God’s mercy is very different from human mercy. We see that we do not yet know God well, but the more we read the Bible and the more time we spend with Him, the more we come to truly know Him.
God does not reveal Himself fully to people who have no real desire to know Him — unless He sees in someone a special heart that He can use. Through Scripture, we discover that God’s mercy is often completely different from how our society judges people. Let us find out five ways God’s mercy is shown to people in the Holy Bible.
1. God’s Mercy Toward Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. Not only that, she had been intimate with many married men — including, it seems, leaders within the religious establishment, one after another. This is precisely why the Pharisees were condemning her and preparing to stone her to death. Yet many of the very Pharisees ready to stone her had themselves been involved with her.
These were married men, leaders holding high positions in both the religious community and the government of Israel. Yet Jesus showed her mercy, and Jesus said:
John 8:7 — So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
Why did Jesus show mercy to this woman, someone whom even today’s society might judge harshly, while rebuking the religious leaders themselves? It is because what God considers good and evil is often very different from what society labels as good and evil.
As discussed in earlier posts, sex outside of marriage is not, in itself, the deepest offense, and nudity alone is not sinful. Sexual sin can certainly be offensive to God, but consensual relations outside of marriage are not what most deeply offends Him — whereas adultery, unfaithfulness within marriage, and deliberately manipulating people’s emotions and trust are deeply offensive to Him.
In this particular case, Mary Magdalene’s relationships with married men were indeed sinful. But Scripture reveals that what we do outwardly matters far less to God than who we fundamentally are — our character, our heart. Modern Christianity often focuses heavily on rebuking outward behaviors while overlooking the deeper need for a person’s character to be transformed by the righteousness of Jesus. Alcohol, drugs, sexual sin, and pornography are all outward struggles people face.
Yet there are far more serious sins that are rarely addressed in churches — selfishness, pride, apathy, and an unloving spirit. These are the things that truly define someone as far from God, regardless of whether they claim the name “Christian.” A person’s fruit, and their underlying character, reveal whether they truly belong to God or to the enemy.
2. God’s Mercy and the Pharisees
Someone struggling with alcohol or drug addiction can still be a loving, kind, and honest person at heart. Somewhere along the way, they fell into an addiction that now binds them. That person certainly needs freedom from that addiction — but people who appear outwardly sanctified, such as longtime church members, are sometimes far more spiritually corrupt than the very people they condemn.
Some church members are deeply selfish and proud — and these are, in fact, far more offensive sins in God’s eyes.
Proverbs 8:13 — The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.
This is a recurring theme throughout the Bible — God often rebukes His own people while welcoming those society considers irredeemable, because He sees something wonderful within them. The Pharisees worked hard to appear holy outwardly, yet true holiness does not come from outward works. Holiness is revealed in who we truly are. Only the power of God, called righteousness by faith, can give us the ability to genuinely do good — no other power can accomplish that. Humans, on their own, are incapable of producing any truly good impulse.
God’s mercy was extended to the prostitute who had been intimate with many men. Yet the religious leaders, who believed themselves righteous, were often rebuked by Jesus, who told them they were children of the devil and would scarcely escape the judgment of hell.
John 8:41, 44 — Ye do the deeds of your father… Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Matthew 23:33 — Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
God’s mercy was not extended to the Pharisees, because they refused to repent. Many of them perished in the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70. They believed themselves righteous when they were, in truth, deeply corrupted — they were spiritually blind. Mary Magdalene, on the other hand, repented and received God’s mercy.
3. God’s Mercy and Samson
Samson was called by God to deliver Israel, and God’s mercy was shown through his deliverance of Israel from the Philistines. The Angel of the Lord, understood to be Jesus appearing as a divine messenger, was present throughout Israel’s history — and every time the Angel of the Lord appeared, people worshipped Him.
After Samson visited a prostitute, the Holy Spirit still came upon him, and he tore the gates of the city from their place and carried them to the top of a mountain. How could God’s mercy seem to favor such an action? Because God does not see as humans see — God sees the heart.
