Inspired by a parable related by Elder Boyd K. Packer in a Conference talk in 1977
See also Alma 42:15
The two men had been friends from their days of youth together.
They were more like brothers, with a love that never wavered.
They were not much alike, their differences quite pronounced.
One was responsible and sensible and the other, not so much.
They were sitting on the back porch, enjoying a day of relaxation -
a knock on the front door, ominous and loud, interrupted their friendly conversation.
One had been dreading this day - he knew it was coming,
but he was not ready for the visitors and the reality of his situation.
“We are here to take possession of all the things you own -
for failure to pay the debt you owe me as creditor on your loans”
The debtor and his friend were standing side by side.
It was a day of reckoning and there was no place to run and hide.
The debtor had borrowed more than he could pay back -
it was an obligation that he could not satisfy or now retract.
Not only would the man lose all of his possessions,
but debtors prison was also a consequence of his many bad decisions.
The debtor begged for more time, for mercy and relief –
he was in a desperate situation, much beyond his belief.
The creditor replied with firmness, “Mercy is always so one-sided.
It would serve only you”.
“If I show mercy, it will leave me unpaid and justice will still be due”.
Herein lies the predicament where these two eternal principles merger:
neither justice nor mercy can prevail except at the expense of the other.
The debtors friend stepped between the two parties and made the
creditor this proposition:
“I will pay what is owed if you absolve the debt and not send my friend to prison”
As the creditor pondered the offer, the mediator stated what was only fair:
“Your demand for justice will be met and you can ask no more”
The creditor agreed to this offer as the mediator turned to his friend:
“If I pay your debt, will you accept me as your creditor with a new set of terms?
“Oh yes”, said the debtor with tears in his eyes: “I gladly accept”.
“You are saving me from my bad behavior and moral neglect”
Here it was that mercy had appeased the demands of justice because of the
actions of another.
What the debtor could not do for himself was done by the mediator.
December 2021
“And so it was that the creditor was paid in full. He had been justly dealt with. No contract had been broken. The debtor, in turn, had been extended mercy. Both laws stood fulfilled. Because there was a mediator, justice had claimed its full share, and mercy was fully satisfied.
Each of us lives on a kind of spiritual credit. One day the account will be closed, a settlement demanded. However casually we may view it now, when that day comes and the foreclosure is imminent, we will look around in restless agony for someone, anyone, to help us.
And, by eternal law, mercy cannot be extended save there be one who is both willing and able to assume our debt and pay the price and arrange the terms for our redemption. Unless there is a mediator, unless we have a friend, the full weight of justice untampered, unsympathetic, must, positively must fall on us. The full recompense for every transgression, however minor or however deep, will be exacted from us to the uttermost farthing.
But know this: Truth, glorious truth, proclaims there is such a Mediator.
“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
(1 Tim. 2:5.) Through Him mercy can be fully extended to each of us without offending the eternal law of justice." (Boyd K. Packer, ‘The Mediator”, April 1977)
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