God’s Mercy

Ephesians 2:4-5 declare: But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ,  (by grace ye are saved). Someone has rightly said that if you want to understand salvation as it is presented in Scripture, read these verses a thousand times. How profound that is! One cannot understand salvation unless he grasps the meaning of these verses. They do, indeed, present the very essence of salvation, which is God’s intervention into the plight of man to reconcile him. How has God brought about our salvation? How has He reconciled us? Reconciliation means “to restore to friendship, compatibility, or harmony.” We recall that God’s ultimate purpose is to restore the unity between man and Him­self so man can glorify Him. So, with the dramatic contrast of But God firmly entrenched in our minds and hearts, we are now ready to see the three pivotal words in this passage that detail our reconciliation to God: mercy, love, and grace.

The first word that captures our attention is mercy. A simple definition of mercy is “the withholding of deserved punishment and relieving distress.” The Greek is eleos, which speaks of “compassion, pity.” One Greek lexicon tells us, “Kindness or good will towards the miserable and afflicted, joined with a desire to relieve them.” So, mercy is obviously always to the helpless. Moreover, in light of verses 1‑3, we deserve the affliction, but God relieves it. We deserve all the affliction, misery, distress, depression, and heart­ache that comes our way; we deserve the domination of the world, Satan, and the flesh; we deserve God’s wrath. But God is merciful; He relieves us.

Not only do we see the word mercy, but there is an adjective attached to it—rich. The Greek is plousios (the adjective form of the noun ploutos) and is the source of English words such as “plutonic.” In the technical sense the word refers to material riches. But in the general sense the word speaks of wealth or abundance in a particular area. For example, one might be “rich in wisdom,” that is, having an abun­dance of wisdom. It is significant that Paul never used plousios in the material sense of the word; he was no interested in riches as man thinks of them. He always used the word to speak of God, Christ, or even the believer. Many teachers today teach their “prosperity doctrines” and say that God has promised to bless his people with monetary riches. Such teachings, however, do not plumb with Scripture. The New Testament makes it clear that coming to Christ might cost us everything. Paul never spoke of such shallow and worldly things; rather, he spoke of spiri­tual riches.

So, God shows mercy in true abundance. The New Testament word for mercy is quite similar to the Old Testament word hesed, which carries the idea of “free acts of rescue or deliverance.” Furthermore, as we read in Psalm 103:8, “God is plenteous in mercy.” Oh, how marvelous is God’s mercy! Again, we de­serve our afflictions, But God relieves them.