The Simple Answers… To Life’s Most Important Questions.
Bible Study Course Lesson 5 – 3
You saw in the last lesson that judgment is a good thing. Because without judgment, there can be no mercy (James 2:13). Obviously, mercy cannot triumph over judgment if judgment never happened in the first place! So unless you judged someone, you cannot have mercy on them! That verse also says “He shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy…”. But how can you show judgment WITH mercy, unless you first JUDGED? I stress this because you cannot be a “merciful” person unless you are also a “judgmental” person!
Read Matthew 18:21-35. The subject of forgiveness came up because Peter made a judgment – that his brother had sinned against him. And then he asked how often he had to forgive his brother’s sins – and Jesus said not seven times, but 490 times (70×7). That’s how often mercy will rejoice against judgment! Then Jesus tells a parable to illustrate how mercy works. Verse 23 tells us who these characters are; the scene takes place in “the kingdom of heaven” – so “a certain king” in the kingdom of heaven can only be Jesus or His Father. We can know for sure by reading verse 35. So this “King” is the Father.
And in verses 23-24, this king began to count up what people owed him, and found a huge debt owed by one servant. In other words, God found one of His servants – one of us – steeped in “10,000 talents” of sin. That’s a LOT of money, tens of millions of dollars. Naturally, we could never pay this sum back, so He commanded us to be sold into slavery – this is slavery to sin, such as is mentioned in John 8:34 and Romans 6:20. We were under a death penalty, to pay the law back for the debt we owed it, as prescribed by the law (Exodus 22:3).
But pay attention to the process; this King judged his servant, and found him to be a sinner. So he sentenced him to be sold, along with his entire family and all his goods to pay it back. This is a stern sentence and Jesus holds this up as an example of how He and His Father judge. But there’s more! Back in Matthew 18:26, this servant “fell down and worshiped” and begged for patience, and a chance to repay the debt – and the Father, moved by compassion simply FORGAVE the debt – free and clear, no repayment necessary (Matthew 18:27). No penance or works were necessary to repay the debt, it was gone forever (Psalms 103:12).
This is an example of MERCY! Mercy, rejoicing or triumphing against that judgment! Because mercy canceled out – defeated – that judgment! But then in Matthew 18:28 that servant, having been forgiven only moments before of an enormous debt went out and grabbed one of his fellow servants and demanded he repay a relatively small debt – about ten thousand dollars (100 days labor: Matthew 20:2). THIS WASN’T WRONG! He was just following the example set by the Lord! But inMatthew 20:29 the other servant also begged for mercy – the exact same mercy the first servant had just begged for and
been given himself – the first servant refused to forgive him, or even give him more time to repay the debt! (Matthew 20:30). He denied mercy to his fellow servant and sent him to prison, the same fate from which his Lord’s mercy had saved him. Naturally, news of this got back to the Lord (Matthew 20:31), and the Father revoked His mercy because the servant showed none to his own debtors! (Matthew 20:32-34).
The moral in Matthew 20:35 is, this is how God deals with us if we don’t show mercy to our brethren when we judge them for their sins against us! When we judge someone and they repent and ask our forgiveness we should show the same compassion we expect God to show us… which, naturally enough, is the principle of the golden rule! What’s amazing is that people use verses like this to discourage judging, when the clear message is that judging is encouraged, for without judging there is no mercy!
FORGIVENESS WITHOUT REPENTANCE?
If your brother sins against you and repents, you absolutely must forgive him, just as you would want to be forgiven in his place …but what if he doesn’t repent? Should we still forgive him? If the first servant had responded to the King by saying “how dare you judge me!! I’ll pay you back when I’m good and ready!” would the lord have forgiven his debt? Of course not! God has come to all of us, indirectly, and said “you have sinned! And the wages of sin is death!” – and if you’re still here, you must have said “I’m sorry Lord, have patience with me and I’ll pay you all”.
But supposing God had come to you and said “you have sinned!” and you spit back “I have not! And who made you God anyway?? I’ll do whatever I feel like doing!” …would God have forgiven your sins? Of course not. Neither does He expect you to forgive others without repentance! The world’s churches want you to “forgive” rebellious sinners who aren’t even sorry for what they’ve done, much less actively changing their ways! So what the world really wants is not forgiveness… they want you to simply ignore their sins!
