If there is a distinction between grace and mercy—it is that God’s mercy speaks of his goodness to us in our misery and distress when we cannot save ourselves, while his grace speaks of his goodness to us in our guilt when we deserve only his punishment. In mercy God spares us destruction—and in grace he forgives us and makes his children, lavishing his kindness upon us.
In his recent address to the various branches of the American government, our King, Charles III (1948–), spoke of feeling “the weight of history.” Speaking especially about the semiquincentennial—one might also call it by more obscure terms, such as the bisesquicentennial or the sestercentennial—of the founding of the American republic, he was calling to mind all of the momentous aspects of that event in the mid-1770s as well as historical details of the “special relationship” that has evolved since then between the United States and the United Kingdom. He was also reaching back, though, to such seminal documents as the...
God’s “righteousness” is his character of total rightness, integrity, goodness and truth—and his “justice” is his expression of that character in his governance of the universe. And the two ideas, although distinct, belong together in the Bible’s portrait of God.
There is something deeply attractive to us about the faithfulness of God. Faithfulness is something we value and long for—but so often fail to see in our society and in our own lives. As fallen people, we do not behave as we ought to behave—we don’t even behave as we want to behave.
