Goodness (9 of 15 notes)

Part Three
Theology Proper: 18 THE BIBLICAL VIEW OF GOD
A DISPENSATIONAL THEOLOGY
By Charles F Baker

Trench has this to say on these two words:

In the Divine mind, and in the order of our salvation as conceived therein, the eleos (mercy) precedes the charis (grace). God so loved the world with a pitying love (herein was the eleos), that He gave His only begotten Son (herein was the charis), that the world through Him might be saved (cf. Eph. ii. 4; Luke i. 78,79). But in the order of the manifestation of God’s purposes of salvation the grace must go before the mercy, the charis must go before and make way for the eleos. It is true that the same persons are the subjects of both, being at once guilty and miserable; yet the righteousness of God, which it is quite as necessary should be maintained as His love, demands that the guilt should be done away, before the misery can be assuaged; only the forgiven may be blessed.⁹

9            Richard Chenevix Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Win. B.  Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1880, reprint 1948), p. 171.

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