Grace is not mere mercy, and why you should care.
Grace is not mere mercy.
"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God." Ephesians 2:8 NRSV
I fear we read that sentence as, "For by MERCY you have been saved through faith..."
In this reading, something is lost. Let’s compare the two readings for further insight into this pivotal summary of the gospel.
mercy (noun)
Compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm
Said another way, mercy is the withholding of lawful action against something/someone.
Example: Someone broke the law, but the judge pardoned their crime so that they did not pay the penalty.
grace (noun)
Unmerited divine assistance granted to humans for their regeneration or sanctification
Said another way, grace is the favorable authority and power of God working on behalf of something/someone. Grace is not withholding, it is EXTENDING.
Example: The judge not only pardons the offense of the criminal, but also offers them a safe home, a respectable job, and the means with which to thrive.
Let’s read both versions of the verse side by side.
MERCY VERSION | GRACE VERSION |
For we are saved by the withholding of lawful action against us through faith. | For we are saved by the favorable authority and power of God working on our behalf through faith. |
Straight away, we can feel the difference between those two declarations. Let's read into the subtext and implications. As we proceed, remember that this verse is a succinct, efficient summary of the gospel (literally: “the good news”) of God’s new covenant (binding agreement; think contract) with humankind.
In the MERCY version of the verse, the insinuation is that we primarily need saving from GOD'S LAWFUL ACTION AGAINST US. And that the great act of God through Christ that we receive in faith was the merciful surrender of the right to destroy us. This is the "propitiation of sins" we sometimes hear about from the pulpit. Sin is a legal term. It is a crime against the laws of life, and it requires blood payment to atone for, or pay for, or to make right. In the Old Covenant, the blood of bulls and goats and pigeons, etc., was used as a temporary and partial atonement for sin, which allowed for merciful forbearance. Christ was the ultimate and complete atonement.
Let’s pause to affirm something very fundamentally true: by all accounts, Christ DID pay the legal debt of sin. Furthermore, God IS undoubtedly merciful.
So then, you say, what’s the issue? God is merciful. Christ’s death did atone for sin in a meaningful, legal way. Conflating mercy and grace doesn’t seem so problematic, then.
However…
To summarize the gospel in the mercy framework may be quite misleading. Let’s compare it to the grace framework to draw out my point.
In the GRACE version of the verse—"For we are saved by the favorable authority and power of God working on our behalf through faith."—the implication is that we primarily need saving from SOMETHING OPPRESSIVE THAT WE DID NOT HAVE AUTHORITY/POWER OVER. And therefore the great act of God was found in the bestowing of authority/power to us to overcome that which had previously dominated us.
Woah. That's a big difference.
We see here that mercy is not erased or contradicted, but it is added to by the proper understanding of grace. God's posture towards us was not limited to the withholding of punishment. It EXTENDED far further, to the generous gift of GRACE (favorable authority and power bestowed toward us).
What is lost in the mercy-overlay of the word grace? Much.
Consider how the mercy version of the Gospel statement obfuscates our war with the great Adversary.
The narrative becomes truncated to something like this:
“God was angry with humans for their wrongdoing but mercifully chose not to punish them if they pledged allegiance to Jesus.”
Now, again, this is not “wrong” but it is incomplete. And, in true serpent fashion, I believe this partial truth is being used to deceive us, to rob us, even to destroy us.
Let's tease out the details of this matter. In the truncated narrative presented above—"God was angry with humans for their wrongdoing but mercifully chose not to punish them if they pledged allegiance to Jesus."—we may notice a very subtle, but significant cognitive dissonance start to vibrate.
It begs the question: if the primary issue was that God was angry with us, why would God send a beloved Son into the earth in such a meek fashion to be abused and mistreated and misunderstood?
Surely, this would only confirm our guilt and further stoke the flames of righteous wrath in God. And what of sin? Why would it appease God's wrath that some percentage of the world would pledge themselves to the Christ, when that very same percentage would surely still stumble in and out of sin in their days of flesh? Wouldn't this only further infuriate a wrathful God? That even those who acknowledged the Son's authority would not submit to it in full as they ought? We know from Scripture that in legal terms, even one failure is cause for total condemnation. And who among us can even number our failings?
How then, was the plan of Christ at all sufficient to remedy God's wrath against us? And how did it solve the issue of human “sin-nature” (or our propensity to sometimes suck)?
Well, this often gets explained thusly: Father God was the angry one, but thankfully Jesus was kind. And as for the Spirit of God, it seems to be treated as a neutral party that goes at the command of Father to the Son, and then the Son bestows it to us out of His kindness. (Interesting then that the Spirit of God is also commonly the only element of Trinity even remotely associated with femininity, but that’s a conversation for another time.)
Does this sound like a harmonious God? How would this view reconcile with Jesus' words that, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." "I only speak the words the Father speaks; only do what the Father is doing." "I am doing my Father's business." "Be one, as I and the Father are one."
I would declare it is impossible to reconcile this view with the words of Jesus.
Let's contrast the "wrath-mercy" narrative with the "oppression-grace" narrative.
"For we are saved by the favorable authority and power of God working on our behalf through faith."
The narrative within this statement was that we needed authority/power that we lacked, and that God graciously deployed their authority/power on our behalf. This begs the question: why did we need authority/power? Here the whole of Scripture should spring forward to our recollection:
How often are we promised in the Prophets to be freed from the yoke, the rod, the whip of oppression?
How clearly did Christ reveal the liberation He was fixed upon was not limited to the various physical, natural kinds of oppression we find ourselves under? Ie: the oppression of the Roman government over the Jewish (and other) people.
