Grace and Mercy, vs. Justice

The opponents of penal substitutionary atonement always complain that this view of the atonement makes the principles of the Christian life be based on justice rather than mercy.  The grace of Christ showered upon us isn't grace, because it has been paid for by the atonement.  It was earned.  It is not mercy.  Therefore, they allege, mercy simply disappears.  The notion of God's pure mercy evaporates from Christianity.

We might laugh at the distortion implicit in this threat, but Calvin and others took it seriously.  Calvin goes over this several times in the Institutes, because this serious threat was issued by the Socinians (Arians, non-Trinitarians) of his day, some of whom he knew personally, because they had passed through Geneva.

Calvin resolved the issue in his own teaching by definitely placing Grace and Mercy above Justice (Institutes, Book II, Chapter 17).  He does not deny justice.  But the satisfaction of justice is subordinate to the manifestation of God's grace and mercy.  This is clearly seen in the main "proof text" for this view, John 3:16.  God sent his only Son to perform the sacrificial death because he, God, loved the world of sinners.  It is does not say that God loved what his Son's work would make of those sinners, though, of course, he did.  The verse says that God loved the world as it was, and therefore, because of his love to a fallen world, out of a desire to show mercy, sent his Son to pay the penalty for their sin.

The fact that mercy is the reigning paradigm in the mind of God should affect quite a few things in our own religion and theology.  For one thing, we must be people of mercy expressed to the unworthy, knowing that the legal issues have been settled by the death of Christ.  This is freeing, because the efforts to express mercy to the unworthy can be quenched by legal scruples.

Another application of the primacy of mercy has to do with our understanding and presentation of the gospel.  We are accustomed to presenting the death of Christ and the gospel in legal terms, as satisfaction for sin, which it is.  But, the divine reason for providing the satisfaction is so that mercy may have free course.  Somehow this should change the way we present the gospel.  Christ died for our sins, because by this means God could show us the mercy he desired to give us.  I think this makes a difference!

In the witness to the world, the divine mercy should be "on top."

This post is continued here:
http://christocentry.blogspot.com/2011/08/covenant-of-works-covenant-of-grace.html