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Chapter 6
EPILOGUE
to Chapter 5
The Divine Method with
Comprehensiveness, Kindness and Continuity
In Chapter 5, we have been considering together the divine selection of media of curse, of affliction, of retributive justice, of judgment on the race of humankind, in major degree, and noticed the use of the FLOOD when there was a universal degree of inveterate wickedness involving a provocative pugnacity or pertinacity about evil. It occupied the thoughts and pre-occupied them, as in Genesis 6, till the whole sick, unrepentant, unregenerate, dissident, devious, delinquent mess was cleared, except where grace was found in the Lord, so that the entire population of earth was not removed, only nearly all!
In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Abraham sought to see the stretch of mercy, and for what small number of upright seekers of God, the Lord would spare the entire city, we saw how amazingly gracious the Lord is, and how extreme is His mercy, when so few (and perhaps less yet) would deliver an entire city; and how wicked was man, that so few were not in the entire urbanity of the surrounds! Hence came its inevitable destruction.
As if by the tentacles of an octopus, was even Lot's wife drawn back to filth unspeakable and lust incredible, that would seek intercourse with angels, on the part of men of dispositions not left to inflict the earth.
Each burden on the globe was once a child, and how many times and in how many ways was each child misled until this exhibition of folly became 'natural', and how much devastation of the pure and obvious ways of procreation and ideation, ideology and theology was implicit in all of this! The Lord left it all till the maturity of the evil came, and Lot was vexed, not heeded, while he lived there, before his rescue. They did not listen, and the time came, as with physical smoking, when the lungs of life met their acrid fumes of a vast conflagration which buried the place.
Again, when Israel came to the end of its own trial of 400 years in the midst of a rapacious and ungrateful Empire, called Egypt, then as God had told Abraham, they were enabled to leave, taking some of their back-pay in gifts from a terrified people, as also foretold. By that time, we learned in Genesis 15, complete was the wickedness of the people in the land to which the people of Israel were sent as emissaries and exhibits, in order that the earth should have the witness of the true and living God, more important than either air or dry land.
Judgment for those nations also now came by this unique method: that Israel would be sent to invade and exterminate the named tribes and races, and to replace them. They would be this time a PERSONAL agency of the Lord, not flood with no voice, not fire with no speech; and they, the invaders, would be REQUIRED to AVOID the evil ways, the false gods, the idolatrous practices which had come under judgment over those centuries of increasing evil, and this on pain of cursing and disgrace, shame and scorn for themselves.
This Israel at length - with considerable prelude - failed to do.
Thus, in due course, just as the Amorites had received their come-uppance after almost incredibly extended patience and mercy on the part of the Lord, so they, the land of Israel, inherited after many prophets had warned, exhorted and appealed, what the Lord had indicated. They were not human avengers of human desire, or human aspirants for human reward, as foolishly implied in the Parliamentary attack. In fact, they were sent on mission with commission, and if they failed to honour the realities of truth and the word of God, then in their time, if they did not repent, they too would show the world, they in their covenant as the Amorite without any covenant at all, the reality of the Lord and the necessity for facing His will and word.
This is seen in the books of Kings and Chronicles as with heart-rending obstinacy, the nation of Israel forsook, truth, imported gods of folly, learned hideous practices such as burning children in religious fire ceremonies, treachery to God and man; and we find in II Kings 17 and II Chronicles 36, review of the way to ruin which they had followed for several hundreds of years. In the interim, despite many blemishes, the kingdom had flourished under Samuel, David and Solomon, as well as such kings as Hezekiah who ruled in Judah around the time of the destruction of the schismatic North section of Israel, yes and under Jehoshaphat.
Divine action in Hezekiah's day, for example, showed in the devastation of the Assyrian army which sought by mere military power and arrogant propaganda to subdue them (cf. Isaiah 37, II Kings 18ff.), but met with the faithfulness of God as the people sought His name, as perhaps many did in Great Britain at the time of Dunkirk.
