The Lord Makes a Distinction: On Judgment and Mercy

The concept of judgment, unpopular as it may be with many, is a monumental reality in Scripture and the Christian faith. There is something within all of us that both wants to judge but does not want to be judged. And, let’s be honest, the effect of judgment is discrimination, which is the absolute anathema of our age.

In the matter at hand, God clearly discriminates between the Israelites and the Egyptians. He judges the Israelites favorably while condemning the Egyptians:

Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.” (Ex. 12:21–23)

Here’s what I think about: What if an Egyptian had put the blood of a lamb over their own doorframe? What would have happened? My hunch: they would have been spared. Why? Because the judgment of God comes down to one thing—the blood of the Lamb. A person is covered by the blood of the Lamb, or they are not. It really is that simple. “The Lord makes a distinction,” but it is not according to the nature of the people but according to the presence of the blood. 

It is an astonishing thing to think about Jesus and his final Passover meal and his earthshaking claim with the bread and the cup; that it was his very body and his blood. He is our Passover, but this Passover is not restricted to the Jewish people. This Passover is for everyone. Judgment is coming upon the whole earth. Mercy is freely available in Jesus Christ. We are saved by his blood shed on the cross. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. This is the gospel of God.

I struggle to grasp how it is somehow unfair and discriminatory that eternal salvation and entrance into the kingdom of God is offered freely and inclusively to the entire human race, exclusively through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Though many refuse to believe, no one is excluded. It is all at once the most exclusive and inclusive offer imaginable.

Why is this unfair? The human race, for all our good qualities, is utterly wicked and totally depraved. No one is righteous, not even one (see Romans 3:10). No one deserves the grace and mercy of God. God owes salvation to no one. It is the free gift of grace to all who would believe and receive. Like the ancient Israelites, when we trust in the blood of the Lamb, we are delivered from slavery and set free to live the life for which we were created.

In the end, it is judgment to be sure, but judgment crowned with mercy. Read these next words very deliberately and carefully. Everything, literally everything, we believe is anchored in these revealed words:

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:18–21)