Ephesians 2:4 Meaning But God

Karuṇā: Compassion Karuṇā is the heart moved by another's suffering. Mercy here comes toward people just described as dead in their trespasses, walking along with the crowd of the age, and it arrives before any of that has been cleaned up. A doctor does not turn a patient away for being sick, and the worse the case, the more there is for mercy to do.

Cāga: Generosity Cāga is holding wealth loosely, ready to let it go. Being "rich in mercy" counts the riches by what goes out the door, so the treasury is known by how freely it opens rather than by how much sits inside. A locked vault makes nobody rich in this sense, and mercy handed out by the armful never draws the balance down.

Mettā: Loving kindness Mettā is the wish for another's welfare that asks nothing back. "His great love with which he loved us" was already in motion while we were still children of wrath, so it was never wages paid out for good behavior. A parent's love for the child who broke the window is the same love it was that morning, and the child knows this before understanding why.

Appamaññā: The immeasurable heart Appamaññā is love with no fence around it. "Rich" and "great" tempt a reader to hear a large quantity, something that could in principle be spent down; this kind of mercy has no final portion and nobody at the back of the line who finds it gone. Sunlight over a field does not measure itself out according to who is standing there.

Anukampā: Sympathy that moves to act Anukampā is fellow feeling that sets a person moving on someone else's behalf. "With which he loved us" carries the weight of the whole sentence: the motion starts at his end, and everything following the comma comes out of it. Someone who spots a child in the road runs first and does not pause to weigh whether the child deserves the rescue.