The Mercy

Two men went up into the temple to pray, and the Lord tells us how each prayed, and how each went home. The one, a Pharisee, stood and prayed with himself, and his prayer was a recital of his own virtues. God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, and he named his fasts and his tithes, and looked down on the publican beside him. The other, a publican, a despised tax collector, stood afar off, would not so much as lift his eyes to heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. And the Lord gave his verdict. This man went down to his house justified rather than the other.

Look closely at the publican’s prayer, for it is one of the greatest ever prayed, and it is only seven words. God, the address, to whom alone he turns. Be merciful, the plea, for he asks not justice, which would undo him, but mercy. To me, the personal, for he does not pray in general but brings his own particular soul before God. And a sinner, the confession, and in the original it is sharper still, the sinner, as though he were the only one, alone with his sin before God. There is nothing in the prayer but God and mercy and himself and his sin, and it is enough, for it is everything true.

THE ONLY PRAYER THAT JUSTIFIES

The publican brought nothing to God but his sin and his need, and he went home justified. The Pharisee brought his righteousness, his fasts and tithes and his careful comparison of himself with worse men, and he went home as he came, unjustified, though he had done, by every outward measure, far more than the publican. This is the scandal and the whole hope of the gospel, that the kingdom is entered by the plea for mercy and not by the claim of merit, that the one thing which shuts a man out is the belief that he has something to bring, and the one thing that lets him in is the honest confession that he has nothing but his sin.

So the prayer for mercy is the only prayer that justifies, because it is the only prayer that tells the truth about us. We are not as the Pharisee imagined himself, righteous and superior and in credit with God. We are as the publican knew himself, sinners with nothing to plead but mercy. And the wonder is that this is the very prayer God delights to answer, for he resists the proud but gives grace to the humble, and the cry for mercy is the cry he has bound himself to hear.

THE CONSTANT CRY

This publican’s prayer became, in the ancient church, the pattern of a prayer to be prayed without ceasing, the plea for mercy joined to the name of Jesus, said over and over until it sinks into the heart. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. It is the publican’s prayer still, only now addressed through the name of the Savior in whom mercy came. And it runs all through the Gospels on the lips of the desperate. Blind Bartimaeus cried, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me. The ten lepers cried, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. The plea for mercy is the note the needy soul sounds again and again, and it is never once refused.

For mercy is not a thing we ask once and then move beyond, graduating into some higher prayer for the advanced. The deeper a soul goes with God, the more it lives on mercy, the more constant becomes its cry for it, for the nearer we come to the light the more clearly we see our own need of cleansing. The greatest saints were the ones most given to the prayer for mercy, not because they had sinned more than others, but because they saw more truly, and living in the light they lived on mercy, and made the publican’s cry the very breath of their souls.

AFAR OFF, YET COME

Mark the publican’s posture, for it teaches the humility of true prayer. He stood afar off, not presuming to come near; he would not lift his eyes, but cast them down; he smote upon his breast, in the grief of a man who knows his own guilt. There is no boldness of presumption here, no easy familiarity, but the deep lowliness of a soul that knows what it is before a holy God. And yet, and this is essential, he came. He stood afar off, but he came to the temple; he would not lift his eyes, but he lifted his voice; he did not stay away in despair, but drew near, humbly, and cried. The humility that knows its sin must not become the despair that will not come at all.

This is the narrow path the sinner must walk, between the presumption that comes carelessly, as though sin were a small thing, and the despair that will not come at all, as though sin were too great for mercy. The publican walked it. He came, and he came trembling; he drew near, and he drew near afar off; he prayed, and his prayer was all confession and all plea. Come so. Do not presume, and do not despair, but come as the publican came, afar off and yet come, with nothing but the cry for mercy, and go home, as he did, justified.

MERCY RECEIVED, MERCY SHOWN

And the one who has received mercy must show it, for the mercy we plead for we are bound to extend. The Lord told of a servant forgiven a debt he could never have paid, who went out and seized a fellowservant by the throat for a trifling debt, and would not forgive, and his lord, hearing of it, delivered him to the tormentors. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, the lord said, even as I had pity on thee? The unmerciful heart has not understood the mercy it received. Blessed are the merciful, the Lord said, for they shall obtain mercy, and the soul that truly lives on mercy becomes merciful, unable to withhold from others what it daily receives from God.

THE THRONE OF GRACE

We might fear that a mercy so often asked would at last be exhausted, that we could wear out the patience of God with our endless returning for the same forgiveness. But the mercy of God is not a dwindling store. He is rich in mercy, the apostle says, not merely possessed of some mercy but rich in it, with an abundance that our sins can never drain. His mercy endureth for ever, the psalmist sings, and sings it over and over, six and twenty times in a single psalm, as though no soul could hear it often enough, his mercy endureth for ever. There is no bottom to it, no end of it, no day on which the returning sinner will find the mercy spent.

And so we are bidden to come, not timidly, but boldly. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, the apostle says, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. It is called a throne of grace, not a throne of judgment, for the one who sits on it toward his own is the Lamb who was slain, and the scepter he holds out is mercy. The sinner who comes for mercy comes not to a bar of justice where his sins will be weighed against him, but to a throne of grace where mercy is dispensed to the needy, and he may come boldly, not because he is worthy, but because the throne is a throne of grace.

For at the cross, mercy and justice met and were reconciled, so that God could be both just and the justifier of the one who believes. The mercy we receive is not a setting aside of justice, a looking the other way, but a justice fully satisfied in Christ, who bore the judgment our sins deserved, so that mercy might flow to us freely and righteously. This is why mercy rejoiceth against judgment, as the apostle says; not that judgment is ignored, but that in Christ mercy has triumphed over it, having met its every demand. The throne is a throne of grace because the judgment fell already, on him.

So never let the greatness of your sin, or the frequency of your returning, keep you from the throne. The mercy is richer than your sin is great, and more enduring than your failures are many, and the throne you come to is a throne of grace, where the scepter of mercy is held out to the sinner who cries for it. Come boldly, come often, come with the publican’s cry, and you will find not a mercy running low but a mercy that endureth for ever, and a God who is rich in it, and glad to give.

So pray the publican’s prayer, and make it the breath of your soul. Bring nothing to God but your sin and your need, for that is the only prayer that justifies. Do not presume, and do not despair, but come afar off and yet come, with the cry for mercy on your lips. Live on mercy, the deeper the further you go, and show to others the mercy you daily receive. For the Pharisee with his full hands went home unjustified, and the publican with his empty hands and his broken cry went home right with God. God be merciful to me a sinner. There is no better prayer, and no soul that prayed it truly was ever turned away.