The Lord’s Mercy Can Lead to Repentance

The blend of grace and holiness, the blend of justice and mercy, the combination of these qualities in a single person with clarity and integrity, is very difficult to sustain. Generally, we will lean in one direction or the other.

That is why there are ministries today characterized by rigidity and destructive, harmful legalism, where everything is commandments, holiness, and obligations; or ministries where we see the opposite, where everything is grace, patience, “God loves you, don’t worry, He is with you, He is there to bless you and help you,” and little is said about the Christian’s responsibility to live a life of holiness and integrity before a holy God.

So we have this artificial duality, this dichotomy: we are either people of excessive grace and fall into licentiousness, or people of, let us say, unbalanced holiness, becoming people who verge on Pharisaism, legalism, and spiritual barrenness.

Yet I see that, again and again in Scripture, God calls us to a posture of perfect balance with the help of the Holy Spirit, knowing that every day we will be working to strike a balance between one side and the other. Some situations will require a little more clarity, integrity, and holiness from us when we speak with someone who is in sin; at other times they will require patience, kindness, and mercy, and simply waiting for the person to become sanctified and purified over time.

We see this continually in the ministry of Jesus Christ. On other occasions, we have talked about how God treated the adulterous woman with such gentleness and mercy, and how He treated those men who wanted to stone her with severity. They were so focused on her sin that they did not see their own faults. Yet He also spoke to her with tremendous truthfulness, integrity, and clarity about her sin. We also saw in David’s case how God judged and punished him for his sin but also showed him great mercy.

Another person in Scripture who helps us see this blend of those two qualities in Jesus’ character is Zacchaeus, that memorable figure in the Scriptures. Zacchaeus was a sinner whose sins were great and who had sinned against God and His people for a long time. He abused his government position and his authority as an officer of the Roman army to collect taxes on behalf of Rome. He was very conscious of his sin, but he did not feel able to enter into the Presence of God.

And so, when Jesus passes through the city, all he hopes for is to look at Him from above and, from the tree he has climbed, catch a glimpse of the glory and goodness of this very special man. But we see that the Lord Jesus Christ knew Zacchaeus’s heart and knew that these two natures were struggling within him: a sinful, greedy, exploitative nature, but also a heart that was conscious of its sin and wanted redemption, though he did not know how to begin the arduous process of bringing his life toward perfection and sanctification.

So the Lord, understanding this—as He understands, by the way, our own struggle between those two natures—addresses Zacchaeus as He passes by him, and we know Jesus’ famous words: “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, because today I must stay at your house.” The Lord sees great potential in this soul and focuses on that. He invites Zacchaeus to come down from the tree and invites Himself to his house that very day to eat with him and share closeness and friendship with him.

How wonderful, isn’t it? Such kindness from the Lord. Notice that the Lord does not first say to Zacchaeus: “Zacchaeus, you must repent, you must straighten out your ways, and you must return the money you have stolen.” Instead, He first sees his repentance and invites Himself to his house. And what does the Bible say?

When they were seated in Zacchaeus’s house and Zacchaeus invited his other friends, we see something here about the importance, in evangelism, of using the Gospel’s warm, pleasant, joyful, and positive approach to draw people to the Gospel. Afterward, we can call them to the other, more serious and demanding things of the Christian life.

But it says that Zacchaeus invited his friends, and Jesus was there with His disciples. There was also a group of surly, demanding people, the Pharisees, who looked with displeasure on this gesture of Jesus Christ and said, “This man has gone in to stay with a sinful man.” They were all murmuring against Him.

But at one point Zacchaeus, touched by the mercy of Jesus Christ, stands up, and we know the story: he acknowledges his sin and says, “I am going to take half of my possessions and give them to the poor. And not only that, but if I have stolen from anyone or defrauded them in any way, I want to repay them four times what I stole.”

So the Lord’s very mercy and friendliness bring about repentance and a change in behavior in Zacchaeus’s life. We must use that same kind of approach with people who offend us, with people who sin—whether they are our children, people in our congregation, or brothers and sisters in the Church. We must always let mercy triumph over judgment, because in the long run that is what convinces people and brings them to the ways of the Lord.

If we first show them the serious, stern, demanding side of the Word, we will never have churches that are effective in evangelism. On the other hand, if we show people a friendly face and a positive attitude while also upholding holiness as an exemplary and necessary value in the Christian life, we will be people who can draw many to the knowledge of Jesus and foster people around us who are healthy and happy, because they know they have a merciful God. God bless you.