Blessed are the merciful

“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” (Matt. 5: 7).

This principle of Christ’s can be misunderstood. It can be inferred that my acts of mercy are the motivator of God’s grace toward me. Thus, the falsehood that salvation comes by faith and works.

This verse used to really bother me. I desperately wanted a friend, especially in God. I wanted a friend who would accept me and love me just as I was—no prerequisites. I had seen this kind of love from a human once or twice in my life and could imagine nothing better of a friend; therefore, surely God must also do that for me, and infinitely so!

But then I ran into the above part of the Sermon on the Mount and it created a stone wall that guarded and prevented the way to Jesus. Jesus’ mercy toward me depended on my mercy toward others? How could that be? Shouldn’t God be the initiator of mercy and righteousness? Shouldn’t the creature be the responder? Isn’t this what makes heaven so much the center of joy and praise to God in the universe?

It deeply troubled me. Why should my salvation be dependent on me? Knowing my own faultiness as I did, I was doomed to hell because I could never measure up to this requirement. And the thing that made it worst of all, which I couldn’t get around, was that it came from the highest authority, Christ Himself.

But it drove me to study further, like only scripture can do. I found other verses that acted as counterbalances.

“We love Him, because He first loved us.” (1Jn. 4: 19).

“For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” (Rom. 11:29).

“Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” (Jn. 15:16).

Now I was back to seeing the goodness of God. Jesus was going to allow me to be the dependent creature, and I could praise Him again for being my God and Savior.

But then came the question: Why did Jesus say it like He did in the Sermon on the Mount? He even reiterated it. “If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matt. 6:15). And there was the parable about the man who wouldn’t have mercy on someone who owed him a hundred dollars, while he had been forgiven $1 Million. And he reaped vengeance from the king who had forgiven him his huge debt, but now revoked his forgiveness of the debt.

For sure, the devil hates grace. It is the one thing that destroys the kingdom he’s trying to establish on earth. Grace and unmerited kindness completely dismantle his hard-fought work. Grace is the essence of perfect love; grace is the power of God that uplifts and restores fallen, suffering humanity. Thus, Satan’s undying effort to destroy grace in the hearts and minds of the children of Adam. His deepest desire has been to bring ruin upon humanity, and his favorite tools for this have always been religion, religion without grace, religion that hides God’s grace.

“Through heathenism, Satan had for ages turned men away from God; but he won his great triumph in perverting the faith of Israel. By contemplating and worshiping their own conceptions, the heathen had lost a knowledge of God, and had become more and more corrupt. So it was with Israel. The principle that man can save himself by his own works lay at the foundation of every heathen religion; it had now become the principle of the Jewish religion. Satan had implanted this principle. Wherever it is held, men have no barrier against sin.” Desire of Ages, p. 35.

There is no rest if we are the initiators of salvation. We become God, and that’s too big of a job for us to handle, even the most purpose-driven of us, with the strongest willpower and iron determination. Initiating salvation might allow the pride to spring up and flourish, but it’s a very empty existence.

So, then why did the Master Teacher preach an apparently backward gospel in His teachings? Because, He knew what Satan planned to do with the great gospel dispensation. He foresaw the great apostasy of the church.

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.” (2 Thess. 2:3, 4).

Presenting a substitute for the grace of God, especially through obedience to God, has ever been the great deceiver’s work from the beginning, a veiled work of destruction with which the Son of God was very familiar. It was the deceptive product of the fallen arch angel’s genius in making a counterfeit appear so close to the true requirements of God.

But, while the good works have acted as a substitute initially, the end product has always been the greatest atrocities to plague this world. Without a voice of dissent against the insidious errors of the devil, and without the word of truth to uplift the standard, Satan would have the whole race as his captives.

Therefore, to preempt His adversary, Christ never failed to keep the standard high. “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” (Matt. 7:20). “I had not known sin, but by the law,” says Paul. (Rom. 7:7). The Law of God would be the only sure exposer of error, distinguishing the children of God from the children of the evil one.

“And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.” (Rev. 20:12,13).

We are saved by God’s grace through our faith in His love. Out of His salvation comes the natural fruit of righteousness. In the end, we are judged by whether or not His righteousness in the life evidenced His grace received into the soul.