The Bible has God saying “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” three times. Here is some more context for the three: (the red letters are quoting Jesus)
For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6 NIV)
But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mat 9:13)
If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. (Mat 12:7 NIV)
I plan for this section to have three parts:
This section deals with how Mercy and Sacrifice are, in my view, mutually-exclusive opposites . At Calvary God deals only in mercy, whilst humanity dealt only in sacrifice. God always deals only in mercy and never in sacrifice and He wants us to do the same – “mercy, not sacrifice”. The alternative is that we sometimes do “sacrifice, not mercy.” In my view, Evangelicalism’s (penal) Atonement gospel proclaims “mercy through sacrifice” – as Jesus’ death makes it possible for God to forgive sin… comprising another reason Evangelicalism is wrong.
2. Mercy
This section will, I anticipate, look at the aspects of life that must necessarily be expressed in any true “utopia.”
3. Sacrifice
This section will, I anticipate, look at the aspects of life that must necessarily be excluded in any true “utopia.”
I hope Sections 2 & 3 (in the current top menu chapter) will sketch a pragmatic approach to the goal of building utopia/a better world and end up complementing what the Bible says about the Kingdom of God as built up from an examination of Scripture in the previous (top menu) Chapter. (I’m not sure it will come off but that is my hope at this stage!)