‘Behold, the Lamb
of God’
ide
o amnos tou theou
College Study
50th teaching
9.9.2013
“God’s Goodness”
a New Outlook
from an Old Truth
Introductions.
Announce PROJECTapologetica: a new group project: stageONE –
compiling booklet of apologetic information for each member of the group. So
we’re taking submissions now for apologetic info that can be verified.
PROJECTscriptura:
Not sure of next week's topic.
Review:
So we’re nearing the end of our study on God’s moral attributes. Thus far, we’ve
considered God’s Love, Jealousy, Perfection, Veracity, Wrath, Justice, Mercy
and Holiness. Continuing on through the moral attributes, what was our subject
last week?
What are some synonyms for the word Forbearance? What does
the word Forbearance uniquely mean? In Hebrew, the words translated as longsuffering are actually a
funny-sounding figure of speech; anyone remember what that figure of speech is?
Remember also that Forbearance is an extension of God’s Mercy, that it holds
back His Wrath and that it flows from His Love. According to Scripture, for
what specific purpose is God Longsuffering during this period of time we’re
living in? Who is the great Exemplar of Forbearance? How should we expect
patience to occur in our lives?
End Review
When was the last time you stood and stared into the night
sky, looked at the stars? Have you ever looked out into the infinite abyss of
space and wondered at how small you are? Have you stopped to think about how
tiny of a pocket of life this planet Earth is in the midst of the fathomless
void of all that emptiness?
Since the dawn of human history, men have looked up at the
stars and sometimes been frightened, sometimes tried to make sense of it all,
sometimes wondered if there was something or someone else out there behind it
all. Looking out into space has brought on sensations of terror, humility, awe,
mystery, loneliness, hope and isolation for humankind.
I found this quote by author A.W. Tozer: “The whole outlook
of mankind might be changed if we could all believe that we dwell under a
friendly sky and that the God of heaven, though exalted in power and majesty is
eager to be friends with us.”
What thoughts fill our minds when we stare up into the
night? Do you feel like a tiny insect isolated on an insignificant rock
hurtling through space? Or do you stop to wonder at the fact that beyond and
behind all that emptiness beyond, there exists a God who sees you, who knows
you, and who created you for a relationship with Him?
You see, how we view the world, even the stars, all hinges
on this great truth and whether you believe it or not: God exists and He is
good. I would suggest to you that the most revolutionary truth we could ever
hold is that God both exists and that He is good, friendly, hospitable, caring,
loving even toward us. You needn’t wonder whether something is out there beyond
the stars, Someone is. You needn’t shake in fear of the sheer scale of the
universe in comparison to yourself, Someone beyond it all still sees even you.
Tonight then, we come to this attribute of God which we all
know is so fundamental and basic, and yet if we acted upon it, it could
revolutionize our lives. Tonight’s study is entitled: “God’s Goodness: a New
Outlook from an Old Truth”.
God is good all the time. All the time God is good. We’ve
heard this throughout our Christian lives. This is a central concept of the
Christian God all throughout His Scripture. The Word cries: “Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good!”
This is an old truth. But if we live by it, it shall become a new outlook in
life.
We shall first begin with a correct understanding of God’s
goodness. There is prevailing confusion surrounding the idea of goodness today.
It’s rather difficult to even say just what “goodness” actually is. And when we
come to discuss God’s own goodness, the confusion is compounded. People are
already confused about God, having misconceptions about it and having
misconstrued His truths.
Thus we need to know first what God’s goodness is, if it is
primarily tangible and material blessings, as the modern prosperity teacher
would tell us, or if it is simply the natural blessings of nature (sunrises,
sunsets, rain, harvest), as the pagan religions have long identified it, or
whether Scripture says something else entirely.
So then, we shall begin with one of several points tonight…
1.
Goodness in Scripture
Turn to Psalm
73.
One of the themes of this psalm is the Goodness of God.
That’s what the writer begins with.
73:1-3, the
psalmist admits to a dilemma. Something was plaguing him. Something bothered
him, specifically about this subject of God’s goodness. He says he almost
stumbled. You get the idea that maybe he was ready to give up, say ‘Forget this
whole God-thing’ and walk away from the faith. The reason, the problem he had
with divine goodness, he says, was because He “was envious of the boastful” when he “saw the prosperity of the wicked.” And he goes on to name some of
the pleasures the wicked were receiving.
73:4-12, the
psalmist doesn’t realize that in his frustration he is only making
generalizations. It seems from his point of view in life that the wicked
prosper, but he’s saying things like “the wicked never suffer at death”. In
other words, evil men are always healthy, always wealthy and always safe.
Certainly, that’s not true. Even a short survey of the Bible shows how many
enemies of God were beaten, destroyed, taken down, hardened, plagued and
defeated by the Lord.
