I heard a song on the radio.  The lyrics were about Jesus’ suffering on the cross.  The lyrics were:

“For the sake of His suffering, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”

These lyrics were being repeated over and over and over, as in a chant.  I realized I had tuned into the Roman Catholic Radio station.  The RCs like to keep Christ on the Cross and keep their believers in perpetual shame.  It’s good for business when you can keep your followers believing there is always one more thing you need to do to prove you are worthy of God, but that is a blog for another day.

Even so, I thought about these lyrics.

His Meekness

Before I can address God’s Mercy, I need to discuss Jesus’ Meekness.

When the scriptures say Jesus was meek and mild, God is not saying His son was some light-in-the-loafers, Casper milquetoast.

Meek in Jesus’s case was that although He had the power and authority to wage the most horrible war against all sin and all sinners, He chose to defer his judgement in favor of God’s mercy.

This meek Christ is the same one who braided a whip, beat money changers at the temple and overturned 100 pound tables.

God’s Mercy

Back to the lyrics:

“For the sake of His suffering, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”

The concept of sin is foreign to this world.  Everything goes.  If I say this is sin, or that is sin, I am being politically incorrect.  Who am I , after all, to judge anyone?  OK, I’m no one, and I am not judging you.  That is God’s job.  In God’s eyes, there is sin.  Sin must be punished.  It is written that the wages of sin is death.  All who sin are worthy of death and unworthy of God.  That includes all humanity.  No one is sinless.

With one exception.

The Holy Law is that there is a way to redeem sinners, and that way is accomplished only if one person who is without sin freely gives his life to God; and must be willing to take on all God’s wrath and punishment of all sin on behalf of all sinners, even though he himself is sinless.

That is exactly what Jesus did. Jesus is the only one who was ever without sin.  He willingly and voluntarily became all sin, and was judged by God on our behalf.

There isn’t a sin you can think of that Jesus did not become.  The sinless one became, on our behalf, all sin that ever was and will be.

2Corinthians 5:21  For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 

For our sake, he died of all our sin.

Sometimes God’s mercies don’t look so merciful.  It is written that it pleased God to kill his own son so that we, His creation would live. (See Isaiah 53:10)

The exchange on the cross is this:  Jesus became all our sin, past present and future. In return, you become God’s own beloved child.

Jesus told Nicodemus

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
(Joh 3:16-18 KJV)

If you accept this free gift from God, you are born again.  If you reject this, you need to understand, you are already dead.

“For the sake of His suffering, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”

Jesus’s suffering was God’s mercy.  If you will accept it.

Let’s be about it

David Perkins

sammy.snardfarkle@gmail.com