We treat grace and mercy like they’re the same thing — but they’re actually very different, and understanding the difference changes everything. In this episode of Clearview Today, we continue our Getting to Know God series with the grace of God, one of the communicable attributes He shares with us and calls us to reflect.
We break down the three tiers of God’s justice in the simplest possible terms: justice is getting what we deserve, mercy is not getting what we deserve, and grace is getting what we don’t deserve. Grace is the good we never earned; mercy is the bad we never received. Dr. Abidan Shah illustrates it with a disobedient son who deserves discipline but gets lunch bought for him anyway — and then a milkshake on top. That milkshake is grace. We also tackle why grace is so hard for us to accept: we’re raised to earn our keep, to never take a handout, and we carry that same works-based mindset straight to God, where it simply doesn’t work.
From there we go deeper — what it means to be “dead in trespasses and sins” and still able to receive the free gift, why grace was every bit as present in the Old Testament as the New (Noah, Moses, and the same unchanging Christ), and how the cross was the plan before Genesis 1:1. The episode closes on the most practical question of all: how do we live by grace, and extend to others the same grace God has lavished on us?