But this is what the psalmist believed that he was seeing,
and so he concluded then, “Surely I have
cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence. For all day long I
have been plagued, and chastened every morning” (v. 13-14). He’s thinking why go through all the trouble and trials
of trying to be a good person, trying to be godly, when it only ends up in
suffering? He’s thinking how unfair it is that here he is trying to be holy and
God is disciplining him daily, when thousands out there are doing exactly what
they want to do, not following God, and apparently not only getting off the
hook but enjoying life and its
pleasures. The psalmist is saying, ‘if that’s the case, well then I’d rather be
unholy and see some good in life’.
73:15-17, he
admits that if he had decided to live by this discovery, that the good suffer
and the bad prosper, he would have betrayed his people, God’s people. But he
realizes, when he goes into the temple, that what he is seeing is not the full
reality. It may seem like the wicked prosper, but he realizes that their end
will be miserable.
73:18-20, the
psalmist realizes that for all the supposed pleasures of the world that the
ungodly were experiencing, he had nothing to envy of them. He realizes that a
man may live for the passing pleasures of this life, but that this world is
passing away, and a life not lived for the Lord and apart from the Lord is a
wasted life, which would end in judgment.
73:21-26, the
psalmist recognizes that he had a false conception of what was happening around
him. He didn’t need to envy the wicked and the passing pleasures of earth,
rather, the wicked should envy him. The wicked weren’t experiencing any better
good than the psalmist, rather, the psalmist in living for God knew he had
guidance, that one day he would be received to glory and not destruction. The
things he envied of the wicked were fleeting and pursuing them would land him
in eternal separation from God.
73:27-28, so in
this psalm, you really see one man wrestle with his personal idea of goodness.
At first, he looks around and is envious of the good received by the wicked.
But eventually he realizes that the goodness, the blessings, the treasures of
the earth aren’t really any kind of goodness at all. They are merely temporary
pleasures on a road leading to hell.
Then he realizes that he had the wrong idea of what
goodness is. Goodness isn’t merely the tangible things, the material
possessions and the pleasures of the world. And God wasn’t truly giving
goodness to the wicked in allowing them to prosper and be successful and
wealthy. Rather, the psalmist realizes that real
goodness is experiencing the nearness of God: “It is good for me to draw near to God.”
So then, let’s understand this from the get go. The
psalmist began with a ‘prosperity gospel’ kind of idea of what goodness is,
that it’s having things, nice things, being somebody, rich, wealthy, liked,
famous, healthy, safe, successful, powerful, independent and secure. These
things are what the psalmist expected he should be getting since he was a
follower of God.
But the actuality was that all of those things are
fleeting. With all the wealth, health and fame, the wicked would still go and
live apart from God in eternity in hell. So then, real goodness, according to
Scripture and this psalmist’s own discovery, is drawing nearer to God.
The psalmist thought that success was a mark of goodness,
when in fact nearness to God is a mark of goodness. We must have this point
nailed down before we go any further.
Many thousands of real Christians and believers through the
ages have suffered terrible hardships for the glory of God, never having been
wealthy, or very much liked, or experiencing good health or success. The
prophet Jeremiah preached and never saw a single convert. The apostle Paul
preached and had stones thrown at him. Jesus Christ preached and suffered the
crucifixion. We cannot degrade God’s goodness by simply making it out to be
mere tangible blessings, success, power and wealth.
Don’t miss the profundity of that statement. If the
goodness in life is what you equate with wealth, fame and safety, then Jesus
Christ was one of the least good people ever. And if we judge people to be good
only on the basis of the majority of their earthly blessings and the minority
of their suffering, then Jesus Christ was one of the worst people who ever
lived. You see immediately that you cannot judge the basis of a person’s
goodness or the goodness they’re receiving merely by earthly pleasures.
“Nearer, my God, to Thee. Nearer to Thee. Even though it be
a cross, that raiseth me… So by my woes to be: Nearer, my God, to Thee” the
words of an old hymn that got it right.
Goodness is being near the Source of Goodness. This is what
is right, great, admirable, correct and good in life. As the psalmist realized
that good is defined as drawing near to the Lord, even though it may sometimes
require the cross as a ladder to draw nearer to the heavens.
2.
Goodness Defined
So it is good to draw near to God, the Source of
Goodness. But what does it mean to say that God is good? What does this moral
attribute of God’s Goodness mean? How do you define what Good is?
If Good is the opposite of Bad, we still don’t have a
complete definition, for what is Bad? Clearly, we can’t just think in
comparative terms.
One primary definition of “good” is “having the right or
desired qualities, satisfactory, adequate”.
A quote from the
Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer draws from this definition of what
“good” is: “The goodness of God is that which disposes Him to be kind, cordial,
benevolent, and full of good will toward men. He is tenderhearted and of quick
sympathy, and His unfailing attitude toward all moral beings is open, frank,
and friendly. By His nature He is inclined to bestow blessedness and He takes
holy pleasure in the happiness of His people. That God is good is taught or
implied on every page of the Bible and must be received as an article of the
faith as impregnable as the throne of God. It is a foundation stone for all
sound thought about God and is necessary for moral sanity.”
