The title says enough, I think, but let’s elaborate on it for a bit: Tolerance is not mercy and mercy is not tolerance.
Tolerance is not mercy because mercy implies guilt. You can’t be merciful to someone that you don’t think did anything wrong. To be merciful you have to admit that someone is guilty and deserves punishment, but instead of handing out that punishment right then and there, you decide to wait, to give the guilty party a second chance to make things right. That’s mercy. The old definition rings true but it’s also a bit incomplete: Mercy is not getting what you deserve. The point of mercy is not to cancel a deserved-punishment, but to delay that deserved-punishment. Mercy says “you did wrong, you deserve x, but I’m not going to do x until next week. You have seven days before you’re punished. If, in that seven-day window, you repent and make amends, then there won’t be any need for x.” During that seven-day window you have mercy. If you don’t take advantage of it, then there won’t be any more mercy; that’s when you get justice. Incidentally, if, in that seven-day window, someone else should suffer the punishment for you, so that you don’t have to, then you’ve gotten something you didn’t deserve: That’s grace. I could go off on a separate tangent here and talk about how grace and mercy are entwined, and how the salvation of Christ (a work of grace and mercy together) still requires us to change our actions, but that’s for another time.
Mercy is not tolerance because tolerance implies apathy. You can’t be tolerant to someone whose crimes matter to you. To be tolerant you must shrug your shoulders and say “it’s no big deal; who cares?” Someone does wrong but you don’t care so you don’t hold them accountable. What is that? Is that mercy? No, that’s tolerance. That’s you handwaving a crime. That’s you treating wrongdoing as not worth fussing over. The difference between the two might be subtle, but it’s also instinctively knowable. You can just tell when someone is the recipient of mercy vs tolerance. In both cases the guilty party gets to leave the courthouse free and clear. In the case of mercy there’s an understanding that the criminal must change or he won’t be free and clear for much longer. In the case of tolerance, the judge just moves on and forgets about it and lets the criminal continue on being a criminal. Tolerance is inherently unjudicial. It is a negligence of judicial responsibility.
God is not tolerant, but God is merciful…
The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.
(Numbers 14:18)
All of us have sinned and all of us deserve the justice of God. The Lord’s sense of mercy, however, compels Him to say “I won’t punish you today, but I will punish you tomorrow. So get right with me today, and I won’t have to punish you tomorrow.” What the Lord doesn’t say, nor will He ever say, is “I won’t punish you; do whatever you want.” God does not allow us to do whatever we want. God does allow us to repent and be forgiven, by doing whatever He wants. That’s the difference.
God is not tolerant, but God is forgiving.
~ Matthew