We are put here to learn to judge righteous judgment; to learn to judge like God judges, for in the future, judgment of the nations will be given to the saints of the Most High (Daniel 7:22). If God won’t forgive US without repentance, neither should we forgive those who sin against us without repentance. Another, much clearer command is found in Luke 17:3-4. Here again, Jesus says you must forgive your brother but does He list any prerequisites for that forgiveness? In other words, must your brother DO anything BEFORE you forgive him?
Jesus says if your brother trespasses against you, REBUKE him! That’s a sharp, stern condemnation! So if your brother steals from you, say something like “hey! You’ve stolen from me, now pay it back!” That’s judging him! And AFTER your rebuke him, there is an “IF”! Why does no one read that IF? Jesus COMMANDED you to rebuke your sinning brother, and IF he repents, then – and only then – you should forgive him! If you tell your brother he stole from you, and he says “well, I had every right to take it – you weren’t taking care of it! And besides, I needed it more than you do! How dare you judge me!” – then there is not a single command in the Bible for you to forgive that rebellious brother! BECAUSE HE HAS NOT YET REPENTED!
That’s a sharp departure from standard Protestant thinking. Yet it is exactly what the Bible says. Does God forgive people without repentance? What will God require of Israel before He forgives them? 1 Kings 8:46-50. Did God forgive Bethsaida and Chorazin for their sins? Why not? Matthew 11:20-24. Will God kill everyone unless they repent? Luke 13:1-5. What must happen before your sins are blotted out? Acts 3:19. Are all men commanded to repent? Acts 17:30. If men do not repent, what will God do? Revelation 2:5, 16, 21-22.
Are there some people God will not forgive? Nahum 1:3. Will He forgive a guilty person who has not repented? Numbers 14:18. Does God enjoy killing sinners? What does He want? Ezekiel 33:11. Does God sometimes require PROOF of this repentance before He forgives us? Acts 26:20. What condition did John the Baptist put on baptism? Luke 3:8. John had good reason to doubt the intentions of these Pharisees; to doubt the sincerity of their “repentance”. So John required fruits – proof – they had repented. Then he would have been happy to forgive them, or rather, to baptize them so that God would. These are all examples for us – to judge as God judges. God makes a judgment – says that someone has sinned, and such and such is the penalty.
Then when – IF – the person repents, God forgives them. Otherwise, He will “by no means clear the guilty”. And why should He? The whole point of repentance is to give a person a chance to do better next time. If they don’t believe they have done anything wrong what’s the point of canceling the penalty for their sins?? They can’t do better next time because as far as they are concerned, they did just fine this time!
DON’T FORGIVE THE GUILTY
This is our example. When you judge someone for sinning against you personally, IF they repent, you MUST forgive them (Luke 11:4). And since God is our perfect example, we forgive those who sin against us in the exact same way as God forgives those who sin against Him. It’s a simple, three step process:
1. Judgment – a sin has been committed.
2. Sentencing – the penalty for that sin.
3a. IF he repents, forgive him. Or
3b. If he doesn’t repent, don’t forgive him.
Some will say “Not forgiving someone?? That’s not Christian!” – so you can ask them “has God forgiven Satan?” They will surely respond with something like “well, God still loves Satan, but He has to imprison him for everyone else’s good” – and you can respond “exactly!” See, that’s all you’re doing here. This person sinned against you. This doesn’t mean you have free license to steal from them, lie to them, kill them – it simply means they owe you a debt (Matthew 5:43-48).
You’re expected to treat those who sin against you exactly as your Father in heaven treats them! With LOVE! Because you’re still bound to obey every single law against them, which is the definition of love (Romans 13:8). But sometimes love requires you to shun someone to show them their behavior is unacceptable to you. Which is exactly how God treats us! (Proverbs 15:29). Does God ever tell you to shun anyone?