Throughout the Bible, we repeatedly see that what truly offends God is pride — when someone, in effect, declares themselves to be their own god, robbing God of the glory due to Him. Selfishness deeply offends God, because selfish and proud people fail to love others — and failing to love is the very sin that violates God’s two greatest commandments: to love God, and to love others.
Romans 9:15 — For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
God loves those whose hearts reflect His own character, and to enter heaven, we too must become like Him — humble, honest, kind, full of compassion, mercy, and gentleness.
4. God’s Mercy and the Papacy
There are many loving, sincere Roman Catholic people. The true church — identified through Bible prophecy as the Seventh-day Adventist Church — often speaks critically of Catholicism, and rightly so, since Bible prophecy identifies the papal system with the antichrist power that will ultimately lead the world toward ruin under Satan’s influence.
But God’s mercy still reaches many individual Catholics. There are countless kind and honest people within that faith, and a significant portion of God’s true remnant people can be found there as well. However, historically, the papal system itself abused its authority. It became proud and self-exalting, going so far as to alter what God Himself had written in the Ten Commandments.
Exodus 20:8 — Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
The papal system substituted Sunday in place of the seventh-day Sabbath. This is deeply offensive to God — a mockery of His authority and majesty, and a serious insult to His greatness. Because of this, the papacy did not receive the mercy it might have. History shows that what occurred during the Inquisition eventually returned upon the Catholic Church itself during the French Revolution, when Catholic priests were executed in the very places where Huguenots had once been killed.
Some sins are especially offensive to God — chief among them, the failure to love. Failing to love God, and failing to love others. Pride makes it impossible to love others, and selfishness, by its very nature, prevents genuine love, since it places self above all else.
God calls people to come out of the influence of the papal and antichrist system — yet many of those He calls are wonderful, sincere people, including faithful Catholics.
Revelation 18:3–5 — For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
Bible prophecy tells us that the end of the world will come when God’s mercy is finally withdrawn — when the United States and the papal system unite to enforce a global Sunday law, and other nations follow the same path. At that point, the world will have entirely removed God from its collective heart, going so far as to alter both Scripture and God’s law, the very foundation of moral conduct — mocking God, insulting His authority, and elevating human judgment above His own. It is at that point that God’s justice and final judgments will fall, because humanity will have gone too far into open defiance.
5. God’s Mercy Toward Pagans in the Time of Paul
Paul sometimes ministered in cities where very few people were Christians, yet God told him:
Acts 18:9–10 — Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city.
How could God say He had “many people” in a city largely unfamiliar with the truth? It means that God can work even through people who have never directly heard the gospel message. God’s mercy rests upon those who are humble, honest, kind, loving, sincere, and warm-hearted — whether they identify as Christians, pagans, atheists, or Muslims. It remains true that salvation ultimately requires accepting Jesus — but by people’s fruit, we come to recognize who they truly are.
When I meet someone, or arrive in a new city, I always ask myself first: Is this person loving, humble, kind, and honest — or proud, selfish, apathetic, and unloving? Because by their fruit, I can discern where their heart truly belongs.
2 Timothy 3:1–5 — This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
It is not those who merely say the name of Jesus who will enter heaven, but those whose lives bear true fruit. Do you want to be like the fig tree that was cursed for bearing no fruit? No evangelism, no effort to warn others of the danger they’re in, no compassion for those in need? Then you are like a tree bearing no fruit — fit only to be cut down.
How much longer will God bear with a world so consumed with itself that it bears no fruit for others? Even prostitutes may enter heaven before self-righteous Christians, if their hearts reveal more genuine love, humility, sincerity, and honesty than those who merely profess to be God’s people.
Do you want to be cut down? Do you want to be a barren tree — one that receives blessing after blessing yet gives nothing back to others? Heaven is a place reserved only for those who truly love others.
Repeat after me: Father God, please forgive my sins — forgive my selfishness, pride, and unloving spirit. Help me to bear the fruits of the Spirit. Give me the righteousness of Jesus, which is the only solution to save me from my own corrupted nature. Please provide for my needs and heal me, in the name of Jesus, amen.