The first dictionary definition of mercy is "showing compassion or forgiveness toward someone we have the power to punish". This makes me wonder about the Mercy Hospital in the college town where I used to live, as punishment doesn't seem to be the purview of hospitals as far as I know.
But that's okay, because the third definition, and the one most used today is "something performed out of a desire to relieve suffering; motivated by compassion." I want to focus on the first definition, however, to make the point that mercy is not simple compassion or simple forgiveness.
People talk about a merciful God, and that makes sense if their notion of God is one who forgives all. But when they turn around and gloatingly remark about how the "sinners" (i.e. people not like them) will spend eternity in Hell, they have declared their God without mercy.
If God is a merciful God, She must weigh the good in everyone as the bad falls away at the end of our days. If God is not a merciful God, I do not want anything to do with him.
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