Mercy in Judgment

Many times when we think of mercy, we think of God sparing us from wrath. This is certainly biblical, but if we only have this mind set about mercy than we miss half of the beauty. Many times in scripture, God shows mercy in judgment. I want to show you some passages where God displays His mercy in the midst of His judgment…

Genesis 3 - The Fall
In Genesis 3:1-5, we see the serpent, being influenced by the Devil, tempt Eve to disobey God by eating the “Forbidden Fruit”. She and her husband, Adam, were deceived and ate. So God came down and questioned the man first, then the woman. Then He curses them.
To the woman He said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing…” and “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
To the man He said, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you… By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground… for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
At first glance you would probably ask me how God showed mercy here. It doesn’t seem like He did. Let me show you:
- Genesis 2:16-17 - “And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” I believe that God showed mercy right then and there in not letting them die immediately. The commandment was, “Eat it and die”. They ate it and didn’t. That’s mercy!
- Furthermore, disobedience to God is not trivial, it’s treason. It deserves Hell. So there is mercy again. Yes, God did curse the woman with birth pains and the man with toil, which are hard things to deal with… No woman enjoys birth pains and no man enjoys the fact that everything he tries to create and cultivate wars against him, but these things are not unbearable, they are difficult, but we can deal with them. The punishment was not so bad that they died immediately and spent forever in Hell, separated from God, which is what they deserved.
- Also, in verse 20-24, God, in His kindness, serves them by making garments of skin for Adam and Eve and clothed them. And then God kicked them out of the garden, so that they couldn’t eat of the Tree of Life and live forever in their sinful state. But in the book of Revelation, the Bible says that we will be given the Tree of Life to eat of once again.
　
II Samuel 24 - David takes a census of Israel
In II Samuel 24: 1-17 King David sins against the Lord and the Lord punishes the whole country. Basically, David wanted to count all of his men so that he would know how well they would do in a war. But God had delivered Israel in battle many times before without the strength of great numbers, including Gideon’s 300 men. So it was a lack of faith in God to count the people. Afterward David felt convicted and repented in verse 10. But God spoke to Gad, a prophet, and told him to tell David that He was going to punish Israel for this sin, and David needed to choose 1 of 3 punishments that were to be poured out on Israel:
1. 3 years of famine
2. 3 months of being pursued by their enemies
3. 3 days of plague in the land
David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for His mercy is great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.” Verses 15-16 says, “So the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and 70,000 of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, ‘Enough! Withdraw your hand.’”
I love this story. David sins against the Lord and though he repents in verse 10, verse 11 says God was going to punish Israel because of this sin. But I think this is such a beautiful picture of mercy in the midst of judgment. Here we see this unbelievable amount of trust that David has in God when he says, “I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for His mercy is great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.” In essence, David says, “This decision is to great for me. Let God punish us because even in judgment He will be merciful.” That is astounding when you consider the power and strength of God compared to that of man--God is Godzilla and man is the village people. But David knew the character of God, that even though He is just, He is full of mercy!
So God sends a plague and wipes out 70,000 people. Once again, this doesn’t seem like mercy until you see verse 16, “…The Lord was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, ‘Enough! Withdraw your hand.’” So God is pouring out this deserved punishment on Israel and after killing 70,000 people, God becomes grieved because of the weight of the punishment and says to the angel, “Stop! I can’t stand to see my children suffer anymore.” Now, God is absolutely Just and absolutely Merciful, so the punishment that was being delivered was just. For Him to stop punishing simply for the sake of mercy would be unjust. Every sin that ever has been or ever will be committed must be fully punished. Yet in His mercy, God stopped punishing Israel. The only way He can do that and still be just is if someone else receives the rest of the punishment that David’s sins deserved. In essence, God was saying, “Stop punishing them! I don’t want to see them suffer anymore. The rest of the punishment will be put on My Son.” That’s the mercy of God in the midst of judgment!
　
Habakkuk 3 - Mercy in Judgment
Habakkuk is basically a prophet’s complaint before God. Habakkuk is trying to understand why God is allowing evil to persist without punishing it. His complaint is a lot like the modern question today, “If God is good and loving, why does He allow bad things to happen?”
Here’s the highlights:
Habakkuk complains to God, “How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but You do not listen? Or cry out ‘Violence!’ but you do not save? …Why do You tolerate wrong? …The law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.”
So Habakkuk is saying, “God, You say You are just, but if so why are You not punishing the wicked for the evil they are doing? They are oppressing the innocent and You‘re not doing anything about it.”
The Lord replies, “…I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people… [They are] guilty men, whose own strength is their god.”
So God says, “I’m going to punish Israel’s sin using a people who are way worse than them.”
This conversation between God and Habakkuk goes on back and forth for 3 chapters and then Habakkuk ends his book with a prayer: “Lord, I have heard of Your fame; I stand in awe of You deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.”
So after asking God to punish the wrongdoers Habakkuk prays to God, “In wrath remember mercy”, and that’s exactly what He does. Amen.
　
Jeremiah 29 - The Exiles
Many of us have heard and often quoted Jeremiah 29:11 to people as encouragement: “For I know the plans I have for you, ‘declares the Lord,’ plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” We encourage each other quite often with this verse, but how many of us really know the context of this verse?
If you read the preceding chapters you will see that Jeremiah has been warning the Jews that if they continue to disobey the Lord, God will have Babylon invade their land and send them into captivity. They refuse to obey and God does what He said. So they were taken over and were sent into exile. In Jeremiah 28 a false prophet named Hananiah prophesied and told captive Israel not to worry because God is going to deliver them from captivity within 2 years. Then Lord told Jeremiah to rebuke Hananiah and prophesy to the exiles, “No, it’s not 2 years. It’s gonna be 70 years. Get comfortable, settle down, buy houses, get married, start families, don’t decrease in number but increase because you’re going to be exiled for 70 years. BUT I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
The mercy of God in harsh judgment is clearly seen here. God only sends them into captivity so that they will turn back to him. This is the mercy of our God!

Hebrews 12:5-11 - Only true sons are disciplined
Hebrews 12:5 says, “…My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son.” This is certainly opposite from what many of us hear today. We usually hear something like, “If you are constantly striving to please God, then His blessing will always be on you and you will not go through hard times.” This scripture is not only saying that you will go through hard times, but that sometimes hard times are God’s way of lovingly disciplining us as a caring Father. It actually goes on to say in verse 8 that “if you are not disciplined… then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.”
Verse 10 says that “God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Then verse 7 says, “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons.”
Once again this doesn’t seem like mercy at first, but it is only because God loves us that He would do this. In fact, we can be certain that we are legitimate children of God if we do experience this Fatherly discipline from Him. This is one of God’s beautiful, merciful, Fatherly ways of showing His love to us in not letting us remain in our sins, and thus, be able to grow closer to Him. In the same way an earthly father disciplines his children to try to get them to not do what is wrong so that they will grow up to be good people, God disciplines us so that we won’t want to do what is wrong, but rather please Him and grow closer to Him.
　
　
I want to close by quoting some lyrics of an old Hymn about the Father’s Mercy:
How deep the Father’s love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He would give His Son for us
And make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turned His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory