What It Means That God Is Rich in Mercy
Being Not Becoming
The written works of Thomas Goodwin (one of our Puritan friends) come down to us in twelve volumes, each volume over five hundred pages. And the first two volumes are given entirely to Ephesians 1 and 2. It’s over a thousand pages of sermons on these two chapters of the Bible. And Goodwin slows way down when he comes to Ephesians 2:4, giving several sermons on this single verse:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us . . .
The broader context says we were dead in our sins (Eph. 2:1–3). But God reached down and made us alive, delivering us from ourselves.
And why?
Because God is not poor in mercy. He is rich in mercy.
Nowhere else in the Bible is God described as rich in anything. The only thing he is called rich in is mercy. What does this mean? It means that God is something other than what we naturally believe him to be. It means the Christian life is a lifelong shedding of our small thoughts on the mercy of God. God’s mercy is bigger than we realize.
Let’s look at the text more closely. “God, being rich in mercy . . .” (Eph. 2:4). Being, not becoming. Not: he’ll be rich in mercy one day. Rather: he is already rich in mercy, for you and me, right now. A statement like that is again taking us into God’s very being and nature. “He is the spring of all mercy,” says Goodwin. “It is natural to him. It is his nature. When he shows mercy, he does it with his whole heart.”1 This is why he delights in mercy (Micah 7:18). God is a billionaire in the currency of mercy, and when he gives those riches to us, his own vast fortune is not diminished at all.
The Heart of Jesus
Dane Ortlund
Featuring short, easy-to-read chapters and helpful explanations, this simplified edition of Gentle and Lowly takes readers into the depths of Christ’s tender heart for sinners and sufferers.
How can that be? Because mercy is who he is. If mercy was something he simply had, while his deepest nature was something different, there would be a limit on how much mercy he could produce. But if mercy is his very nature, then for him to pour out mercy is simply for him to be himself. This does not mean he is only merciful. He is also perfectly just and holy. He is rightly wrathful against sin and sinners. But wrath is not what he is “rich in.”
The text goes on to join God’s rich-in-mercy nature with his great love: “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us . . .” (Eph. 2:4).
When the Scripture speaks of “the great love with which he loved us,” we must hear what it is saying. Divine love is not just patiently putting up with us. It doesn’t stand still; it runs. It is active, not passive. His love is great because it rushes forward all the more when his beloved is threatened, even if threatened as a result of the beloved’s own foolishness. We understand this on a human level; an earthly father’s love rises up within him when he sees his child accused or afflicted, even if that child really did do something bad. Renewed affection boils up within him.
Perhaps all this talk of mercy and love seems a little abstract or hard to understand. The richness of divine mercy becomes real to us, however, as we see that the river of mercy flowing out of God’s heart took shape as a man. When Paul speaks of the saving appearance of Christ, he says, “The grace . . . appeared . . .” (Titus 2:11). The grace and mercy of God became reality in Jesus Christ. Therefore to speak of Christ appearing is to speak of grace appearing. “Christ is nothing but pure grace clothed with our nature,” wrote the Puritan pastor Richard Sibbes.2
Therefore when we look at the ministry of Christ in the Bible, and especially on the cross, we are seeing what “rich in mercy” (Eph. 2:4) looks like—how “rich in mercy” talks, how it lives, how it moves toward sufferers.
Consider Your Life
Consider God’s richness in mercy for your own life. Perhaps, looking at the evidence of your life, you feel as if this mercy of God in Christ has passed you by. Maybe you have been deeply mistreated. Misunderstood. Betrayed by the one person you should have been able to trust. Abandoned.
Perhaps you carry a pain that will never heal till you are dead. If my life is evidence of the mercy of God in Christ, you might think, I’m not impressed.
To you I say, the evidence of Christ’s mercy toward you is not your life. The evidence of his mercy toward you is his—mistreated, misunderstood, betrayed, and abandoned life. Eternally. In your place.
God’s mercy is bigger than we realize.
If God sent his own Son to walk through the valley of condemnation, rejection, and hell, you can trust him as you walk through your own valleys on your way to heaven.
Perhaps you have difficulty receiving the rich mercy of God in Christ not because of what others have done to you but because of what you’ve done to torpedo your life. Maybe through one big, stupid decision, or maybe through ten thousand little ones. You have squandered his mercy, and you know it.
To you I say, do you know what Jesus does with those who squander his mercy?
He pours out more mercy.
God is rich in mercy. That’s the whole point.
Whether we have been sinned against or have sinned ourselves into misery, the Bible says God is not tightfisted with mercy but openhanded, not poor but rich.
That God is rich in mercy means that your regions of deepest shame and regret are not hotels through which divine mercy passes but homes in which divine mercy abides.
It means the things about you that make you cringe most, make him hug hardest.
It means his mercy is not slow and cautious like ours. It is free-flowing and flood-like.
It means our haunting shame is not a problem for him but the very thing he loves most to work with.
It means our sins do not cause his love to take a hit. Our sins cause his love to surge forward all the more.
It means on that day when we stand before him, quietly, unhurriedly, we will weep with relief, shocked at how shallow a view of his mercy-rich heart we had.
Notes:
- Thomas Goodwin, Exposition of Ephesians 2, in The Works of Thomas Goodwin, 12 vols. (repr., Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 2006), 2:179.
- Richard Sibbes, The Church’s Riches by Christ’s Poverty, in The Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. A. B. Grosart, 7 vols. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1983), 4:518.
This article is adapted from The Heart of Jesus: How He Really Feels about You by Dane C. Ortlund.
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