Mercy and Grace

Mercy and grace are two of God’s attributes. When discussing God’s attributes, we are engaging in a practice called systematic theology. Understanding both of those terms will help us have a more constructive discussion.

Systematic theology is the practice of organizing topics in the Bible, or “systematizing” them, in order to better understand them. What is the church? What is Sin? What does the Bible say about Creation? What is God like? One of the ways Christians have sought to answer those questions (and many other questions like them) is to survey the entire Bible, organize everything the Bible says on those topics, and come up with a belief (a “doctrine”) about those things based on what the whole Bible says, then organize these doctrines by topic. That practice is called Systematic theology. Many throughout church history have endeavored to compile a comprehensive list of organized topics, and large books (often with  “systematic theology” somewhere in the title) are the result of their efforts. In one of those books, Grudem defines it this way: “Systematic theology is any study that answers the question, ‘What does the whole Bible teach us today?’ about any given topic” (Grudem, 1). (In preparation for this study, I’ve spent time with both Grudem’s and Frame’s systematic theologies, as well as Pink’s “The Attributes of God,” which is itself a systematic theology specifically on the attributes of God.)

One of the main topics in systematic theology is the doctrine of God. Not everyone organizes the topics studied the same way, but “the doctrine of God” is the topic where theologians often choose to place doctrines such as the Trinity, miracles, providence, and creation. The attributes of God are also usually found here, and rightly so. The attributes of God are a part of the systematic study of the doctrine of God. Attributes are descriptions of things. If I someone asks “what are Chihuahuas like?” and I say “Chihuahuas are feisty, small, and dangerous,” then “feisty, small, and dangerous” would be attributes of a Chihuahua. If someone asks, “What is God like?” and I begin to describe God with words like “loving, holy, just, eternal, omnipotent, merciful, etc.” then I am describing God in terms of his attributes.

Frame defines attributes this way: ““An attribute is a concept expressed by an adjective (as eternal) or a noun (as eternity) used to describe a person or thing. The Bible uses many of these terms, such as love, righteousness, holiness, grace, knowledge, truth, and eternity, to describe God, and there are others not specifically mentioned in scripture (such as simplicity, immensity, aseity, and personality) that can be deduced from the biblical teachings” (Frame, 231)

How do we know that God is those things? If I say “God is holy,” how can that be shown to be true? And what exactly does that mean? We can answer those questions by systematically searching all of the Scriptures for everything they say about God’s holiness, and form a belief (i.e., doctrine) based on everything that’s found: systematic theology. The purpose of this paper is to do exactly that with two of God’s attributes: mercy and grace.

Attributes are Facets

Attempting to understand what God is like in terms of his attributes is a lot like trying to capture an object by drawing it. If the world’s most skilled artist were to draw a car while looking squarely at the windshield, a lot of information about that car could be gathered from the drawing. You could determine whether it was a car or a truck from how high it sat up off the ground, the manufacturer from the badge on the grill, and the age and condition of the car from the number of dents in the hood. But no matter how skilled the artist, you still wouldn’t be able to read the license plate from that picture. The artist would have to draw another picture from another angle to gather that information. To get the most accurate representation of that car, several pictures would have to be drawn from several different perspectives. And when all the pictures were drawn, some of the details would certainly overlap from picture to picture. Every picture, though, would get you closer to fully seeing the object being represented.

Describing God in terms of an attribute is like drawing a picture from one perspective. Some truth is gathered, but the whole is not seen from one picture. And as we draw more and more pictures of what God looks like by learning about more of his attributes, some of those pictures will certainly overlap. It is very hard to understand God’s love apart from his  goodness. God’s omnipotence doesn’t make much sense without his omnipresence. God isn’t loving one day and wrathful the next. And God’s mercy and grace, while distinct, are overlapping pictures.

To use another analogy, attributes are like facets cut into the face of a precious gem. You can’t focus on all the cut surfaces at once, and yet none of them are separate from the whole. Seeing the beauty of the gem comes in part by looking at how each facet interacts with one another, bending light and creating brilliance as you turn the gem in your hand. When we study God’s attributes, we are staring at one facet of God’s glory, and observing how each of his attributes shed light on others. Mercy and grace are two distinct but similar facets, and they themselves are part of a larger facet: goodness.

