For while the Law was given through Moses, grace (unearned, undeserved
favor and spiritual blessing) and truth came through Jesus Christ.
John 1: 17
Now it has been said that grace is “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.” Further, it has been said that mercy is not getting what we deserve (death and hell - the fruits of our sin) and grace is getting what we don’t deserve (life and heaven and all the goodness and character of God – the fruits of God’s righteousness). Grace gives us all that God has even though we deserve not the slightest bit of it on our own merit, but through God’s goodness, mercy, and grace He grants it to us anyway. Without fully accepting God’s grace and benevolence, we are incapable of pleasing Him. He gives us His goodness so we can be good, His mercy so we can forgive others, His love that we can love others, His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, honesty, purity, integrity, loyalty, etc., so we can be those things to the world. Every last drop of goodness in you is at His bestowing because He is merciful and gracious. He withholds nothing from us (Psalm 34:8-9, John 16:14-15, John 14:12, Eph 1:3)
We must remember as we discuss the attributes of God that they are not separate from each other but flow as a river out of His presence. He is the source of all good things. So the mercy and grace which we so callously dissect are really one and inseparable in Him. So it is with all His attributes. Could God be loving and not good? Could God be eternal and not infinite? Of course not. So we may look at mercy and grace as separate objects and we will do so but we must remember they work together and are not separate entities. God does not shut off His grace or righteousness so He can be merciful nor does He shut off His mercy or righteousness to show grace.
This idea becomes more troublesome as we look at the law and grace. The law demands absolute perfection of obedience, but mercy and grace make up for our lack. So God does not abolish the law with mercy and grace, but rather He fulfills its requirements when we fall short. It is important, as A. W. Tozer notes, that we not look at the Old Testament as the Law and the New Testament as Grace which eliminates the law. God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. So, of course, grace and mercy existed in the Old Testament. And we do find evidence of it there.1 Abraham is called the friend of God. Joseph whose circumstance God used for good. David is remembered in the new testament (See Acts 13:22) as a man after God’s own heart. Really, this murder and adulterer is a man after God’s own heart? Yes he is. Read his Psalms 103, 145, 3-32, 34-41, 51-65, 68-70, 86, 95, 101, 103, 108-110, 122, 124, 131, 133, 138-145. Most of my favorites are in there 23, 34, 63, 103, 139, 145. David’s response to God’s rebuke through the prophet Nathan concerning his adultery with Bathsheba tests us point blank in Psalm 51 “You [God] do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” In a time when the only known recompense for sin was sacrifice, God allowed David to see His mercy and grace.
The mercy of God forgives our sin when we accept Christ as our Savior. In the legal ledger we are just in the black with a balance of zero. The grace of God makes us rich beyond compare. The legal ledger does not have enough space to say how rich we are. Mercy makes the decision to save us and grace gives the resources to do so. Mercy pardons punishment, grace endows rescue and reward. A. W. Tozer defines them in Knowledge of the Holy as follows , “As mercy is God’s goodness confronting human misery and guilt, so grace is His goodness directed toward human debt and demerit. It is by His grace that God imputes merit where none previously existed and declares no debt to be where one had been before. Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines Him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving.”2 So we see mercy and grace at work in the salvation process because they are both part of God and He does not suspend one to use the other.
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” – Eph 2:4-7
Grace makes us sons and daughters of God (see Rom 8:14, 1 Jn 3:1, Eph1:5, Gal 4:4-7, Jn 1:12, Lk 20:35-36), gives us all spiritual blessings (Eph 1:3), seats us in Heavenly places with Christ (Eph 2:4-7 above), gives us is power (Eph 1:18-21), and gives us His incomparably great love (Eph 3:17-19, Rom 8:35-39). Oh the riches we possess in the grace of God!
Oh God, highly exalted and benevolent one, grant to us that we would understand the gift of your grace, the place you have given us as children of God, the honors you bestow upon us, the riches you have made available to us. Give us the humility to embrace all that you have for us and use it for your glory. Help us to believe in all that you have done and appropriate it for ourselves. Enable us not to take for granted all you purchased for us in Christ. Help us to be the children of God that our lives would draw others to you. Give us your mercy and grace to extend your unconditional love to all those around us and to return it you as our gift of grace.
Footnotes
1 Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. 93-96. Print.
2 Tozer. 93.
References
All Scriptures not specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV). Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.
Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. Print.
