What is Truth? Mercy!

What is Truth? Mercy!

“What is truth?” (John 18:38).

TRUTH: (Hebrew, “emet;” Greek, “aletheia”) Truth is the only absolute in the world. If everything else in the world falls apart, only Truth will remain standing. The building blocks of all creation; the framework upon which we build our faith; the true Reality that has established the world’s reality; that which can never be truly altered or changed; that which is universally trustworthy as facts of life; the foundation of what is truly real in our experience; the plumblines from which to measure our lives; that which is common knowledge in God’s mind; that which lines up with God’s perspectives; established facts from God as opposed to a person’s changeable opinions or preferences; that which is solid and certain as opposed to a lie, deceit, an illusion or superstition; the tangible fundamentals issued forth from the intangible mind of God. Truth is always true even when discounted or disbelieved. Since the Almighty God is the ultimate source of all truth, then it follows that the Father God is Truth, the Lord Jesus is Truth, and the Holy Spirit is Truth.

“All the Lord’s ways reveal mercy and truth. I will sing of Yahweh’s mercy forever, and with my mouth I will make Your truth known to all generations. For I will declare that Your mercy stands forever, and Your truth is as permanent as the heavens above. God will establish the King’s throne in mercy, and He will rule in truth. Mercy and truth will then stand in Your presence and walk before You as His attendants.” (Ps. 25:10; 89:1-2; Isaiah 16:5; Psalm 89:14).  

Mercy: Eager love-in-action; steadfast kindness; loyal compassion; faithful favor; the ardent desire to do good to someone; the deep love reserved for someone in an intimate relationship, and if there is no prior relationship, the strong desire to treat someone as if that relationship existed; God’s eternal love and commitment established in the Covenant with His chosen people; the quality of God that needs to be understood in the search for wisdom. “Who is wise and will guard these things and will understand the mercy of the Lord?” (Ps.107:43).

Mercy and Truth. Truth and Mercy… Two eternal realities that are frequently joined together in Scripture. There are sixteen passages in the Word in which mercy and truth are spoken in the same breath and seem to be accepted as parallel qualities of God’s character. Mercy and truth are in such union that it appears they are inside each other, much like the two-in-one union of marriage. In fact, one translation has, instead of mercy and truth meeting together, “mercy and truth have married each other.” (Ps. 85:10, TPT). The Bible leaves no doubts that mercy and truth are joined at the hip. We can’t have one without the other. For nothing in the universe could be more true than mercy, and nothing could be more merciful than truth. Mercy and truth are not two sides of the same coin, they are on the same side fused together, with Jesus Himself remaining fully on the other side of that coin. It appears that truth has a tender heart… mercy. And mercy has an objective mind… truth.

Understanding Mercy. Clearly, as noted above, the wise person is one who understands The Mercy, God’s mercy. So it would serve the believer welI to “stand under” mercy, gaze upon it, soak in it, practice it, and truly understand it. With thanks to Keren Pryor and Cindy Lou Elliott of HIS-ISRAEL.com, let’s see what mercy looks like in Hebrew Scriptures. “The fullness of Biblical mercy is revealed in a combination of three Hebrew words:

1. Rachem – the Hebrew word most often translated as mercy in the Jewish Old Testament, the Tanakh. It is related to the Hebrew word for womb, and so rachem is a tender, protected place where life springs forth. To live in God’s rachemis to live in God’s womb.
2. Hesed – A Hebrew word most often translated as loving-kindness but also as mercy. Hesedis relational mercy, covenantal faithfulness and devoted love.
3. Chanan – the Hebrew word translated as mercy in the context of pity, forgiveness and grace.”

A Scriptural example would be Psalm 86:15, But you, O Lord, are a God merciful (rachem) and gracious (chanan), slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness (hesed) and truth.

Mercy in the Past, Present and Future. So, earnestly do we want to look into the past and recognize how God has shown mercy, as David did in Ps. 13:5, “I have trusted in your mercy.” We want to consider the present, in the dark and confusion, and ask good questions, and still confidently trust in The Mercy, like David did in Ps. 52:8, “I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.” And we want to look at the future, into the unknown, and hope in His mercy as Jeremiah did in Lamentations 3:21-24, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore will I hope in him.”