Mercy and Grace as Part of God’s Goodness

Mercy and Grace can be understood as moral attributes of God: attributes that explain God’s ethical character. Moral attributes include goodness, love, holiness, jealousy, wrath, patience, and others. Perhaps the broadest of  God’s moral attributes is his goodness. Goodness can be defined as “conduct (by man or by God himself) that measures up to God’s standards [e.g., Gen. 3:5; Lev. 5:4; Num. 24:13; Rom. 2:10; 3:12]” (Frame, 234). And “The goodness of God means that God is the final standard of good, and all that God is and does is worthy of approval” (Grudem, 236). Doing good means doing things that meet God’s approval, and because God is himself the standard of goodness, everything he does is good.

This seems to me to be the broadest of God’s moral attributes. When we look at the way the Scriptures describe God’s goodness, the expression of that goodness often breaks itself into other, more specific attributes. This is summarized very well in Psalm 145:8-9 (ESV): “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.” The psalmist proclaims God’s goodness, and lists four ways in which his goodness is shown: grace, mercy, love, and patience (slow to anger). These four facets of God’s goodness are often mentioned together (Exodus 34:6; Psalm 103:8). To summarize, God’s goodness means that all he does is worthy of approval and is right. God expresses his goodness toward creation in at least four distinct ways: through grace, mercy, love, and patience. Thus it can be said that these four things are attributes of God that are a part of his attribute of goodness. Because these four things are all part of God’s goodness, two things are true: understanding each one will help us understand the other, and each of these four attributes will necessarily overlap.

For the sake of brevity and relevance, we’ll only focus on mercy and grace here. Love and patience are worth briefly defining, though. God’s love is “His self-giving affection for his image-bearing creatures and his unselfish concern for their well-being, that leads him to act on their behalf and for their happiness and welfare” (Cottrell, 336). God’s patience is “God’s goodness in withholding of punishment toward those who sin over a period of time” (Grudem, 239).

In the following discussion about mercy and grace, we will be focusing mainly on their differences. We’ve already conceded that the two attributes share a lot of similarities, and it is not always fruitful to try and distinguish where one ends and the other begins. If God displays his goodness to his creation in a particular way, we might ask the question, “was that him displaying love, patience, mercy, or grace?” and the answer may very well be simply “yes!” A gracious act may also be merciful, and vice-versa, because gracious and merciful actions are both good. That being said, the Bible describes both facets of God’s goodness, and so we would do well to try and understand mercy and grace separately as far as is possible.

Mercy

Our english Bibles use the word “mercy” to translate several different Greek and Hebrew words. Some Greek and Hebrew words have a very specific and technical use (like “hilasterion/mercy seat” in Romans 3:25, or “YHWH/LORD” throughout the Old Testament). We can learn a lot about these words from doing careful word studies to make sure that our understanding matches the specific and technical understanding of the Biblical authors. Other words are more general and have a wider lexical range (list of possible definitions). Determining what a Biblical author meant by a particular word in those cases is best done by considering the context in which those words are used. Very often in the Bible, the words we often translate “mercy” are used in the context of those facing distress. Consider these examples:

David answered Gad, “I have great anxiety. Please, let us fall into the Lord’s hands because his mercies are great, but don’t let me fall into human hands.” 2 Samuel 24:14

As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” Matthew 9:27

“Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” “The one who showed mercy to him,” he said. Then Jesus told him, “Go and do the same.” Luke 10:36-37

Mercy is a close synonym to compassion, and I think in most cases one word could be substituted for another. Indeed, oftentimes different Bible translations do exactly that! (e.g., Psalm 145:8-9, ESV vs. CSB). I think Grudem’s definition of mercy is concise and helpful: “God’s mercy means God’s goodness toward those in misery and distress” (Grudem, 239).

