December 24

He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. — Titus 3:5 BSB

To truly understand the nature of mercy, we must go to Calvary. It’s not enough to compare God’s purity with man’s impurity. While that does give us some idea of what mercy must be to reach the depths of our fall, it only shows us a partial view of this precious attribute. To see its full display shining upon the redeemed, we must, by faith and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, behold Immanuel—God with us—groveling in the garden of Gethsemane. We must see Him naked upon the cross, groaning, bleeding, agonizing, and dying. We must witness the union of Godhead and manhood in the suffering Jesus, with the power of His divinity sustaining His suffering humanity. Only by contemplating this wondrous display of love and blood, and feeling our hearts melt in humility, sorrow, and contrition, can we begin to comprehend the depth of God’s tender mercy. Nothing else can truly break the sinner’s heart.

“Law and terrors do but harden,
All the while they work alone;
But a sense of blood-bought pardon
Soon dissolves a heart of stone.”

The terrors of the law, the fear of death and judgment, the thought of God’s infinite purity and eternal wrath—these alone will not soften or break a sinner’s heart. But when a sinner is led to see a suffering Immanuel, and when the sweet testimony of the Spirit rises in their conscience, assuring them that Christ’s sufferings were for them—this, and this alone, will break their heart completely. It is only by bringing a deep sense of Christ’s love and His blood-bought pardon into the sinner’s heart that the Holy Spirit reveals to them the depths of God’s tender mercy.