Mercy Which Overpowereth Justice

One of the most poignant moments of the book Les Misérables by Victor Hugo is when Javert lets Jean Valjean go free and is plunged into distress because of it. Jean Valjean had saved Javert’s life in the barricade, and the “man of justice” could not comprehend this act of goodness from a convict who had once broken the law. When Valjean subsequently came into Javert’s possession again, his duty told him he must turn the runaway convict over to the law (for Valjean had escaped from prison many years earlier). And yet, he could not do it as his soul finally understood the goodness of this man he had always hunted. The account reads, “He had wished to pass beyond, to act, to apprehend the man, and then, as at present, he had not been able to do it; and every time that his arm had been raised convulsively towards Jean Valjean’s collar, his hand had fallen back again, as beneath an enormous weight, and in the depths of his thought he had heard a voice, a strange voice crying to him:—'It is well. Deliver up your savior. Then have the basin of Pontius Pilate brought and wash your claws.’” He had always stood for order and the law, seeking justice with no thought of mercy. The story continues, “A whole new world was dawning on his soul: kindness accepted and repaid, devotion, mercy, indulgence, violences committed by pity on austerity, respect for persons, no more definitive condemnation, no more conviction, the possibility of a tear in the eye of the law, no one knows what justice according to God, running in inverse sense to justice according to men. He perceived amid the shadows the terrible rising of an unknown moral sun; it horrified and dazzled him. An owl forced to the gaze of an eagle…. He was forced to acknowledge that goodness did exist. This convict had been good. And he himself, unprecedented circumstance, had just been good also. So he was becoming depraved. He found that he was a coward. He conceived a horror of himself. Javert’s ideal, was not to be human, to be grand, to be sublime; it was to be irreproachable. Now, he had just failed in this.” And so, unable to accept this new world that showed him what it meant to be human—having goodness, decency, respect, kindness, mercy, love—he took his own life.

                Javert’s view of the world was one without a Savior, and that led ultimately to despair. He could only see law and justice with no possibility of mercy and forgiveness. Scripturally speaking Javert believed this statement of the Lord: “For I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.” But he did not believe the next statement: “Nevertheless, he that repents and does the commandments of the Lord shall be forgiven” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:31-32). Javert’s whole life was centered on living an “unreproachable” existence and could not accept that anyone who at one time did not meet that standard could ever change or repent. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is centered on a Savior who enables us to recover from our falls, to rise above our mistakes, to change when we have broken the law. I love the way that the Prophet Joseph Smith put it: “It is one evidence that men are unacquainted with the principles of godliness to behold the contraction of affectionate feelings and lack of charity in the world. The power and glory of godliness is spread out on a broad principle to throw out the mantle of charity. God does not look on sin with allowance, but when men have sinned, there must be allowance made for them. … The nearer we get to our heavenly Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls; we feel that we want to take them upon our shoulders, and cast their sins behind our backs.” God does not look upon sin with allowance, but He makes allowance for us through the Savior and our repentance. The Jean Valjean that Javert knew first in prison was not the same one he interacted with later after Valjean was transformed through the love of the bishop. We too must allow the Savior to change and transform others, looking beyond their past sins to who they can become through Him. The law of God was not given to condemn us because of our inability to keep it perfectly; rather, as Amulek taught, “And behold, this is the whole meaning of the law, every whit pointing to that great and last sacrifice; and that great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God, yea, infinite and eternal. And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name; this being the intent of this last sacrifice, to bring about the bowels of mercy, which overpowereth justice, and bringeth about means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance” (Alma 34:14-15). Javert could not accept mercy, and it ultimately drove him to suicide when he was given it by Valjean in the most dramatic way. We rejoice that we can find mercy through Jesus Christ, not in removing the law but in suffering the effects of our sins and lifting us up to God if we will let Him.