In the Hezekiah case, God announced by the prophet Isaiah what would happen to Sennacherib, ruler of the invasive Assyrians; and happen it did in all its profound drama and mighty deliverance, just as it happened millenia later in 1948, 1967 and 1973 for an Israel at last, following the massacre of the Messiah, recovered and returned to their own divinely accorded land, land as promised in Deuteronomy 32, Ezekiel 36 (cf. SMR Appendix A), in order to have just such victories as Zechariah 12 promised.
Indeed, Zechariah predicted these things and that they would occur BEFORE the evangelical revival which would cause flocks of those in Israel to turn in magnificent repentance of heart, seeing the evil the had done to Him whom they 'pierced', and turning to the Lord whose fountain for uncleanness would open in Jerusalem as a result! So was it to be, so has it been, in this Age or that, before or after the coming of the Messiah and IN IT: all that the Lord has said has occurred, because when God acts, none can stop Him (Isaiah 14:27).
In the field of religion, if you want to use the painful idiom in order to have an impact on the memory: this distinguishes the 'men from the boys', or more aptly, truth from fiction. When diction is fiction, as when a supposedly almighty Allah cannot help his clients back to grab the land of Israel again, in the face of a divine prohibition for the returned Israelites so to be evicted, then it is not God who has spoken. This is the testimony therefore of a false prophet, one who uses the name of the living and actual, the potent and word-fulfilling God, in vain.
When however diction is traction, and the events occur, and they are predicted as here millenia in advance, and they involve the initial rejection of the Messiah and the eventual repentance of that deed, and include all that Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Zechariah, Micah, the Psalms and the rest said of Him, of Israel and of the world: then only God is able to manage such comprehension in detail and in dimension over the millenia, and we find the Bible enshrined as the word divine. While this is only one of many co-ordinate logical demonstrations, it stands.
Thus have His judgments and blessings come, and thus came that seed of Abraham, as He was through the human side in Mary, through whom all nations would be blessed: no tribal affair or dominance by human ferocity or sword, as promised at the outset to that patriarch in Genesis 12.
He has come despite the failure of Israel so dramatically summed up in Isaiah 42, where they are called exemplary as an exhibit of blindness, and parodied with the words, "Who so blind as he who is perfect!", to deride their presumption and self-trust, as noted also by Paul in Romans 10. Thus the tiem came when these words showed themselves once more, as squatters in actual history, emitted long before their time, but impressed into service not only in time, but at the right time.
The Messiah came and was attacked with inveterate hostility by many (Psalm 2), duly pierced and crucified as in Psalm 22 and Zech. 12, and duly rose as in Psalm 16, and His gospel duly spread throughout the earth as specified in Isaiah 42:6 and 49:6, for example. Meanwhile the Gospel so placed into objective fact, being fulfilled, what of it ? it was the very one enunciated by Isaiah centuries before Christ came, or died, being pierced and rejected (as in Isaiah 49:7's prophecy) by Israel, which so went to the world.
Now it is time to see a fresh dimension in these judgments of God, and His choice of them for the human race, when it became so sodden with sin that removal was more a blessing in this, that the infliction of such sinful ways on coming generations, to become unutterably defiled, was thereby avoided to the extent of the judgments in view, and in kind.
Thus, it was with CHRIST in view (as in Genesis 3:15, 12:3, 22:18, Deuteronomy 18) that Israel was chosen to come into the land, to displace, in divine judgment, those who had fallen foul of life in inveterate and degenerate sins of chronic and chaotic, not to say radically cruel kind. It was thus that this judgment was to become a highway for blessing, this slaughter a signal for redemption and this devastation the very means of deliverance from universal judgment on all, as if the entire human race, blotted and belligerent against truth and hope, were to fail.
What then have we found ? It is this: that there was a COMPREHENSIVE CHARACTER to the vision and plan of God, in dealing with the Amorites through Israel in this special, personal way, as distinct from a flood in a purely physical fashion. It showed the REALITY of sin and judgment in the face of the most merciful and patient God. It showed the NECESSITY of another way of life, if the design in God's image, called man, one equipped with amazing freedoms therefore, were in the end, to live at all.
With this came the PLACE, the SITE (and only ONE was chosen for the Temple, or to be chosen - cf. SMR pp. 823ff.) for the Messiah to be, when He came; and likewise came the SYMBOLISM of the Temple, which stood over many centuries despite destructions. This was to show, in the entire sacrificial system, and has shown to all, in depth: the nature of sin and its manifold character. It indicated no less the vitalising wonder of redemption and grace, the peace of pardon and the power of grace, in the very presence of the abhorrent abyss of wilful ignorance of God.
