Justice And Mercy From Father God

WED., JAN. 24, 1996, 8:40 AM
OFFICE, PULLIAM

Justice and mercy are motivations, actions, and decisions that must be continually balanced. Too much justice slides into retribution. Too much mercy encourages the perception of weakness and vacillation. And, yet, there is a similarity here with the current political hassle… to what extent should government show mercy on the poor, sick, and disabled with funds and services from tax monies… or must there be a just price for deviations from the norms of income and health?

As you and your morning friends continue to slog through Isaiah you repeatedly picture Me as the Father God meting out a punishing justice on My chosen people. They have not been true to Me, as I have wished. Their conduct apparently doesn’t meet My standards. They have many assurances that I love them, but they deserve punishment, despite some individual goodness. Punishment is supposed to “bring them into line”. As with your experience as a father of children and then adolescents no approach works as you want it to in every instance. There must be continual balancing.

Some individuals respond to punishment as the punisher desires. They see it as justice, deserved. They see the punisher as one who loves them and can’t stand to see them behave in undesirable ways. And they don’t like the punishment and hence they behave, in the future, in ways that will not be punished (with a faith in justice).

Then, in the chapter you shall consider next week (but which you already have read, several times), there is the account of what is heralded as the preview of Jesus coming, even hundreds of years later. This Father God, Who has proclaimed His love and dedication to these Jews, but who has punished them with slavery, now takes a different “tack”. Translating the prophesy to Christian perspective He comes among them as a man who is basically gentle and accepting of their disbelief that He is a form of their God. They see that He is accused, tried, convicted, and executed on a cross. In shame and virtually alone His body dies. But He is resurrected and now says that He has taken their sins upon Himself, the ultimate act of mercy.

For those who accept this gift (this ultimate gift of “welfare”) justice no longer applies. For those who do not accept, the old balancing continues, with almost simultaneous experiences of punishments and assurances of love. Does this seem like a strange way for Me, as the Father God, to act? You borrowed money, on several occasions, from your parents when your family was young. Those debts were never repaid, but neither were they ever formally forgiven. With their deaths and the settling of their estates will justice prevail? Will you receive what you don’t truly deserve? You and Lenore have formally forgiven several debts from your sons. Will you forgive more or will you go more for justice?

You consider what some modern day evidences of My justice and punishment might be. Is the war in Bosnia a punishment? If so, for whom?… for I have told you that all three “factions” look to Me, but in three different ways, which is part of the conflict. Your dominant cultural perception is not thus… but… are those who are poor, sick, and disabled experiencing a form of My justice? And are those who are well off, hale and healthy being blessed… and is this justice or is this mercy? If it is mercy, why do some receive it and others not?