by Our Lord is the connection of divine mercy for people with people’s mercy for one another.

This is the message of the parable of the debtor (see Mt 18:21-35) as well as the Lord’s Prayer — “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Mt 6:12). Our reception of divine mercy is wholly contingent on our ability to show mercy to others. This is not only because of the social dimension of chesed; by making God’s forgiveness contingent on our forgiveness we become a channel of divine mercy, which flows through us to others.

Another crucial aspect to the flow of mercy is based on the humanity of Jesus Christ. His humanity enables him to become our High Priest who is able to identify with our fleshly weaknesses, since he took on frail humanity himself, yet without sin. It is through the humanity of Jesus that we can approach the throne of grace confidently and receive mercy (see Heb 4:14-16).

But let’s not fall into the trap that mercy and forgiveness is an attribute of the New Testament while the God of the Old Testament remains a deity of wrath and judgment. Even a cursory knowledge of the Bible reveals that there are many times when mercy is shown in the Old Testament and many times when divine wrath and judgment are threatened in the New.

Old Testament Prophets

And the Year of Mercy, emphasized the scope of mercy, particularly for those on the margins or the periphery. This is a question actually of great salience for the Old Testament writers in terms of avoiding wrath or receiving mercy, but also in defining the boundaries to which mercy could extend. Does it extend to Israel alone even if Israel is just as culpable as the other nations? Or can the nations receive it, too? And in no place were these very difficult questions more discussed than in the Book of the Twelve, aka the twelve minor prophets from Hosea through Malachi.

The Book of Joel is all about God’s judgment and who can avoid it when it seems that it is in store for everyone. The prophet says in Joel 2:14, “Perhaps he [Yahweh] will again relent and leave a blessing.”

This is key to the biblical idea of mercy — maybe we will get it, but God certainly doesn’t owe it to us. Therefore, we have no right to presume it. On the other hand, if we repent and show our repentance with prayer and fasting, maybe there is hope (see Jl 2:15-18).

In fact, God is merciful (see Jl 2:18-27) and will pour out his Spirit upon all flesh in advance of the judgment (3:1). Paradoxically, “all flesh” do not escape judgment. The nations will be destroyed as God’s people will be exalted (Chapter 4), because they did not call on the name of the Lord (3:5) and accept his mercy. Joel’s view is a somewhat hopeful picture that God’s wrath on the Day of the Lord can be escaped by the few who have the Spirit.

But Amos’ take on judgment is strikingly different. He makes it crystal clear that the various judgments against the nations are fixed; Yahweh, in fact, will not repent (“revoke the punishment” is the translation in the Revised Standard Version; see 1:3,6,9,11,13; 2:1,4,6). The punishments are coming and there is nothing that the nations, or Judah and Israel, can do to avoid them.

And those who have read Joel and actually want the Day of the Lord (see Jl 2:1-2) are in for a rude awakening (Am 5:17). For Amos it will be darkness and not light, with no hope — none at all.

Amos’ message is almost wholly negative. Jonah, however, turns Amos’ message on its head. Due to the reluctant prophet’s preaching, the Gentile king of Nineveh dares to perceive the same prospect of mercy for his people that Joel had for Judah (see Jon 3:9).

And he received it! God did what Amos said he would not do — he “repented” of the judgment he would inflict (see Jon 3:10). The same God, “slow to anger” in his dealings with his covenant people (Ex 34:6), shows himself “slow to anger” with a wicked Gentile nation as well (Jon 4:2).

On the other hand, Nahum rejoiced with sadistic glee that despite its slowness, God’s judgment eventually did fall upon Nineveh after all (see Na 1:3a). But the pendulum swings back again with Habakkuk. Yes, God may punish the Assyrians, but his chosen instrument for doing so is Babylon, and they are about to come down to destroy God’s people in Judah as well (Hb 1:5-6).

Zechariah finds a way for the nations to benefit from God’s coming kingdom after all — the reign which is the main subject of his book (see Zec 14:9). The nations that fight against God will be vanquished, of course (Zec 14:1-4), yet, paradoxically, the portions of the nations who survive the war and become loyal to the true worship of God will experience divine blessing (14:16-21).