It gave to the coming Messiah, this unique method of judgment in Joshua's and Moses' day, what then ? It provided for Him also a PEOPLE who were ostensibly committed to His coming, to the love and will of God (as in Deuteronomy 6 and Joshua 24), and who indeed, would by that time on many blessed occasions, and in various delightful rules, have shown both to themselves and to the world, the reliability of the promises of God. If the negative promises they also showed, it was with an amazingly large dose of patience and endurance on the part of the Divine Creator that this came, with many appeals, remonstrations, offers and helps, remissions and demissions of penalties on the way to the end.
Alas, this invasion and settlement of Israel in this way in this promised land, it also gave to the Messiah a people who predictably, as we have just seen, would crucify Him, abhorring Him as in Isaiah 49:7, who was the Redeemer, even while using their lips for His praise, and to show fealty to His Being! Thus was hypocrisy given a star role, even if a drawf star's place.
All this was part of the divinely presented scenario in the prophets, and the one which then became history (cf. SMR Appendix C, Chs. 8-9), and it gave deep meaning to that method of judgment of Joshua's and Moses' day, in which a people, Israel, would be used just once in history, not only to bring judgment on another, but to replace them in a long designated LAND. It enabled that nation, Israel, to be judged in terms of its TERMS of ENTRY, which were not power or glory: it was a matter of doing it right. It was a question of keeping the commandments, not in perfection by any manner or means, but in the limits of sacrificial cover and real determination to serve the Lord. They were not placed there in order to do what the others did, but to be an exhibit to the world for its blessing, life and understanding (cf. Isaiah 43:21, Deuteronomy 6-7, 11-12).
If they failed, they were not to be excluded, like the children of some indulgent potentate in Africa or the Middle East, or in former times in Europe, from punishment; but they would eventually inherit the scorn and contempt, the suffering and rejection from the world, which made them subject and not object. All this was predicted in Deuteronomy 28-32, with great vigour and all has been fulfilled, however sad the case!
Thus, this same method of JUDGMENT under Moses and Joshua, it was a comprehensive plan in which it lay, a divine and extensive scenario, all of which came to pass. It held within it, the kernel of blessings for all people; and sad as was the fate of the recalcitrant, whose lives could not endure in such a grave comedy of misuse and misconstruction, aborting design like unwanted children, this yet became a place for blessing. It did not glorify Israel: alas, it did the opposite; but it did show THROUGH Israel, both in its excellent achievements at some phases, and in its eventual results when it came near to the follies it was supposed to replace, the ways of the Lord, and eventually much more than this.
What then did it show ? It showed the LORD HIMSELF, and there all incomprehension became impossible, for He Himself spoke visibly with His own lips, and with His own power and with His own meeting of all opportunity, importunity and assault (as in Luke 11:52ff., Matthew 22), and imparted blessings remarkable and unskimped, as if a lake were being drained: except not to recalcitrant minds and inveterate evils. Even this, however, could come to blessing if in their own time, they also came to repentance; and even the most amazing denials, as in Peter's case (Mark 14), could be turned by His mercy to strengthening preparations for doughty service.
HE suffered; HIS was the shame; it was HE who this time became a PROVERB and not just a disobedient Israel (foretold in Deuteronomy 28:37). HE, the Messiah Himself, endured the loss, HIS was the life lost, on HIM was the butchery performed, to HIM came the blade of the sword, and on Him was the slow drip method of anguished, slow loss of life, performed. HIS was the love which sought to relieve and deliver mankind, or as many as would come to Him (Matthew 11:28ff., 20:28, John 1:12ff., 3:16-19), and in HIM was the cross-road to be found, to light and love and life, or to vexatious doom in the gloom of wilful rejection of mercy and truth.
THUS the method of judgment in Joshua's day was COMPREHENSIVE and KIND, and also it held the thread of CONTINUITY as the various phases of the long-foreseen divine plan came to light. Like man, it was governed from the start and seen through to the finish: the DESIGN which CONSTITUTED man on the one hand, and then the design which SHOWED his SALVATION! Here was the double designation of design, and the double gift of life, first temporal and then eternal.