2 Thessalonians 3:14. Should you avoid a brother who “walks disorderly”? Verse 6. Should you even refuse to eat at the same table as an idolatrous brother? 1 Corinthians 5:9-11. If you continue to associate with this person who has harmed you, whom who have rebuked and who refuses to make it right… you are tacitly accepting that person’s behaviour. You are condoning their sin by tolerating it. That doesn’t help that person – it just encourages them to do the same, and worse, to someone else. How is that an act of love?
HIS MERCY… FAILS?
When someone repents, they should receive mercy. But there are times when you have a right to be suspicious of someone’s “repentance” (Luke 3:8). …Such as when they’ve said “I’m sorry” over and over again and yet never actually changed. Israel is an excellent example of this. Start reading in Judges 2:11-15. Israel sinned, God punished them, and they repented. God promptly raised up a judge because He felt sorry for them, the judge
delivered them from the punishment (Judges 2:16). But they mostly ignored the judge, sinned, and as soon as the judged died, they sinned even more (Judges 2:17-19). So God cursed them a bit (Judges 2:20-21), and the cycle was repeated (Judges 3:7-11), they repented again (Judges 3:12-15, 30). And then it was repeated again (Judges 4:1-3, 23-24). And again (Judges 6:1-7). But this time, God was a bit testy before He simply “forgave” them, He gave them a stern lecture (Judges 6:6-10), but He did deliver them again, and in a particularly spectacular fashion (Judges 7:1-22), and eventually Israel was saved (Judges 8:28). And guess what? The cycle happened again! (Judges 7:33-34).
The process of getting out of the punishment was much more complicated this time, and it isn’t clear exactly what happened. Nevertheless, when it was over… Israel sinned again! (Judges 10:6). And God again punished them with slavery (Judges 10:7-9). And Israel again repented!Judges 10:10. But how did God respond this time? Did He again give them mercy – which they had proven for nearly 400 years that they did not deserve, appreciate, or learn anything from?Judges 10:11-14.
God refused to forgive them, saying “go to your other gods, get THEM to save you!” In spite of that, God, being the softy that He is, was touched by their efforts this time (Judges 10:15-16), and did deliver them one last time. But this was basically the death knell of the judges period – after this, God put into motion a chain of events that led to them getting a king, which led to a completely new series of problems.
And for the next 500 years judges, kings, sins and captivities went by, with Israel repenting regularly and sinning even more regularly, and God finally said something that simply doesn’t fit with most people’s idea of God; does God ever get tired of repenting? Jeremiah 15:6. Can a people’s repeated repentance get so tiresome to God, that even if men God really liked such as Moses and Samuel interceded for people, God wouldn’t listen?Jeremiah 15:1.
What did they do to the prophets and teachers God sent them? 2 Chronicles 36:16. And did it get so bad, that God would no longer forgive them, no matter what they said or did? Same verse, and 2 Kings 23:25-26. Three generations after King Manasseh’s sins, a great king repented for Israel, and while God briefly postponed the punishment nothing he could say would change God’s mind this time! Did God promise there would come a time when He would not listen to them? 1 Samuel 8:18. Did God refuse to pardon Saul? 1 Samuel 15:24-29. Did God refuse to accept Esau’s repentance? Hebrews 12:17. What did Joshua say about God’s forgiveness? Joshua 24:19.
MERCY IS NOT KINDNESS
If that’s true, why does Psalms say over and over “His mercy endures forever”? Well, it doesn’t. Not really. Psalms 136 is translated from Hebrew, and in Hebrew the word for mercy is racham. This word, used in verses like Proverbs 28:13, actually means mercy – the forgiveness of a judgment. But the vast majority of times you read the word “mercy” in the OT, it was translated from a different Hebrew word, chesed. Chesed’s root word is chasad, which according to Strong’s means “to be good, be kind”. Not “to be merciful”, and not “to forgive sins”.
So all of those Psalms that say “His mercy endures forever” should be translated “His KINDNESS endures forever”. It makes much more sense in the context. Furthermore, you should be on your guard in the OT, for there are 149 “mercy’s” that should read “kindness”.God used different words for a reason. When He meant forgiveness of sins – mercy – He said so. When He meant simply “kindness”, He said so. He doesn’t jumble mercy, kindness, love, compassion, and patience together in one big lump because each word has a distinctly different meaning! Mercy is NOT love. Mercy is NOT kindness. Mercy is mercy! It is important that you use the word God inspired, and not confuse it with other words.