On the other side of the Cross, Paul, in Romans 9-11, wonders how it can be that God is showing so much mercy to mostly Gentile Christians while non-Christian Jews seem to have lost the mercy they once possessed. Will God once again withdraw the mercy shown to Gentiles and return it to the Jews? It is hard to say!

Mercy is deeply paradoxical.

Mercy will fall next where we least expect it. God will exalt His people and punish His enemies both in history and at the end of history, but He has enemies both inside and outside the visible boundaries of Israel/Church, and even His people within Israel/Church need purification and have done things worthy of divine chastisement, as have others outside Israel/Church who stand nonetheless to benefit from the purification and be restored to God’s friendship afterward.

Mercy is understandable only against the background of sin and imminent judgment from which no one is exempt. Everyone must repent and show mercy to others, and the greatest hope for mercy is in the humanity of Jesus Christ.

Repentance does not guarantee that one will avoid suffering and chastisement, but it is the constant condition necessary to receive God’s mercy that He stands forever prepared to offer to everyone.

Dr. Peter Brown is the Academic Dean for Catholic Distance University.

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Scripture

What We Believe, Part 22: What Scripture is For

Father Joshua J. Whitfield

September 9, 2022 1:41 pm September 9, 2022

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9 min read

If to encounter the Church is to encounter the Body of Christ — that is, to encounter Jesus intimately and individually but within the fellowship of other believers — then…

If to encounter the Church is to encounter the Body of Christ — that is, to encounter Jesus intimately and individually but within the fellowship of other believers — then to encounter the Church is, in a sense, a personal encounter. Indeed, as this series has treated several times, the Church is a communion and sacramental mystery. It’s something both visible and invisible, hierarchical and charismatic, always an encounter with Christ in Trinity. Still another aspect of encountering Christ in the Church is in the Scripture and in tradition.

Now, in short, the mystery is simply this: Since the Church is the Body of Christ, that same body of Christ speaks to us in the Scripture and in Tradition. That is if encountering the Body of Christ is like a personal encounter, then the way that body communicates is like personal speech. This is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church means, calling Tradition — always connected to the Scripture — a “living transmission” (No. 78). And this living communication of the Body of Christ is what we intend to explore.

But first, a simple question: What is the Scripture for? John, at the end of his Gospel, helps us begin to think of an answer. There is much that Jesus did, the evangelist says, that is “not written in this book.” However, what is recorded in the Gospel is written: “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name” (Jn 20:30-31). We see here a simple twofold purpose to the Scripture. First, the point of the Scripture is to hear about, read and encounter Jesus so that you can believe in Jesus — not Jesus merely historically as some ancient figure, but as the Messiah, the Christ. This leads to the second point of the Scripture: that once one believes in Jesus, then that person has “life in his name.”

Belief and salvation

Another way to think about this question is to look at what Paul wrote to Timothy. “But you,” Paul writes, “remain faithful to what you have learned and believed, because you know from whom you learned it, and from infancy you have known sacred scriptures.” Here, Paul exhorts Timothy not simply to remember what he learned through reading the Scripture but also to remember through whom he learned it — perhaps a nascent appeal to what we’d later simply call Tradition. But that aside now, the purpose of the Scripture is clear: the reason Paul asks Timothy to remember the Scripture is because the Scripture is “inspired by God” and capable of giving the person who remembers it “wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Again, like John, the purpose of the Scripture is salvation. But it’s also “useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Tm 3:14-17). So, the purpose of the Scripture is not only to provoke belief — to make the person who encounters it wise for salvation through faith in Christ — it’s also meant to teach and equip the believer to do good works. The purpose of the Scripture, therefore, is more than spiritual or intellectual, it’s also moral.

Belief, salvation and holiness

Another way Paul puts it, in his letter to the Romans, is to say that the Gospel (in its unwritten proclamation, but also presumably in its written form) is “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: for Jew first, and then Greek” (Rom 1:16). As he told Timothy, and just as John wrote at the end of his Gospel, here Paul says basically the same thing: that the first purpose of the Scripture is to inspire belief in Jesus necessary for salvation. But, also notice here, Paul’s evangelical order of proclamation: “for Jew first, and then Greeks.” Whenever he traveled to a new city, he usually preached first in the Jewish synagogue, and only after he was rejected, did he preach to non-Jews.