It was, then, this coming of Israel to the promised land in Joshua's day, a remarkable and integrated divine provision. It was rather like the establishment of a moon space station, an outpost in a fallen world, to turn judgment under Joshua - highly necessary judgment in KIND - into the consummation of mercy in the Cross of Calvary, in Christ Jesus the Lord. As foretold in Micah 5, this Eternal Being, God's very reflection and the brightness of His glory, His expression and Word (Hebrews 1, Philippians 2), His equal, would come. He would not merely be born in Israel, but in Bethlehem, and not only come to mankind as mankind, but suffer repudiation by man, and that of the most blatant and offensive kind. This occurred, not however as unmitigated tragedy, but rather as unlimited grace, as to ALL mankind this opened the fountain of mercy and of cleansing as in Zechariah 13, Isaiah 42,49,53, 66.
Thus came the FINAL MERCY before the FINAL JUDGMENT for ALL mankind! Salvation, not scimitar or sword is the grant of divine grace, meeting a judgment by God's own action, borne by Himself (cf. Hosea 13:14 in its prediction as that also in Ezekiel 34, where God promises to come as the GOOD SHEPHERD and care Himself with fidelity and reliability, for the sheep).
It is HIMSELF that the force now hits, and He bears it for believers.
So does divine wisdom bring love with realism, and free grace to repentant sinners in this world. All this is the completion of the Promised Land scenario, with all its elements and aspects, not divorced from reality and parodied, exaggerated and mocked, or derided, but studied as it is. Like a leg lost in battle, there is little point is trying to imagine things; you have to see the body all together, the body of truth, in order to have any understanding of what you see, and you do NOT need to be an artist, but more like a photographer of the things of divine grace and judgment, taking it as it is written, not writing it out for yourself in your own mind. Thus was the divine grace, plan and exertion, the divine pity and the divine method instead of mere destruction of the entire human race which now, in its unspeakable folly, it comes near to achieving with misused power and inane arrogant presumption, till it should render the earth uninhabitable. It is this which Christ indicated would be the result IF He did not return (Matthew 24:22).
It is self-destruction or judgment, and often judgment is kinder; and in Joshua's case, it was part of the plan to bring grace, not this judgment, to mankind in so total and universal a spread of mercy that the only way to avoid it is to prefer darkness to light (John 3:19, Colossians 1:19ff.).
Quite to the contrary, however, is the position with Islam, which stops at no barrier in time or place, has no mercy in store in any Messiah, or sacrificial system as prelude, no place for pardon or institution of grounds for peace, merely a situation of power and intimidation, degradation, infliction and force, which makes of the oppressed, an incredibly subjugated people, menaced not liberated. Such results come often enough from invasion and aggression of, or against those who are afflicted by this rule by rigour (cf. Divine Agenda Ch. 6).
In ever new assaults, abrasions, extermination procedures against those who stand and live where it wants to stand and live, it acts, without leave or limit. It moves often with ferocity on those who elect to leave it. No verification is available, but anti-verification in its half-century of failure before tiny, and much afflicted Israel, where masses and nations aplenty, despite the most rancid calls for Israel's destruction, with wealth extraordinary available, failed to exclude it, to inter it or to destroy it (cf. SMR pp. 829ff.). It would carve up Israel till none is left, regarding its very presence often enough in utterance and by report, as the calamity!
What have we seen ? Force being the only testable weapon of Islam, since nothing is testable with no positive verification open, and this is failure: it is using force in various parts and portions, with a desperation borne of hopelessness. It even appeals, via Muhammad (cf.SMR pp. 1080ff.) to Jewish prophets as his divinely sent predecessors, while voiding the whole method of mercy which was laid down as never to be rescinded (cf. Isaiah 59:21, 11, 9), and always to be in the hands of the Messiah only, whose advent was dated by Daniel (as in Highway of Holilness Ch. 4). This, centuries before the untested Muhammad, was final and eternal (Daniel 7:25, Isaiah 9:6-7, Acts 4:11-12), and the interpolation of an intruder after the event in this way merely fulfils Christ's quite clear prediction of a great multiplication of false prophets and christs to come (as in Matthew 24:24).