Why does God’s mercy fail? Jonah 2:8. [Note: mercy here is actually kindness, but it’s still the same answer.] Does God take away His mercy from people? Jeremiah 16:5. [This time, mercy is translated from racham, which actually does mean mercy.] Sometimes, after you sin repeatedly or show clear evidence your heart is not in the right place, does God demand proof that you have indeed repented? Matthew 3:7-8.
John KNEW these Pharisees were the same sort of people who had been sinning, repenting, being forgiven, and then sinning again for 1,500 years. And he KNEW their repentance, even though they SAID they repented, and might have even meant it on some level, would not be genuine! So he demanded FRUITS – WORKS to prove they really HAD repented! At best, their repentance was motivated by fear of the coming wrath of God. Getting baptized out of hope that God will save you from the terrors in Revelation is not repentance; your beast was just afraid of plagues. And while that might scare you into righteousness for a few years, it will never produce true conversion because your soul didn’t love God, your beast was just scared of Him.
HOW TO TEST REPENTANCE
But many will say “but God told Peter even if his brother sinned against him 490 times (70×7), and repents, he MUST forgive him!” (Matthew 18:22). And that is true! But what IS repentance? Is it just mumbling the word “sorry”? Ezekiel 18:30-32. Repentance is seeing your works, hating them, and stopping them. So if someone comes to God and says “I repent of stealing” – while their hand is AT THAT VERY MINUTE in the cookie jar – then IT ISN’T REPENTANCE!
God IS patient, and will forgive people over and over again; and He’s willing to give us the benefit of the doubt. But the more you rebel, the more He will have to see actual PROOF you’ve changed before He forgives you. Why did Paul receive mercy? 1 Timothy 1:13. Paul received mercy because he was ignorant; this ties back to grace again, for where there is no law, there is no sin (Romans 4:15). His sins didn’t count because he didn’t know they were sins! On the other hand, when someone knows the law and repeatedly rebels, can there be a sacrifice to cover their sins? Hebrews 10:26.
If someone tells us they repent, we should give them the same benefit of the doubt we expect God to give us – on the other hand, if we have a serious, plausible reason to doubt their repentance, we have God’s and John’s example to ask for proof of that repentance before we accept them as a brother again. You’re not loving the sinner by tolerating his sin, or accepting a half-hearted effort as good enough. You’re hating him (Proverbs 13:24). You’re breaking the command of God not to allow a brother to sin without rebuking him (Leviticus 19:17), and so you’re bearing sin for him (see the KJV margin on that verse). Tolerance is not love. Excessive patience is not love. If you love someone, get them to depart from evil.
THE SOURCE OF ANGER
Is it wrong to be angry? Ephesians 4:26. Was Jesus our perfect example? 1 Peter 2:21. Did Jesus ever get angry? John 2:13-17. Does God get angry? Isaiah 13:9, Numbers 11:1, etc. How long does God’s anger last? Psalms 30:5. Is it difficult to get God angry? Psalms 103:8. Does He hold grudges forever? Psalms 103:9. What would happen if God didn’t control His anger? Isaiah 57:16-17. Was Moses ever angry (“wroth” in the KJV)? Numbers 16:15. Was David? 2 Samuel 13:21. Are men of God ever angry? 2 Kings 13:19. Was Elihu justly angry with Job and his friends (for different reasons)? Job 32:2-5. So clearly, anger isn’t bad, per se.
But what, exactly, gets angry? Is it the soul, the beast, or the spirit? Before we get to the scriptures, ask yourself which of your own “I’s” is the source of your anger. Think back to the last few times you were angry; what do they have in common? What makes you angry? Seriously, think about it. At its most basic level, anger is a response to injustice. It’s an instinctive, very literal, interpretation of the golden rule: You slapped me; I didn’t like it; to show you that, I do the exact same to you, to teach you what it feels like. Thus, I do to you what you have done to others.
