Blessed are the Merciful…

 

…for they shall obtain mercy.

MHA: The merciful who are spoken of in the fifth Beatitude are those who possess the compassion and love that reflect divine love, who do not divide people into friends or enemies, evil or good, righteous or unrighteous. 

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, by D. Martin Lloyd-Jones

Jesus Christ: His Life and Teaching, Vol.2 - The Sermon on the Mount, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev

This Beatitude makes clear the turn toward the internal disposition of the Christian.  As shall be seen later in the Sermon, Jesus places a great emphasis on “being,” and not only on “doing”; one can consider the entire gospel in this manner.  Doing will come, but only after being – disposition – is understood and lived.

DMLJ: A Christian is something before he does anything; and we have to be Christian before we can act as Christians. … To be a Christian, I say, is to possess a certain character and therefore to be a certain type of person.

It is our attitude and character that identifies us as Christians, and this is necessary before the “doing” means anything.  We see this around us: individuals, avowedly not Christian, “do” many good things.  Due to a strong human will, they can, largely, control their actions.  But what is their disposition?  What is their attitude?  Have they walked through the previous Beatitudes to come to this point?

DMLJ: Going a step further, we can put it like this.  We are not meant to control our Christianity; our Christianity is meant to control us.

Works are only “good” if they come out of this Christian attitude.  It is the Spirit that controls me; because of this, I act. 

So, what is this mercy?  First, what it is not.  It doesn’t mean we are to be easygoing, to not see things, or if we see things, to act as if these do not matter.  This is to believe that there is such a thing as mercy while ignoring the law or pretending it does not exist or apply.  But there is law.

Metropolitan Alfeyev points to the references in the Old Testament of God’s mercy, often combined with His benevolence and lovingkindness.  However, he takes it somewhere that I am not comfortable to go, separating law and justice from mercy:

MHA: …the God of the Old Testament…

Metropolitan Alfeyev describes the Old Testament God as primarily a just judge, with God’s mercy tied to the person’s conduct.  The New Testament God demonstrates mercy independent of the human condition.  He makes a distinction of the behavior and actions of God in the Old Testament vs. the New Testament.

Metropolitan Alfeyev continues by citing Isaac the Syrian, who writes “mercy is opposed to justice.”  This is true enough, but mercy can only come into play if one considers that there is something that is just, the violation of which will call forth mercy.  In other words, the law.  There is no possibility of mercy without the law and without a just lawgiver and a just adjudicator.  The two go hand in hand, which is one reason I cannot separate the Old Testament God from the New Testament God.  Mercy and justice both exist throughout.

Lloyd-Jones explains this point:

DMLJ: …whatever I may decide as to the meaning of ‘merciful’ is also true of God … breaking the law is unthinkable when we are talking about God.

God is merciful; He is also righteous and just.  However we are to understand mercy, it must include these.  Mercy and truth have to come together; to think of mercy at the expense of considering truth and law is not true mercy.

God did show mercy, truth, and justice through the death and resurrection of Christ.  Mercy, truth, and justice were all on display.  And this, among other reasons, is what gives me great pause when reading Metropolitan Alfeyev’s words on this point.

Continuing: Lloyd-Jones offers a contrast between grace and mercy:

‘Grace is especially associated with men in their sins; mercy is especially associated with men in their misery.’

Grace sees sin; mercy sees and acts on its consequences.  Mercy only comes due to the recognition and reality of sin.  It is pity for the sinful, but pity put into action – pity taken to deal with the consequences of sin.  This pity leads to a desire to relieve it – but not forgetting about the sin in the first place.

I want to be cautious about this.  We can see instances necessary for mercy where it is difficult to lay fault on the person on whom mercy is taken.  Can I instead see this as a consequence of the sin due to fallen man, that has befallen all of humanity?  In other words, the reality of the state of humanity, as opposed to the situation of the specific individual in need of mercy, through no meaningful fault of his or her own?  I think so.

The first place to look to put mercy in action is in myself, when someone has sinned against me.  Yes, I have some right, some control or power over the transgressor.  But what do I do with that?  Mercy, while not forgetting or ignoring the sin.  This is the point.

The most supreme example is found in Christ (as always).  He saw man’s suffering and came down to earth to relieve it through His death and Resurrection.  The sin was not ignored; it was the sin and the just consequences of sin that resulted in mercy.  God looked down on man in his pitiable condition, and took pity on him.

So much for mercy.  What about the “obtain mercy” part?  Lloyd-Jones points out that some Christians see the cause and effect the wrong way: only if we show mercy will we obtain mercy.  However, this ignores much else to be found in Scripture: it is God that moves first, not us; His grace is not dependent on our action.  One would have to throw out the doctrine of grace if this was the case.

The logic works the other way.  Consider: this Beatitude is built on the ones that precede it: I recognize I am poor in spirit, therefore I mourn; because I mourn, I am meek; because I am meek, I hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Can such a person not be merciful?  It seems highly unlikely.  Is it possible for an individual to walk through any of these Beatitudes, let alone all of them, without God pouring His grace and mercy on the individual?  This merciful individual has obtained God’s mercy – it was God’s mercy that brought this individual to the point of being merciful.

Conclusion

DMLJ: …the man who truly realizes his position face-to-face with God, and his relationship to God, is the man who must, of necessity be merciful with respect to others.

Unless one has a forgiving spirit, one will not be forgiven.  Not because it is our action of forgiving that causes God to forgive us, but because it is only through God’s grace that we gain and hold to a forgiving spirit.  It is because we have obtained mercy that we are merciful.

DMLJ: If I am not merciful there is only one explanation; I have never understood the grace and the mercy of God; I am outside Christ; I am yet in my sins, and I am unforgiven.

These Beatitudes are difficult to live with.  Perhaps this is why I have never really tried to live with these before.