THOUGHTS AND VERSES ON MERCY:

1. “Without the word ‘mercy,’ the Bible is a dead book in which there is no revelation of God at all.”

“Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.”  (Micah 7:18-19)

2. “The root of all of God’s activity in this world, beginning even with the world’s creation, is Mercy.”

“The Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world… For a child has been born to us, and authority has settled on his shoulders. He has been named ‘The Mighty God is Planning Grace; The Eternal Father, a Peaceable Ruler.’ O LORD, You are my God; I will extol you, I will praise Your Name. For You planned graciousness of old, counsels of steadfast faithfulness.” (Rev. 13:8; Isaiah 9:5 and 25:1; Tanakh version)

3. “Mercy is the cause and reason of all that God does. God does nothing, absolutely nothing, except as an expression of His Mercy.”

“I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my Name… ‘The LORD! The LORD! A God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin.” (Exodus 33:19, 34:6-7)

4. “His Mercy stretches out to both extremes of infinity. All we will ever discover of God will be the deepening levels of His great, abundant, overflowing, rich, endless Mercy.”

“I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth.” (Psalm 108:3-5)

5. “When we deal with God, everything is Mercy. Everything else that can be said of God is but an aspect of His Mercy.”

“Though he was in the form of God, he did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at. Rather, he emptied himself and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. He was known to be of human estate, and it was thus that he humbled himself, obediently accepting even death, death on a cross! (Philippians 2:6-8)

6. “‘For His Mercy endures forever’ lies under each line of Holy Scripture, and is the eternal song of the saints.”

“Enter His gates with thanksgiving; go into His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and call upon His Name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting; His faithfulness endures from age to age.” (Psalm 100:3-4)

7. “It is better to limit belief in God’s power than to dampen faith in God’s mercy. Between mercy and power, mercy takes precedence – and to the mercy of Heaven there is no limit.”

“The Lord’s mercies never cease, His compassions never fail. They are renewed every morning. Great is your faithfulness! The Lord is my portion, He is all I have, therefore I have hope in Him.” (Lamentations 3:21-24)

8. “Mercy is the defining explanation of everything that God has revealed of Himself. Mercy is the explanation of every single thought that God has with respect to us.”

“‘I beseech you, Lord,’ he prayed, ‘is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I fled at first to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, rich in kindness, loathe to punish.” (Jonah 4:2)

9. “Mercy rather than justice is regarded as the outstanding attribute of God.”

“Rend your hearts rather than your garments, and turn back to the Lord your God. For He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, and renouncing punishment.” (Joel 2:13)

10. “Beyond all mystery is the mercy of God. It is a love, a mercy that transcends the world, its value and merit. To live by such a love, to reflect it, however numbly, is the test of religious existence.”

“We are only on the outer fringes of Your works! How faint the whisper we hear of You! I am unworthy – How can I reply to You? I put my hand over my mouth. Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” (Job 26:14, 40:4, 42:36)

11. “The encounter with God’s Mercy, a celebration of God’s sustained and abundant Mercy, is the root of all Christian worship.”

“The trumpeters and singers joined in unison, as with one voice, to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, they raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang: ‘He is good; His mercy endures forever.’ Then the temple of the Lord was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.” (2 Chron. 5:13-14; see also 2 Chron.7:3, and Ezra 3:11)

 Bold Italics: #1 is Brother Rex Andrews from his book What the Bible Teaches About Mercy; #7 (Heavenly Torah), and #9 (A Passion for Truth), and #10 (God in Search of Man) are from Abraham Joshua Heschel; all the remaining quotes are from Rev. Patrick Henry Reardon’s book Christ in the Psalms. Italics: Verses from Holy Scripture, various translations. Compiled by Steve Larson.

Final Thought: “Never let go of mercy and truth. Don’t lose sight of them, don’t forget them at all costs. Engrave mercy and truth on a pendant and hang them on your neck wherever you go; meditate on them deeply so that they are written upon your heart.” (Proverbs 3:3).