Who is good?

 

I tease people who respond to “How are you?” with “I’m good” because good describes behavior. A better answer is “I am well.” Most chuckle and agree. Last week another person agreed when I added that Jesus said, “There is no one good but God.”

Today, I’m reading Charnock’s section on God’s goodness. Pilate said to Jesus, “What is truth?” Another question could have been, “What is good?” Charnock is just beginning to tell me and I am struck by two verses. The first says:

I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” (Psalm 16:2)

How true. He, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the circumstances of life, continually shows me that I’ve no goodness without Him. Yet there is a question in my mind; what is goodness? The dictionary uses words like desired, approved of, morally right, yet the Bible speaks of the sovereign God as good, totally and completely, even though He seems at times to ignore evil, or not answer prayer for desired and morally right things. Does that mean that God has a different definition than Oxford?

Charnock offers thought-provoking ideas. To summarize, he writes that God is no less all-good than He is almighty and all-knowing... He is so good that there is no mixture of anything which can be called not good in him… Nothing can be so evil as God is good… He is only good, without capacity of increase; He is all good, and unmixedly good; none good but God: a goodness, like the sun, that has all light and no darkness… He is the supreme and chief goodness… He can no more act contrary to this goodness in any of His actions, than He can un-God himself. It is not necessary that God should create a world; He was at his own choice whether He would create or no; but when He resolves to make a world, it is necessary that He should make it good, because He is goodness itself, and cannot act against His own nature.

Try to imagine what creation would look like if God were not good. The world would be filled with only  murderous, ravenous, injurious creatures, a bedlam and heap of confusion totally inconsistent to Divine goodness and wisdom. Not only that, any lack of goodness would ruin the possibility of Him being beneficial to His creatures, not that we would merit it, but would not have any hope to receive His grace and mercy or any other beneficial goodness. 

I would have no reason to acknowledge or praise Him if He created me to be a miserable, person even if I was innocent in action. There would be no provision for my needs, only the expectation that such a God could annihilate me and take away my life and any desires I might have.

Charnock’s logic is overwhelming (and much more developed than most who write about God). He offers Scripture as his source and this verse, while it does not define ‘good’ it does tell me what God wants my heart to say: “You are good and do good; teach me your statutes.” (Psalm 119:68) I don’t always see the goodness or understand how He can use ‘all things for my good’ but do know that I’m not good like God is good, and need Him to teach me. 

PRAY: You are often a mystery. The desires of my heart can seem good, yet when You have other ideas that are contrary to what seems good to me, Your Word challenges my ideas of good. This is a trust-test and reminds me of You asking Abraham to sacrifice his son. A good idea? Not in my mind, but the man obeyed and You bailed him out. My faith in Your goodness is being tested in several fronts. What can I say? I have no goodness AND no faith without You.