God however did not revoke His actions, His people, His promises or His procedures, but carried through in all its phases the whole announced scenario, with its comprehensiveness, kindness and continuity, to the end, which is now near, and its flashing lights in the heavens and on the earth, are reminders of a judgment which is always coming, has come in Christ, and can be avoided only through Him. When you seek mercy, you do not dictate to the One to show it, but receive it freely, just as it was given graciously (cf. Romans 3:23ff., 5:1-19, 8:1-10).
The approach is summed magnificently in Titus 2-3, from v. 11 to 3:7 (bold added for our current theme):
"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. Speak these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you.
"Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life."
Here is grace as salvation’s smile, and as in Ephesians 2:1-10, and with reason’s tribute, here is revelation made fast over the millennia (SMR Ch. 1, TMR Ch. 5); and
¨ neither in Judaism (Romans 10:1ff.) without the Christ of Calvary, fulfilling Daniel’s prophecy on time,
¨ nor Islam with its works’ emphasis*1,
¨ nor Romanism, with accretions of the same in its ongoing efforts to achieve what Christ has already done, whether in mass or unction (cf. SMR pp. 1032-1088D), adding the authority of one far from being the Christ, and his approbation on his own terms to the freedom in Christ (Matthew 23:8-10, Galatians 3-5, I John 2:27 foregone):
yes in none of these is such grace to be found.
Thus does man, gripped in such vices, founder in incoherent conclusions without the required premises of validity, verification and power from God alone (cf. Highway to Hell), utterly missing.
To miss the bus may be by a mile or a millimeter; but when it is the only way of mercy from the only God of power with the only word of verification and the only validity of truth, then it is a testimony in the end, to every other mode … of missing it. It is just like the Ark, to which Christ referred Himself in analogy to His return (Mathew 24:37ff.): proceeding with any and every imaginable alternative is so much loss in motion. It achieves … nothing. It is as Hebrews 2 states it: How shall we escape if we neglect this action of divine power and mercy! Escaping into the grace of God providing His atonement in Christ however, is like leaving the tumultuous waters of confusion, for the dry land of serenity by the beaches of eternity.
NOTE
See More Marvels ... Ch. 4, The Divine Agenda Ch. 6 with Wounds ... Chs. 3 and 4, SMR p. 91 and Index 'Moslem', SMR. See also Secular Myths and Sacred Truth Ch. 3.
A 51% pass mark might help in the infinity stakes, but leaves the 49.9 effort rather ... unfortunate. Works are an impossible basis for salvation, divine acceptance, leaving a sliding scale on the one hand, and an infinite result on the other, things too disparate to be compatible with either justice or reason.
In the Bible PURE MERCY, as seen in Titus 2-3, John 3:16, Romans 5, this is the ground of favour, and if it is CHANNELED through the second person of the Trinity, is it for man to object, and to tell God that he would rather have it in some different way, which would not require him simultaneously to be born again (cf. SMR p. 476), with repentant heart, so that not only pardon but a divine reproduction, or regeneration as it is called, comes into being, to make way for the grace to exist not only in pardon but in power and in life (cf. I Corinthians 1:19-24, Romans 1:1-10).
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It is this emphasis on grace and mercy which makes Christianity not only reasonable in this domain in terms of eternal salvation for some, and not for others, whose preference for darkness in the domain of light which has COME into the world and extensively verified itself (cf. REASON, REVELATION and the REDEEMER), is stated and just ground of divine condemnation (cf. The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 4). It makes it also different in attitude, where the Bible is its doctrinal basis and the Lord's Christ its actual source and ground .
Thus in the Singapore case noted in Ch. 5 above, there is for the young man in view in that last chapter, for him whose dead body was apparently paraded in Singapore, just as his mother's parting hug was denied it when living, a certain inflexibility. No the Governor General, the PM, the House of Parliament and any religious leaders, no, no one would so much as deter them one iota, either as to the outcome, its crucial preliminaries or its manner.
