Attributes of God - Mercy

The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin… Ex 34:6-7

As we continue on our survey of the Attributes of God, we come now to His mercy. We need to remember that all of these attributes are not separate, but are in fact interrelated to one another. As the last attribute we looked at was God’s power(or Omnipotence), Charles Spurgeon relates it to God's mercy: "This tender attribute sweetens the grand thought of His power: the divine strength will not crush us, but will be used for our good."

“In endeavoring to study the mercy of God as it is set forth in Scripture, a threefold distinction needs to be made, if the Word of Truth is to be "rightly divided" thereon. First, there is a general mercy of God, which is extended not only to all men, believers and unbelievers alike, but also to the entire creation: "His tender mercies are over all His works" (Ps. 145:9): "He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things" (Acts 17:25). God has upon the brute creation in their needs, and supplies them with suitable provision. Second, there is a special mercy of God, which is exercised toward the children of men, helping and succouring them, notwithstanding their sins. To them also He communicates all the necessities of life: "for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matt. 5:45). Third, there is a sovereign mercy which is reserved for the heirs of salvation, which is communicated to them in a covenant way, through the Mediator.” AW Pink

There are many Scriptures that speak of God’s mercy:

Ps 6:4 — Return, O Lord, deliver! Oh, save me for Your mercies' sake!
Lamentations 3:22-23. It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

Heb 4:16 — Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Rom 9:23-24 — And that he might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

Eph 2:4,5 — “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)”.

Titus 3:5 — Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.

1 Pet 1:3 — Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a loving hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Mercy (eleos in Greek) is the outward manifestation of pity. Mercy refers to the outward manifestation of pity and assumes need on the part of those who receive it and sufficient resources to meet the need on the part of those who show it.

Eleos is found 27 times in the NT, and is translated as compassion twice, and mercy, 25 times. In contrast eleos is used over 170 times in the OT (Septuagint) with 91 of those uses being in the Psalms where it most often translates the Hebrew word for "lovingkindness" (hesed) a very prominent word in the OT (used some 248 times) which is defined as not merely an attitude or an emotion but an emotion that leads to an activity beneficial to the recipient. William Barclay noted the Hebrew word (hesed) for "merciful" has the idea of "the ability to get right inside the other person's skin until we can see things with his eyes, think things with his mind, and feel things with his feelings."

Related to mercy is the concept of misery. There is no mercy bestowed without the object of that mercy being in a miserable state. Jonathan Edwards declares, “that it is God’s manner to make men sensible of their misery and unworthiness before he appears in his mercy and love to them. . . . The mercy of God, which he shows to a sinner when he brings him home to the Lord Jesus Christ, is the greatest and most wonderful exhibition of mercy and love, of which men are ever the subjects.”

Nowhere is the essence of mercy unveiled for us any more clearly than in our Lord’s parable of the good Samaritan. The victim in that story was miserable. He had been beaten, robbed, and left for dead. The priest and the Levite in the story showed no concern for him whatsoever. “But a certain Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion” (Luke 10:33). The word most often translated “mercy” in the King James Version conveys strong feelings of pity, sympathy, compassion, and affection. The Old Testament word is sometimes translated “lovingkindness” in the King James, and that describes one important aspect of mercy. When God looks at suffering people, He feels love, tenderness, and kindness toward them in their need.

When we read that God is merciful or that He has mercy, we may be assured that He is feeling our misery just as intensely as we are. As the writer to the Hebrews taught us, the reason we can come boldly to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need is because the occupant of that throne is a merciful high priest who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, who sympathizes with us in our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15-16). Those feelings are the foundation of His mercy.

But mercy does not stop with tender feelings. It acts to relieve the misery. In our Lord’s parable, the Samaritan “came to [the victim], and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you’” (Luke 10:34-35). The Samaritan’s compassionate feelings led him to a practical demonstration of kindness, concrete actions which were intended to relieve the man’s misery and distress. When Jesus asked which one of the three passersby was the true neighbor to the victim, the lawyer to whom He was speaking answered immediately, “The one who showed mercy toward him” (verse 37). He used that term mercy to sum up those feelings of steadfast love which were followed by helpful acts of kindness.

Because God is full of mercy, He acts to relieve our distress. Psalm 136 is a good place to see some of the merciful things He does. The whole psalm magnifies God’s mercy. Every one of its twenty-six verses tells us something about God, then concludes, “for His mercy endureth for ever” (KJV). First His goodness is mentioned, then His acts of creation, then His relationship with His people Israel. He delivered them from their Egyptian oppressors (verses 10-12). He took them safely through the Red Sea (verses 13-15). He led them through the wilderness (verse 16). He gave them victory over powerful kings who threatened to destroy them (verses 17-20). He brought them at last into their promised land (verses 21 22). But the Psalmist gets to the heart of God’s mercy in the next two verses. God remembered them in their low estate, in their miserable and humiliating condition, and He delivered them (verses 23-24). Mercy is God’s tender compassion toward us in our distress that causes Him to act on our behalf and relieve our suffering, at the time and in the manner which He knows will be best.

It is important to keep in mind the idea that God does not have to give us mercy, He simply does. “For He says to Moses, "I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION." So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God Who has mercy.” Rom 9:15-16. John Piper stated in his exposition of Exodus 32, “It is the glory of God to be gracious to whomever he pleases apart from any constraint originating outside his own will. Or another way to put it would be that sovereign FREEDOM is essential to God's name.”

One needs to distinguish between grace and mercy. Grace is shown to the undeserving, while mercy is compassion to the miserable. Grace is God’s solution to man’s sin. Mercy is God’s solution to man’s misery. Grace covers the sin, while mercy removes the pain. Grace forgives, while mercy restores. Grace gives us what we don’t deserve while mercy withholds what we do deserve.

Grace is getting what we do not deserve.Justice is getting what we do deserve.Mercy is not getting what we do deserve.

Thomas Goodwin exhorts us: “You that have received this mercy from God, show mercy to others. Use all that is within you so as to endeavor to beget men to God. Though God alone does it, yet he uses means; though means contribute nothing, yet God uses them as the clay to open the eyes. Have you a friend who lives with you, perhaps a student or brother who is unconverted? Oh, if you have received mercy from God, endeavor to bring them in to obtain like mercy with yourself.”