The Old Testament abounds with references to God’s mercy. In Psalm 145, for example, David sings, “The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy” (verse 8). Among the meanings of the Hebrew words translated mercy are kindness, tender love, compassion, and pity.
One modern dictionary defines mercy as compassion or forgiveness bestowed on one who could otherwise be punished (New Oxford American Dictionary). Jesus’ reminder that God sends needed rain on the just and the unjust echoes this thought, while pointing to the truth that divine Love doesn’t see some as deserving of God’s total goodness and others as undeserving, but sees and loves each one of us as His pure, innocent child.
Mary Baker Eddy points out that this divine forgiveness doesn’t condone wrongdoing but wipes it out as no part of God’s creation—impossible under His government. She writes, “The pardon of divine mercy is the destruction of error” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 329). She pairs justice with mercy repeatedly, saying, for instance, “Justice is the handmaid of mercy” (p. 36).
