To Love Mercy

If you are a regular reader, you know I have written several times about the importance of love, agape love particularly. (See "The Pursuit of..." or "Goodness of Wrath" ) This morning at my home church for this winter, Capital Church, Salt Lake City, pastor Troy Champ brought something to my attention that I hadn’t seen exactly this way before. I have stressed that the agape love of the New Testament is unlike the love of Hollywood or even that of many warm, fuzzy churches. Agape love is a love of the will – it is more than an emotion, although emotion is not absent (See More Than a Feeling). This morning, I saw a picture of how God demonstrates the love that agape replicates.

We are in a series on the Beatitudes, this morning landing on verse seven of Matthew five, blessed are the merciful. Troy brought us back to the Old Testament to see what mercy looks like. To understand the New Testament meaning of the Greek word Matthew used for mercy , eleos (ἔλεος), we looked at the three Hebrew words the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) translated as “mercy” (ἔλεος). One Hebrew verse uses all three, Psalm 103:8: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” Each Hebrew word has something to teach us, but it is the third, hesed (חָסַד), translated “steadfast love” in this verse that struck me this morning.

Troy pointed out that hesed is God’s covenant love for His people. (Ligonier has a good article on this.) Typically, a covenant is between two parties, but as we see regarding the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15), God pretty much takes both parts. He’s basically saying, no matter what you do on your side, I will be faithful on my side. That sums up Old Testament history completely. Israel repeatedly broke their side of the covenant, but God remained faithful. At the Cross of Calvary, God said, “It is finished” through the God-Man, Jesus Christ, meaning the covenant promise was fulfilled.

The reason this teaches us about mercy is that God showed His love for us “while we were still sinners.” In other words, mercy takes no measure of the worthiness of the object of mercy. To be merciful is to show love and forgiveness to those who don’t deserve it. God’s covenant love is not like the human love we see most often. Human love is commercial or transactional: we expect a return for our investment. I love you because of what you can do for me. I give this; you return that. But in the case of God’s love for us, we can give back nothing. Nothing.

So what we are called to give in the New Testament, that agape love, is really hesed, covenant love. It is love toward all of God’s image bearers regardless of what they have to offer in return. Let’s face it: all humans are created in God’s image, but not all seem worthy of the hesed God promises. That’s precisely the point. This morning, Troy called us to show mercy and love to those who “sin differently” than we do. His meaning: we are all sinners; it is self-righteous to think we are better than this one or that one.

There is one caveat: the relationships we build with this covenant love of God are not without boundaries. Our love does not extend to enablement. Our love does not become complicity in sin. All things to all men to win some (1 Corinthians 9:23) does not excuse unrighteous behavior on our part. But we can love someone all the way to the prison cell or recovery center and back if that is what it takes. “Love the sinner; hate the sin” is a cliché, but it seems to be God’s position in this matter.

I was reminded this morning that the love we are called to is not transactional, it is covenantal. We are not supposed to expect anything in return. Our “covenant” with the lost should reflect God’s covenant with us. Mercy is mercy precisely because the recipient does not deserve it. We should be watching for people in our lives who don’t deserve mercy, and then we should show them what mercy looks like. At that point we will be God’s true image-bearers. We will be acting as God’s agents of mercy in a world that desperately needs to see God. Micah summarizes the call: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Okay, “Mortal,” it’s your turn.