Lamm, there is mercy all through. In the context of my previous post, though, I meant seeing the mercy of Christ in the whole of the passage rather than condemnation - not "first" as in sequence. Go back and read what I wrote. Christ could have outwardly condemned this man and publicly put him to shame. Luther has suggested this is the case. The link I provided gave another point of view. So I've supported the point I'm trying to make - it's not what "I" see, but what others see as well that seems to make sense.
And to answer your post, Starting with the law is not the same as condemning by the law. The quote I gave acknowledges that the man is condemned ("...judgment obviously hangs over him..."); however, Christ does not condemn him, but shows him another way ("go and do likewise")
Christ does condemn him. It has to do with this part of the text:
They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.
We are that half dead man. Have you heard of the phrase Hammer of the Law?
The Law always accuses and when Jesus declares the man half dead he is showing man's condition because of sin. Jesus gives to the expert in the Law the most horrific condemnation yet most honest explanation of the full extent of the Law...
half dead.
Original sin is not something we can avoid and pretend is not in us. It's the reason Jesus had to become the Good Samaritan and it's the reason the man couldn't get up and walk alongside but had to be picked up
"Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him."
The Law continues at the end where you have said it's grace
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” That's law. Anything we do or don't do is Law. We are to perform it perfectly but Jesus points out that we are half dead and cannot.
There are 3 uses of the law and the last sentence Go and do likewise is what some pastors refer to as the 3rd use which is the law is a Guide for us to live. But it still accuses us since we can't live it perfectly. It's not Gospel. It doesn't make us into the justified because we are already justified by Christ's actions. Christ carries us and takes us to the innkeeper to be cared for until He returns.
If Jesus had said "Your sins are forgiven" it would have ended with His grace of the Gospel. The Gospel is hidden within His being the Good Samaritan.
Did the Expert in the Law repent and go away with new faith in the Messiah instead of his Law driven ways? We aren't told that in the text. All we see is that he grasped the concept that there was a man who saved another man after the Priest and Levite walked away...but do you notice how this Expert in the Law can't bring himself to call the Samaritan a Samaritan? Jews and Samaritans were so against each other (from the split that we read about in the Old Testament) that his own racism prevented him from even saying the term Samaritan...it's just "the one".