It think it makes intuitive sense for the blind men in Matthew 9 to call out to Jesus, “have mercy on us.” “Have grace on us” makes less sense. These men were in distress, and sought the goodness of God to deliver them from that distress. That’s mercy. Every time God sends rain to a farmer’s field that is badly in need of it, God is showing his mercy. Every time we have compassion for someone in distress that results in us doing good, we are imitating an attribute of God by showing mercy.

Grace

Unlike mercy, there are very few words that are translated as “grace” in our English Bibles. In the case of the CSB, only one word (charis) is used in the New Testament, and (with only four exceptions) only one word (hen) in the Old Testament. Hen appears 69 times in the Old Testament, and is translated “grace,” “graceful,” or “gracious” 9 times. 52 times it is translated “favor.” The idea is of having a positive attitude toward someone else. There are many examples in the Old Testament of people asking for things or receiving things from others while talking about “finding favor (hen)” (Genesis 18:3; Exodus 33:13; Numbers 32:5; Judges 6:17, etc.)

Things get very interesting when we begin to consider what it looks like for God to show grace/favor/hen to humans. Frame’s observations are worth quoting at length:

“Weighty theological issues, however, enter the picture when God is the One who shows hen. Since man is fallen and cursed, any favor shown by God to him is surprising. This is especially true with regard to the first reference in Scripture to God’s hen. Before the great flood, as we learn in Genesis, the wickedness of man had become very great, so that ‘every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually’ (Gen. 6:5). But amazingly, we read in verse 8 that ‘Noah found favor [hen] in the eyes of the LORD.’ Here it is plain, not from the general use of hen, but from the context of Genesis 6, that this favor of God was not based on Noah’s goodness. Surely God included Noah in the terrible judgment of verse 5. For his own reasons, God was favorable to Noah. But the reasons do not include Noah’s merit. Although he may have been more godly than other men, his godliness did not entitle him to divine deliverance. But God gave him a warning, and he responded by faith (Heb. 11:7)” (Frame, 242).

Other references show the exact same thing (Genesis 33:11; Exodus 33:12-17, Deuteronomy 9:4-6, etc.): God having an attitude of favor to some people based only on his good pleasure, and not because of anything that they have done. God’s grace can then be defined as “God’s goodness toward those who deserve only wrath” (Grudem, 239), or “…sovereign, unmerited favor, given to those who deserve his wrath” (Frame, 244).

Of the 154 times charis appears in the New Testament, it is translated “grace” or “gracious” 124 times. The second most common translation is “favor” at 10 times. In the New Testament, this attitude of favor becomes more than just an attitude. Charis is godly power to do good works (Acts 4:33, Romans 12:6), the gospel itself (Acts 13:43, 20:24), salvation apart from works of the law (Romans 3:21-24), and many other things that God gives people who do not deserve them. Through Jesus, God’s favor is shown to us who do not deserve it by giving us many great gifts, with the greatest among them being salvation. Grace is the favor of God shown to those who not only do not deserve it, but deserve only punishment. Grace is God’s goodness shown to us by giving us the opposite of what we deserve.

Mercy and Grace (and Love and Patience) Together

As previously mentioned, mercy and grace (along with love and patience) are often found together in Scripture. We’ll look at just one example: Ephesians 2. Paul describes our condition before Christ: dead in sin, following Satan, children of wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3). God did not immediately unleash his wrath on us (patience), but showed mercy to us (v. 4) because of his great love, and saved us by grace (v. 5). God showed patience toward us by withholding punishment from us when we deserved it. God’s love for us is seen in him unselfishly acting on our behalf. God’s mercy toward us is seen in him having compassion for us in our state of terrible distress. God’s grace is seen by him not giving us the punishment we deserve, but the opposite: life, and immeasurable riches in Christ (vv. 5-7). Salvation is by grace (v. 8), but it is also an act of patience, love, and mercy.

So in one act, we can see all facets of God’s goodness on display. They are distinct pictures, but the pictures overlap to show one bigger image. Is salvation an act of patience, love, mercy, or grace? All of the above! Each attribute is a distinct, but connected, part of God’s goodness.

Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Second Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020.

Frame, John M. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief. Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2013.

Jack Cottrell, What the Bible Says about God the Redeemer. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1987.