How descriptively do the Apostles describe the war we face as one against spiritual authorities and powers rather than flesh and blood?
How powerfully do the cries of the poets and songwriters illustrate our wrestling and toiling under the bad authority of the fallen nature and spiritual adversary we inherited outside of our will?
From the beginning of the Biblical narrative, we encounter a powerful and cunning Adversary, whose schemes brought us disastrous loss and curses (including a curse of cruel hierarchical dominance of men over women--more on that at a later time). Far from irrelevant, this thread continues through the entire Old Testament, into Jesus’ own life, throughout the early church, and into the prospective revelations of John’s final epistle describing the trajectory of the church and end of days. Why, then, have so many of us lost the language to even address our Adversary without feeling silly?
I wonder. I marvel. What spell are we under?
It seems like such an integral part of the Biblical narrative, yet we’ve lost it. We’ve demoted grace to mercy. And in doing so…
We’ve forgotten who’s really against us.
God the Father isn’t against us. Nor Jesus, nor Holy Spirit. The Adversary, Lucifer, Satan—the ANTI-Christ figure... They are our enemy, truly against us. And there are plenty of Biblical references to confirm that we were once under the authority/domination of sin and law-based religion, which is the construct that our Adversary loves to dominate us through.
You may be saying, “Wait a minute there, it was GOD who established the Law and the Mosaic Covenant.” True, but also not true. Get ready for some nuance: Paul clarifies in his elegant letter to the Romans that the Law was actually designed by spiritual authorities to govern humankind. It seems like God’s preferences were not involved, but God did sign-off, so to say, on the introduction of the Mosaic Covenant for the purpose of paving the way for Christ. God’s wild wisdom, which is truly un-earthly, was to use the law-based covenant to illustrate our subjection under sin and devilish authority. From the start, it was clear to God that no human could overcome their spiritual oppression by means of the Law, by works, by moralism, by effort, etc.
But we humans needed to be convinced of that.
Do you see it now? The through-line? The thread binding together the vast story of Scripture? Humankind made one fatal error—the rejection of God’s authority in the Garden of Eden. Eve and Adam thought they’d achieve independence for themselves, but they were deceived. Their rebellion only removed the protection of God and exposed the human creature to the domination of another spiritual authority—Lucifer. In those seminal moments, God prophesied and described that the end of Satanic tyranny would come through the child of the woman (Jesus Christ—Son of Man/Son of God). NOTE: God did NOT describe how divine anger with humans would be quenched. Rather, the words recorded point to the truer, more central narrative: God’s plan of redemption would solve the problem of our Adversary’s rule over us.
(Don’t believe me? Pause and read Genesis 3 yourself—it’s brief.)
You’ll note there is a lack of hysteria or rage on God’s part. I think it’s rather nice God made them some proper clothes. Does this fit the narrative that God was outraged and disgusted with us? Or does the content of the chapter resound with the narrative that our Adversary needed to be defeated in order for us to be restored to well-being?
So what does this oppression-grace narrative really mean?
It does not mean sin isn't gross or problematic. It doesn't mean Christ's brutal sacrifice wasn't important or necessary to deal with the legal issues surrounding human sin.
It does mean that we are not just pardoned; we are redeemed!
Goel (Hebrew: גואל, lit. "redeemer"), in the Hebrew Bible and the rabbinical tradition, is a person who, as the nearest relative of another, is charged with the duty of restoring the rights of another and avenging his wrongs. One duty of the goel was to redeem (purchase back) a relative who had been sold into slavery. Another was to avenge the death of a relative who had been wrongly killed; one carrying out this vengeance was known as the goel hadam, commonly translated to English as "avenger of blood".[1]
The term goel is also used in reference to other forms of redemption. In the Book of Isaiah, God is called the redeemer of Israel,[2] as God redeems his people from captivity; the context shows that the redemption also involves moving on to something greater.
In Christianity, the title goel is applied to Christ, who redeems humanity from all evil by offering Himself as the Paschal Lamb.
Don't miss this. We were once slaves, but Christ bought us back from our cruel master. We are not merely tolerated. We were bought at great price because God coveted what was lost: us.
The freedom of Christ is profoundly grander than we conceive it to be. The authority we are to receive from Christ is profoundly grander than we conceive it to be. If we are going to accept the gospel message and allow it to complete its good work in us, we must renew our faith in the GRACE of God towards us.
I cannot help but wonder if this misunderstanding is behind the widespread lethargy in the Christian collective. Countless Christians lament that their lives are not profoundly changed, as compared to their non-Christian peers. Countless Christians grapple with a reality in which their “bondage to sin” is still powerful and self-evident, and in which the evidence of the Holy Spirit’s cohabitation with them is fleeting at best.
This is not the outcome of the gospel we see in Scripture.
How often have we been made to believe the issue is that we need to work harder, study longer, sacrifice more? That is the path and the prescription of the Law, friends.
The gospel will lead us to radical work, study, and sacrifice, but not as a precursor for freedom, authority, and power—but as an OUTCOME of freedom, authority, and power!
The keys are in our hands, Church. If only we would turn them in the lock and receive the freedom purchased at such a great cost.
That’s the faith we are called to. To turn the key. A simple, small act even a child can perform. By turning over that key, we unlock a reality we’ve grown weary of even hoping for. Please let me rekindle your hope, friends. I was weary too. I’d demoted grace too. I’d lost sight of my adversary too. It doesn’t have to be that way. Praise the LORD. We aren’t just tolerated, just pardoned. We’re favored, cherished, desired, pursued, treasured, empowered, and by the GRACE of God, we're restored to the family of God. He was our nearest relative, and He took it upon Himself to redeem us from our former master.
Thank God, grace is not mere mercy.
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