Author: Lisa Groen
It will help us to consider first a few things. It is God who gives us a desire to please Him. I want to establish that the way we understand God is key to helping us to NOT misunderstand him. What we can know about the forgiveness of a holy God is inextricably linked to our understanding of both the justice and mercy of God.
A person who has committed serious sins might ask “I just want to know that I am truly forgiven by God, so, why would I need to know about the justice of God?” Someone may ask, “Isn’t the justice of God the opposite of the mercy of God?”
Actually, the Christian realities of God’s justice and mercy are not at odds with each other. We can see in scripture that God does not set aside his mercy to show justice, nor does he set aside his justice to show mercy. Justice and mercy are combined and unified in the person of God. God is whole and full and the source of wholeness and fullness. He does not fragment himself to provide for our needs. When we trusted in Jesus as our savior and Lord, he did not just provide an answer to our prayers, but provided himself in his fullness. There is unity within all aspects his personality. From scripture we can see the relationship between God’s justice and mercy.
The Lord is a God of justice and mercy, so he would have us to act with justice and mercy as well.
Micah 6:8 The Lord God has told us what is right and what he demands: “See that justice is done, let mercy be your first concern, and humbly obey your God.” (CEV)
God’s throne provides both justice and mercy:
Hebrews 4:16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Psalm 89:14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you.
God can forgive murder. We see it clearly in the following scriptures where David got Bathsheba pregnant, and later has Bathsheba’s husband killed so he would not be found to be guilty of adultery. In 2 Samuel 11, verses 5, 14, 24, 26 and 27:
5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.
15 In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”
24 Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.”
26 When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him.
27 After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.
Then, The Lord confronts David, but shows him mercy. In Chapter 12 of 2 Samuel, verses 13, 14, 16, 18b, 24, and 25:
13 Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.
14 But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt forthe Lord, the son born to you will die.”
16 David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackclothon the ground.
18 b On the seventh day the child died.
24 Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and made love to her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The Lord loved him;
25 and because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah.
We see how David repents of his sin with Bathsheba and records it in a Psalm. Note verse 14 where he names the sin of bloodguiltiness:
51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
Then what’s amazing in this Psalm is that David tells of something in verses 17 and 18:
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem;
He talks about God not despising his heart, as long as his heart is broken and contrite, and he talks about God having good pleasure in doing good to Zion, and good pleasure in building the walls of Jerusalem. David believes God would have good pleasure in building the walls (building the protection back up) of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was David’s responsibility as a King to protect. When David sinned, God told him there would be bloodshed. Now David asks for the protection back that was lost by his own sins with Bathsheba. David has faith that it could or would be something God could take pleasure in restoring.
Over time the Lord does a work in the heart of David. The Lord brings him from being a man who the Lord says of David “you despised Me” in 2 Samuel 12:10 to a person wholehearted for the Lord again, as is seen in the words of others in 1 Kings who spoke of King David after the incident with Bathsheba’s husband (in the NIV):
1 Kings 9:4 “As for you, if you walk before me faithfully with integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws,
1 Kings 14:8 I tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you, but you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes.
And in:
1 Kings 15:3 He committed all the sins his father had done before him; his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his forefather had been.
The above three scriptures show us that The Lord can restore wholehearted devotion and service to God in a person’s life after a terrible sin, in this case the sin of murder. This is the hope for anyone who repents and turns away from sin to God. This is good news for any of us, even for those that haven’t committed murder, because it gives us a picture of the depth of forgiveness, mercy, justice, and grace of God.
One final proof is another example that shows us without a doubt that the Lord can not only forgive a murderer, but draw him to a place of close fellowship with him. We will read the very words of Jesus. Because Jesus is the clear image of God we can believe what he says are God the Father’s sentiments as well. (Jesus is called the exact representation of the Father in Hebrews 1:3, which says “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”(NIV)) When the soldiers nailed him to the cross, after an angry crowd chanted “crucify him!” (crying for the murder of someone who was innocent), Jesus reveals the heart of God, in Luke 23:34 where he says “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.” (NIV)
In the person of Jesus, and only by faith in Jesus the justice of God we deserve was fully paid for us through his work. He laid his life down to pay the penalty for our sins, so we don’t have to die for our sins. Consider first that the Bible says, even sins like lying, stealing, or lust, call for the justice of God against us and we deserve death even if we have not murdered someone. Apart from Jesus the justice of God for us is not dealt with. We would still deserve death. Mercy only comes from God to us by the payment for our sins having been made by Jesus. Mercy exists and is made available for us because God’s just wrath for our sins was justly satisfied as he poured it out upon Christ who died in our place. Because our sins are atoned for in Christ, God opens us his mercy for us, and he remains fully righteous in his making mercy available without compromising his righteousness or pretending like our sins never existed. The responsibility we have now after receiving the mercy God made available through Christ is that we are simply told to confess our sins, and forsake our sins, and we will be shown mercy, (Proverbs 28:13) and to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.(Matthew 3:8 and Luke 3:8).
Keep growing in the Word! LG
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