When your boss’s nephew gets the promotion you deserved, that’s unjust; so you’re angry. When someone cuts you off in traffic, that’s contrary to the golden rule, so you get angry. All the things that make you angry in the world result from seeing something your spirit considers an injustice. And this is, of course, a great thing. It’s exactly what your conscience is supposed to do! So there is a place for anger in the spirit of every true Christian. But what place? When and how should we be angry? James 1:19-20. What stirs up anger? Proverbs 15:1. And what avoids trouble? Proverbs 15:18. Should you never get angry – or only get angry slowly? Proverbs 16:32. Notice that to get angry slowly, you must rule your spirit!
You have a right to be angry when you are stolen from. You have a right to be angry at the works of darkness that happen in this world. Because being angry with someone can shock them into repentance (Proverbs 25:23). So anger is good – if the motivations for it are truly righteous. Are you angry because someone’s injustice is hurting them… or because they are hurting you? Romans 12:19. It is just to smite a man on the cheek when he has smitten you first. You owe him, the LAW owes him! (Leviticus 24:20).
Read Mark 3:1-5; it was wrong of them to be so calloused that they would forbid healing a man on the Sabbath – which, let’s be honest, didn’t really take any human work at all! But their church had decided it was a sin without any facts to support them! Just their own traditions! And that injustice made Jesus ANGRY with them, and rightly so! Compare to Job 32:1-5 and Job 42:7. Anger inspires vengeance (Micah 5:15), and you should be READY in your mind to avenge all disobedience (2 Corinthians 10:6)… but only when your own obedience is full! And it isn’t… because your spirit still isn’t trustworthy!
You get angry because the law has been broken (Romans 4:15). Actually, that’s not quite true, which is the problem… you get angry because your understanding of the law has been broken! And that’s why James 1:19-20 tells you to make sure you know what you’re talking about before you get angry! Make sure you’ve listened to the other side of the story before you get angry… because wrath born of man’s opinions doesn’t cause the righteousness of God! Acts 19:28.
These Ephesians were angry because Paul had committed blasphemy against Diana, a horrible sin… TO THEM. Were they interested in hearing the truth? Or just barking their way to dominance? Acts 19:33-35. So when someone cuts you off in traffic and you ask for God to damn them, is that really the righteousness of God you’re working… or is it just your spirit angered because your beast was inconvenienced? Ecclesiastes 7:9.
THE VALUE OF ANGER
It is the spirit which gets angry. It is, therefore, the spirit which much be taught mercy. Your spirit is intended to store the record of right and wrong as you understand it. It is the law you live by; and law causes wrath. Wrath causes judgment, and judgment causes vengeance. And these are all good things… in a strictly OC context. But read Nahum 1:1-6. If God gave any of us what we deserve… who could survive? Psalms 39:11. And so it is good that God is “slow to anger”. And since we’re in training to do His job with Him, we must be as well (Ephesians 4:26).
We are commanded to “be angry, and sin not”. Because we are also commanded to “not let the sun go down on our wrath”. We must go and tell our brother his fault, express our anger to him, (Matthew 18:15, Proverbs 25:8-12), and resolve it that same day, before it festers into a towering rage. Because the goal is not to see vengeance done; the goal is not to see people “paid back” for their sins against God or against us. The goal is for people to change and become like God, even as we are trying to change and become more like God. If someone is properly repaid for their sins, can that happen? Isaiah 38:17-18.
So it is necessary for man not to feel the full extent of the law, or none would survive to puberty. This, you will recall, is the purpose of grace. Then why have the harsh OC law at all, where a man died without mercy? Well, think about Leviticus 24:17-22. This is a harsh, merciless law, but look at what it creates… an artificial golden rule! See, if you don’t put a safety railing on a porch, someone could fall off. But if you knew that exactly what happens to him will happen to you… it means that you do to him exactly what you want done to you! And thus you will build a fence to prevent anything from happening to him! (Deuteronomy 22:8).
If you don’t want a broken arm, don’t break his! If you don’t want an eye put out, don’t put out his! If you know that what you do to your neighbor will immediately be done to you, you are FORCED to think of his welfare as you think of your own! The OC was designed to instill the habit of the golden rule… love your neighbor as yourself! All of the laws were given as examples to help them understand that. And it was truly a great system, one that if kept would make everyone happy and live a long and fruitful life (Galatians 3:12). Thus the wrath of God creates the righteousness of man! (Romans 1:17-18).
