This past Sunday, my landlady asked me to go to church with her, so I did. I took my big Key Word Study Bible with me because I couldn't find my compact Bible a the time. The pastor was preaching from Matthew 5, and was talking about "blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." After I had my new "revelation" about the word grace, and because I had my big study Bible with me, I decided to look up the definition for mercy in my Strong's concordance as well. The definition of the Greek word ελεέω (1653, 1655) was to show compassion. I wondered what the Hebrew word would be for mercy, so I thought of the verse in Micah 6, that says "...but to do justly, and to love mercy..." I looked up this passage, and the Hebrew word translated as "mercy" is חסד chesed for which one of the definitions is "kindness." I looked at the note in my Bible made by commentator Spiros Zodhiates, who worte on page 1264, "The difference between 'grace' charis (5485) and eleos, is that the first affects the character of a person and changes it. only God can effect grace but we are admonished to show mercy and be eleemones (1655), "mercifiul," to alleviate the consequences of sin."
After further thought on this topic, I believer there are two definitions for each of these words. One definition is related to how we as humans manifest grace and mercy toward each other, and the other more common definition is how God demonstrates these things toward us.
In other words, I can ask God to give me grace to handle a difficult situation, which is asking Him to let His character to be acted out in the situation. That is absolutely wonderful because my own self will typically mess things up. When we show mercy to our neighbor by showing kindness even when they don't seem like someone who we don't think deserves it, we will be blessed.
God's grace toward us is "unmerited favor" or "getting what we don't deserve," while His mercy toward us is "not giving us what we do deserve."
I am amazed that I did not realize until now how God's grace can work in our own lives to show His character to other people. What a beautiful thing.
1 comment:
To me grace and mercy go hand in hand. When we experience grace we are shown mercy. I agree with your human and divine understanding. We experience the divine as recipients while as Christians we are to exercise grace and mercy in our faith and with others. I believe we sometimes over simplify these with catchy phrases though.
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