“We may ask, no doubt, why God does not extend his saving grace to all; and why, if he sends it to some only, he sends it to just those some to whom he sends it rather than to others. These are not wise questions to ask. We might ask why Christ raised Lazarus only of all that lay dead that day in Palestine, or in the world. No doubt reasons may suggest themselves why he raised Lazarus. But why Lazarus only? If we threw the reins on the neck of imagination, we might possibly discover reasons enough why he might well have raised others, too, with Lazarus, perhaps many others, perhaps all the dead throughout the whole world. Doubtless he had his reasons for doing on that great day precisely what he did. No doubt God has his reasons, too, for doing just what he does with his electing grace. Perhaps we may divine some of them. No doubt there are others which we do not divine. Better leave it to him, and content ourselves. facing, in the depths of our ignorance and our sin-bred lack of comprehension, these tremendous realities, with the altitude of Paul: ‘O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!’ Or may we not even rise to the great consenting ‘Yea!’ which Christ has taught us: ‘Yea, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight!’ After all, men are sinners and grace is wonderful. The marvel of marvels is not that God, in his infinite love, has not elected all of this guilty race to be saved, but that he has elected any. What really needs accounting for — though to account for it passes the powers of our extremest flights of imagination — is how the holy God could get the consent of his nature to save a single sinner.”

B. B. Warfield

In this excerpt from his teaching series “The Parables of Jesus,” Dr. R.C. Sproul distinguishes mercy from injustice.

Mercy vs. Injustice from Ligonier Ministries on Vimeo.

Transcript

Now I’m going to draw a little circle here on the board. And this circle represents the concept of justice. Now everything outside this circle can be put in the negative category of non-justice—that which is not justice, but is non-justice. For purposes of illustration, I’m going to put a little boundary there, put another circle out here, and everything in this circle out here is non-justice. But there’s more than one kind of non-justice. Here we have a non-justice that is injustice, and that is unrighteous and evil. Right?

Over here we have grace, or mercy. Is there anything evil about grace? Of course not. Is there anything wicked about God’s being merciful? No. When God is gracious He does not commit an injustice; He does commit a non-justice.

So what happens is for those whom He elects and saves sovereignly, receive His grace. Those who do not receive His grace receive what? His justice; exactly what they deserve. Now, do we really believe that God is sovereign in His grace? Paul goes on to answer this question, is there unrighteousness in God?—God forbid, by no means!

Did not God say to Moses, “I will have mercy over whom I will have mercy”? God sovereignly has the right to be generous in His mercy to one without being required to give it to the other.