And yet, that’s only the habit of righteousness. Their spirit can learn these rules, and require the heart to live by them. But the law is based on the authority of Moses! (John 5:45, John 7:19). And therefore, can be edited by anyone who has current authority over the people… a bad king, a foreign government, or even their own out-of-control heart! That’s the problem… Israel’s soul wasn’t in charge, their beast was. And God gave them fences to keep it contained so that their soul wouldn’t be required! It required a mediator, an external “soul”, to make judgments on matters not covered by the letters of the law contained in their spirit!
And that’s the problem with the wrath of the OC law. It cannot create good souls… only good spirits. The creation of good souls requires exercise in judgments (Hebrews 5:14) which the OC didn’t allow! (Galatians 3:10, James 4:10). The OC law was a great system ONLY as long as it was enforced by incorruptible, impartial souls! But those don’t yet exist! And mercy is necessary to create them!
THE VALUE OF MERCY
If you want to create spirits that are thoroughly educated in the concept of fair and proportional response, by all means, trip everyone who trips you, slap everyone who slaps you, and hate everyone who hates you. They will learn that hurting you hurts them, and they will stop hurting you; and that’s a great thing. But it doesn’t help them become better souls, only better spirits. The only way to create better souls is to force them to judge themselves!
And that’s why mercy exists. If someone steals your cloak and you in turn steal his, you have executed fair and proper judgment. And he will have learned not to steal… a cloak… from you… this time. But what about a sandwich? Or what about someone else’s cloak? What about tomorrow? By punishing him, you have taught him that when he is out of line someone else will control him. But by extending him mercy on the condition he do better next time, he is given a powerful motivation not to do better next time!
The goal of NC righteousness is to be capable of judging and controlling yourself (1 Corinthians 11:28, 31). Of teaching your SOUL to judge your spirit and your beast in righteousness. And MERCY gives a man that opportunity! When a man is punished under the law, he is taught to yield to external authority, the judgments of other souls. But when a man is forgiven he is taught to yield to an internal authority, the judgment of his own soul to avoid the judgments of others in the future!
As you know, it’s hard to break your spirit and rule your heart. Your soul just doesn’t know how, and they’re so much better at rebelling than your soul is at ruling. We’ll talk more about that in the future. But the beauty of anger, judgment, and mercy is that it helps your soul catch up to your beast and spirit! Jude 1:22 (Weymouth) Some, when they argue with you, you must endeavour to convince; Jude 1:23 (Webster) And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire;…
The judgment of Moses terrifies the heart with fear of death for its sins. The judgment of Moses convinces the spirit that its own opinion is indeed wrong. So when Jesus offers them a way out if they obey your soul next time, they just might be scared enough to try it! So the purpose of judgment is to frighten the beast and break the spirit, and then mercy rejoices to offer forgiveness if they “sin no more”! Giving both a powerful motivation to obey their own soul! Which is the goal of all NC righteousness, to teach people to rule themselves inside and out!
SPIRIT OF MERCY
Many people believe that doing the dishes after every meal is the right thing to do. And this is certainly a logical thing to do; for if you use it and clean it right away, you’ll always have a clean home, and the dishes will always be ready to use. This is the kind of rule that the spirit makes, and it’s certainly good… But is it really the best thing to do? Because it takes much more time to wash, dry, and store the dishes three times a day than it does to do all the days’ dishes at once! But that’s not how the spirit works. It is literally the embodiment of the phrase “it’s the principle of the thing”.
Likewise, when someone wrongs us, our spirit really doesn’t care about the big picture. It doesn’t care about the great things this sinner might do tomorrow if he were forgiven for this sin today. All it cares about is “the principle of the thing”. It wants justice, no matter what the cost. Condemning those who wronged us is righteous (Psalms 15:4). And wanting them to be punished is also righteous. But it’s not necessarily good. Because beyond the righteousness of the law is the goodness of the law (Proverbs 11:23).
