The Mercy of God

The Westminster Shorter Catechism, summarizing Scripture, notes that the fall of Adam has brought all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation into a state of sin and misery (Q&A 17). We distinguish the estate of sin from the estate of misery. Sin concerns our condition of guilt and our need for forgiveness, and misery regards the effects of the fall on world in leading to the many sufferings of this life. Thus, WSC 19 says this about the misery of our fallen estate: “All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever.”

Misery forms the backdrop against which we understand the next attribute of God, mercy, which is also an expression of divine omni­benevolence—God’s all-goodness. God’s Word emphasizes the mercy of our Creator, telling us in many places that the Lord is merciful. We see this truth expressed, for example, in today’s passage (Ps. 116:5).

God’s mercy is closely related to God’s grace, but the reference of each is not exactly the same. Francis Turretin, in his Institutes of Elenctic Theology, explains that grace is tied to the forgiveness of sins and mercy is tied to relieving our suffering. In other words, divine grace is primarily concerned with dealing with sin itself and the forgiveness thereof, whereas divine mercy focuses on the alleviation of the suffering that results from sin. Because God is gracious, He pardons our sins freely in Christ. Because God is merciful, He rescues us from the sufferings that result from sin, including His eternal wrath, and restores us to a right relationship with Him.

Significantly, human beings can be moved to show mercy by something external to them. In that way, we are passive, and the suffering of another acts on us to move us to show mercy. God’s mercy is different. Because He is impassible, we do not actually move God to show mercy, but He freely shows it to those whom He has chosen because His goodness is so full that He desires to share it with others. Turretin writes that mercy “does not spring from any external cause which usually excites this effect in men (as the tie of blood, of friendship, the company of misery, imbecility of age, sex, etc.). Rather it springs from his goodness alone (as he loves to communicate himself to the creature and as he does not refrain from succoring the miserable).”