How is God's Grace Related to God's Mercy?

HOW IS GOD'S GRACE RELATED TO GOD'S MERCY?

By Ezekiel Kimosop 

Mercy has been described as not getting the punishment one deserves, while grace is getting a blessing one do not deserve. Grace is best understood as an underserved act of favour or kindness. Some scholars consider mercy as a subset of grace.

Mercy is granted to an undeserving convict. This is the foundation of judicial parole that permits the judicial system to discount a criminal sentence or have a conviction quashed under clemency. In some cases, a convict can be released before serving a full sentence. 

Turning to Scripture, we discover that there are countless occasions on which God chose to forgive His sinful people after they repented of their disobedience. 

In Psalm 51:1-2, David pleads for God's mercy saying: 

"Have mercy upon me, O God,

According to Your lovingkindness;

According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,

Blot out my transgressions.

2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

And cleanse me from my sin." (NKJV). 

On other occasions, God chose to offer unconditional pardon, choosing to extend His mercy to underserving people. This is where God's mercy exceeds His divine wrath. 

Micah 7:18 says:

"Who is a God like You, Pardoning iniquity And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in mercy." (NKJV). 

In the New Testament Scriptures, God's mercy and grace is best demonstrated in the redemption works of Calvary. In the exercise of His divine mercy, God determined to send Jesus to die on the cross in order to provide the atonement for the redemption for sinful humanity that was trapped in depravity.

2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "For He [God] made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (NKJV, emphasis mine). 

Without God's offer of his saving grace, we would still be eternally separated from God. 

Genesis 2:16-17 says "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (NKJV). 

When Adam disobeyed the voice of God and ate the forbidden fruit in Genesis 3:1-6, he suffered spiritual death. 

Genesis 5:5 reveals that Adam lived for 930 years before he died and was buried. However, his spiritual death and isolation from his maker took place centuries earlier, the moment he fell into disobedience in the garden of Eden. 

Methuselah, Noah's grandfather who a righteous man, lived longest at 969 years (Genesis 5:27) but he too died under God's condemnation in Adam. 

We were therefore collectively "dead in sin" and isolated from the holy and righteous God of Scripture since Adam until God brought the divine solution in Christ. 

Ephesians 1:13-14 says "In Him [Christ] you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory." (NKJV, emphasis mine). 

God's grace is driven and underwritten by God's mercy. He chose to reach out to us and redeem us in Christ Jesus yet we were undeserving sinners who were under sinful condemnation. 

In line with God's offer of His saving grace in Christ, Scripture proclaims: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (John 3:16-18, NKJV). 

That is how God's mercy was best demonstrated under His saving grace in Christ Jesus. Romans 5:8-9 says "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him."

Thomas Watson, a Reformed puritan preacher said God's grace unapplied saves no one. 

Have you accepted God's saving grace in Christ Jesus or are you living in sinful condemnation in Adam?

© Ezekiel Kimosop 2026