The goal of the law is to punish the sinners, in the hopes of preventing future sins, and there is no room for mercy in the righteousness of the law (Hebrews 10:28). Your own spirit echoes this principle, by wanting to teach the aggressor a lesson… and if you can’t, to create laws to protect yourself from ever being hurt again. But the goal of creation is not to kill sinners. Our hearts only think of themselves; our spirits only think of their rules. It requires a soul to look beyond both and see the big picture. To get past the pain and injustice of this sin and realize that this person may be your brother someday if God doesn’t kill them for this sin (Acts 7:59-60).
So when a man steals from you, ask yourself – will he be best served by going to jail? By paying back what he stole? Or by your mercy, given to him after his repentance? Which will best teach HIM to become more like God? (You should actually ask, because it’s not always the same answer!) This is a decision that your beast, selfish as it is, cannot make. It is something that your spirit, unable to get past the obsession with the letters of its own arbitrary laws, does not do by nature (Proverbs 14:29). This is a decision your soul must make, and teach its spirit to understand and like.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
You know I like summing up lessons in one verse, to show you that if you had really read the Bible with open eyes, you could have saved yourself reading this lesson and just read a single verse instead. Well, this lesson is summed up in… Proverbs 19:11 (NET) A person’s wisdom makes him slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. Your spirit loves the judgments of the law as it understands it. But it must learn that mercy is a higher law, part of the bigger picture. It must learn not to rejoice because the sinner got what he deserved (Proverbs 24:17-18), nor to stress because he didn’t (Proverbs 24:19-20).
It must be taught to focus on a greater good than the right and wrong of this moment. It must learn to glory that it was able to overlook the offense, and rejoice that the sinner hasn’t gotten what he “deserved”, so he, like you, still has a chance to act more like God tomorrow. And that can only be taught to a meek spirit, by a good soul. Read Romans 5:6-9. What is the difference between a “good” and a “righteous” man? It seems like splitting hairs, and yet Paul seemed to think it was a difference between someone you’d give your life to save, and someone you wouldn’t.
A righteous man will seek justice on every sinner who wrongs anyone, for any reason. A righteous man will be absolutely trustworthy, but no man will owe him anything, for any good he does will come from the law. It is the law that is good, not the man – he is simply righteous. But a good man forgives those who sin against him. They owed him a debt, and he forgave it – in some cases, they owed him their life (Philemon 1:18-19). No one would die for a by-the-book law worshiper… but for a man like that, some might just be willing to die.
Joseph believed Mary was a fornicator who lied about her virginity (Matthew 1:18-19), which was a death penalty under the law (Deuteronomy 22:13-14, 20-21). Joseph’s assumption was, to be fair, a logical one. Occam’s razor does prefer “slut” to “virginally conceived”. But who was wronged by this? Joseph. So as the one sinned against, he had the right not to prosecute. What would be gained by her death? Did Israel need another example of what happens when you sin? They had an example such as this regularly, apparently (John 8:3-5).
Assuming he had been right, having her stoned was the righteous thing to do under the law. But not necessarily the good thing to do. Not necessarily what a just man would do, which the Bible says Joseph was. This would not have been easy for Joseph to do. Turn on the TV (doesn’t matter what channel) to see how a beast reacts to an unfaithful spouse, and what the spirit does in response – even if they were “on a break”. But Joseph’s soul sought the good of all, not just the good of the law, and certainly not the satisfaction of his own spirit!
And it was from that example of goodness that Jesus drew His first example, and became a good man Himself; a man willing to die for those who do not deserve it (Romans 5:6, 8), asking God to forgive those who are even then killing Him (Luke 23:34), after they repent (Acts 3:14-19). A Man who, like His stepfather, understood that stoning a woman for adultery that the law might be satisfied was less important than a chance to get that same soul to learn to “sin no more” (John 8:10-11).
But the law cannot simply be ignored; for Jesus loved the law fully as much as He loved this woman (Psalms 119:163). Jesus knew that for this adulteress to be forgiven by the law, someone would have to die in her place. So Jesus went beyond that righteous Being He was as a God in the OT and became a good Man (Hebrews 5:7-8, 2); He went beyond His stepfather’s example, for Joseph was a compassionate enough man that he would not avenge himself against his adulterous betrothed; but Jesus was willing to die for His own adulterous fiancee. And that takes a much better man.