Also in Romans we learn something else about the purpose of the Scripture. “For in it is revealed the righteousness of God from faith to faith,” Paul wrote (Rom 1:17). Now this is an enigmatic, much debated line, so what might it mean? First, it seems Paul is telling us that in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God reveals to us his justice. For that’s what God’s righteousness is, his justice — which is interesting, because the Gospel is the story of a God who loves the world so much, he sent his Son to die for it and forgive it (cf. Jn 3:16). God’s story of justice is a story of mercy. As Paul says later in Romans, rather bluntly: Christ died for the “ungodly” (Rom 5:6). Interestingly, if this is an account of justice, it’s radically unlike our conventional notions of justice. Unlike other accounts of justice, attributing punishments and rewards to either the guilty or deserving, God’s justice is different — it’s merciful. It rewards the undeserving simply through faith. God’s justice is forgiveness. Which seems to be another purpose of the Scripture: to show us what that strange justice looks like.

Belief, salvation, holiness and mercy

But we should also note the beautifully curious phrase, “from faith to faith.” Paul says the revelation of the Gospel is “from faith to faith,” but what does that mean? Many interpretations have been given. I personally prefer the interpretation of Karl Barth, the great Protestant theologian. “To those willing to venture with God, He speaks,” Barth wrote about this mysterious line (“The Epistle to the Romans,” Oxford University Press, $19.95). That is, the revelation of the Gospel is not the transmission of some dry dogmatic or metaphysical treatise. The Scripture is not some cosmic owner’s manual. The Bible does not possess the pretensions of science. It’s never claimed to describe the world with scientific precision. Rather, more beautifully, the Scripture simply tells the story of God, Israel, Jesus and the Church. It is not a position paper for the disinterested; rather, it’s like personal communication — “from faith to faith” — a word of love for those who through love search for God. And this is a really important point, for it’s only when we grasp that the Scripture is best approached in faith as an act of love that we experience the purpose of the Scripture as something that inspires belief and which can become the means of salvation and holiness.

Think of it this way: A young man is romantically interested in a friend of a friend, but he’s not yet met her. So, he goes to his friend to ask about her. If the friend were to answer him by describing the woman’s height and weight, blood type, tax bracket and so on, we would all understand that that’s weird and creepy. That’s not the sort of information that’s important in this circumstance. Rather, his friend — if he’s normal — is going to say something like, “Oh, she’s great! Brilliant! She’s beautiful, with a great sense of humor. You’ll love her.” Now, both types of discourse are true (the woman’s height and weight and blood type are indeed facts that are real and, in some circumstances, do matter), but only one type of speech is going to make the young man fall in love with her. Now, the Scripture is like the second type of speech. It’s like someone coming alongside you saying, “Here’s this God, he’s great. He’s done all this great stuff. You’ll love him.” The Bible makes no pretensions about being a scientific textbook; it never has. Nor has the Church ever thought of it in those terms. Rather, it’s “from faith to faith.” Which also teaches us something about the purpose of Scripture, and that it is to tell us about God, but in a certain way — personally, like love.

Belief, salvation, holiness, mercy — in love inspiring faith

To encounter the Scripture is to encounter, in a sense, the body of Christ speaking. And thinking of it as speech, we can think of it like speech between lovers, speech that not only informs but which also inspires faith and hope — all of which flowers as salvation. This fits with our understanding of the Church as the body of Christ. The Church is communion, organism, body, bride; and when this organism speaks, the living Christ speaks — speaking that’s scriptural. It’s like speech establishing a relationship, not merely delivering data. It’s speech that shares Christ and creates communion.

Which, you’ll remember, is exactly how John puts it in his first letter. The “word of life” — that is the word “from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we looked upon” — is shared with others for the sake of fellowship, “so that you too may have fellowship with us; for our fellowship is with the Father,” John writes. Notice that this is a written invitation: “We are writing this so that our joy may be complete” (1 Jn 1:1-4). Earlier we looked at this passage to see how the communion of the Church spread interpersonally and apostolically. Here we simply notice that it’s also “writing.” That is, the expansion of communion depends upon a mode of communication that is not just oral but also clearly written. This, along with all we’ve just mentioned, is also what the Scripture is for: the growth of the Church.

Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of “The Crisis of Bad Preaching” (Ave Maria Press, $17.95) and other books. Read more from the series here.

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