What does it matter if the (extremely evil and atrocious) possible drug deaths could not happen because the drugs were not sold! Why bother to distinguish between attempted murder and actual murder, why not bundle them all into the same basket, and hang the lot, since it may help you to survive!
Why not ignore motivation, degree of custom in the crime, as well, and any special circumstances ? Bundle them all in the same basket and hang the lot! (if they have the exact amount or more of some drug or other).
Who could dare to travel in such a land when someone in a crowd could readily place some packet in your pocket, and this stiff judgmental attitude could bear down on you like a steam-roller in full down-hill motion, stopping at nothing ? Can you POSITIVELY PROVE that such a thing did not happen ? Ah no, may come the answer! Very well, then, some may say, we do not believe you and so, 'justice', death. Such deplorable immediacy can come readily in terrains where Islam rules, distinctively.
It is of course part of the divine genius of grace in Christianity, biblically defined, and Christ commanded, that MERCY is a MOUNTAIN just as JUSTICE is another, and there is always an insistence ON BOTH!
Man is man, not a manipulable social unit made to ensure that the most satisfactory time is had by all. There are principles of justice and mercy, realism and sensitivity which are operative, whatever may be the ideological status of some religion which may have force, such as Islam, where the entire gamut of absolute grace, centred in Christ is axed, and a new christ is manufactured (II Corinthians 11, cf. SMR 683ff., 700ff., 861-867, News 121, 122), who is neither clear cut as to what he did and did not do (cf. Tender Times ... Ch. 8, Endnote *1), nor the centre and pivot of mercy, which is thus more talked of, than provided! How ludicrous are the distortions that have been made during a parliamentary sitting, and in how many ways!
So is it where such religions hold sway, there is a militarism (cf. SMR pp. 814ff.), whether or not all agree, which tends to characterise many of those nations, such as those in the Pan-Islamic Alliance which have targetted Israel so blatantly with such destructive menace for so long, since Teheran in 1991. So it is that movements like al-Qaeda make claims (cf. Lord ... 8) for the devastating and ruinous aspects which may be found in the Koran, and implementing these, embarrass some in Islam, but gain funds from others!
Mercy is kind, is gracious, seeks a way out, is not selfish, is textured into the spirit of man, who in the 'image' of God, is originally wrought in the spirit of the very ultimate reality of God who is merciful, filled with goodness and delights in mercy (Mich 7:19ff.). He shows it not by some summary execution inflexibly and immediately, but by waiting long, an d bearing sin and execution Himself, rather than devastate the race, offering it not at the point of the sword of force (or the protoplasmic bomb of force), but at the insistence of love, and in the manner of love.
As the world hardens its heart against Christ Jesus, the gift by grace of God to fallen man (Titus 2-3), man merely finds the callouses of indifference, the centrality of selfishness, national, individual or social, yes or in terms of gender, a massive outrage in much as seen in Afghanistan, in 'female circumcision' and the various and variable attempts, throughout the world of Islam, to circumscribe women into restrictive roles beyond all nature, while giving to man a dominance which is repellent - and if some relent, the tradition and the trend is established, powerful and at times appalling.
If this is special to Islam, there is much more madness on the other side of radicalism, where some, seeking mercy without judgment, licence without regeneration, crucifixion for Christ but indulgence for themselves, liberal in thought and anti-biblical in doctrine and in heart (Romans 6), foster unregenerate passions and witless welfarism. The latter, unlike grace and mercy, tends merely to indulge laziness and secure a position for displacement, demeaning motivation and derogating some for the sake of unrealism. There is a place for welfare; but that place is not to displace labour or work, enterprise or hope, effort or tenacity of will and purpose.
Mercy is good; but indulgence is not. Mercy makes a way freely for grace, but it does not make it on man's terms but God's.
With God, the new man in Christ Jesus is the result of repentance, faith and regeneration; and here there is neither exaggerated justice, nor distorted mercy, but the grace of God.
Here there is a certain willingness to love your enemies and do GOOD to those who hate you! (Matthew 6:14, 5:44). These things have not come from nowhere, but from the Lord, the Sermon on the Mount, the maestro of mercy, the deity incarnate, the Prince of Life, who knows it and seeks it for man more abundantly.
That works, because we are made in the image of Him who is LIKE THAT!