There’s a great summary of the goodness of God. God being
good has the right qualities, the best qualities of any moral being. God being
good is the foundation for all rational, correct thought about God. Similarly,
God being good is necessary for our human concept of morality: right and wrong.
Even Voltaire once penned the words: “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him”.
Meaning, the good God of Christianity is necessary for the moral and social
structure of our culture.
*Theologically, there’s a term to indicate this attribute
of the Goodness of God, known as Omnibenevolence. Like the other
Omni-attributes (omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience) there is also
Omnibenevolence. As a compound word from Latin, Omnibenevolence literally means
“all-good”, just as omnipresent means “all-present”, omnipotent “all-power” and
omniscience “all-knowledge”. We know then that God is present everywhere, that
He has both unlimited power and infinite knowledge, as we studied in the past.
But Omnibenevolence indicates that He is infinitely good, literally: all-good.
In simpler terms, there is no part of God that His goodness
does not touch. Just like His infinity, which touches of His attributes (thus
He has infinite power, infinite wisdom, infinite love, infinite
unchangeability, infinite life) so too His goodness touches His attributes:
thus God has love, but we know because of Omnibenevolence that His love is good
love. So too, His wrath is good, His jealousy is good (like we studied), His
justice is good, His knowledge is good, His holiness is good and so on.
*Now, the word “good” doesn’t just have to refer to
something moral. It can sometimes describe something as being better than
something else. Then God, being good, is simply the best, being more “good”
than anything else. God is both the greatest and the best of all living things.
Thus this attribute of God’s Goodness is this: a
description of His entire worth, a summary of the wholeness and perfection of
all of His attributes in unity. After all, Goodness is seen in God in so many
aspects: kindness, sympathy He shows, His good will, His friendliness, His
salvation, His forgiveness, righteousness, mercy and love.
Actually, I was surprised to discover a passage of
Scripture that indicates this: that God’s goodness is in some ways a summary of
His entire being.
Turn to Exodus
33:17-23.
Notice that Moses asks God “Please, show me You glory.” He said, ‘show me your magnificence and
beauty, your form, your honor, you splendor and greatness’. He is saying ‘I
want to see you’.
And God replies “I
will make all My GOODNESS pass before you…” Moses asked for God’s glory.
God showed him His Goodness. Moses wanted to see God. What God would show him
was His Goodness, the one thing that takes in and summarizes all of what God
is.
So many times now we’ve referenced God’s Love. And in
balancing God’s Love, we studied God’s wrath. In balancing God’s wrath, we
studied God’s mercy. In balancing God’s mercy, we studied God’s justice. But an
aspect of God which requires no balancing out, which has no flip-side to it as
wrath and love, justice and mercy do, is God’s Goodness. It simply is the way
God is, the totality of His attributes, the harmony of His Divine essence.
This idea relating God’s glory to His goodness also hinges
on one of the meanings of the word “good”. “Good” can also be a word you say to
appreciate something. “Good” can be linked up with concepts of appreciation and
admiration.
When you walk out of the theater, having enjoyed the movie
you just watched, you say: that was a good movie. After you finish reading a
book that you liked, you say: that was a good book. We use the word “good” all
the time to identify things that we personally find admirable.
This is precisely the way in which God Himself uses the
word “good”, if you recall the Genesis account of Creation. God made the light
and saw that it was good. He made the water and the dry land and decided that
it was good. He made the living things and identified them as good. God
reflected upon His own creation as being “good” things that He made. He
appreciated the work of His creative powers, calling them “good”.
Linked up with God’s glory, this helps us to realize that
God’s goodness is that collective attribute which summarizes all of His being
and thus involves our appreciation and admiration. God’s goodness is that
aspect of Himself which is observed by us and adored by us. That aspect of God
which demands and commands worship because of His greatness is in fact the
attribute known as God’s Goodness. It is the Goodness of God which describes
the attraction about Him, the lure of His perfection, the thing that drives us
to worship Him when we consider Him. Goodness is the loveliness of the Lord.
Off a website called bunyanministries.org, I pulled this
quote: “God’s goodness is His admirable being and doing, but especially His
attractive moral excellence… God’s goodness refers to that observed, attractive
moral excellence, that appreciation of His righteousness which the spiritual
man especially delights to acknowledge.”
That’s why when Moses asked to see God’s glory to admire
Him, God said He would show Him His goodness. As we sang “Lord, let your glory
fall as on that ancient day, songs of enduring love and then Your glory came…
You are good, You are good and Your love endures”. God’s glory is His goodness.
Moses saw the glory of God and it was His goodness.
*So though our English word “good” is a loose term that we
use all too often, we’ve learned a few things about Goodness as an attribute of
God. Let’s summarize what we’ve learned in this point, Goodness Defined:
a. Goodness: having the right qualities, being satisfactory
and adequate.
b. Goodness is the foundation for correct thinking about
God.
c. Goodness is also known as Omnibenevolence, meaning
all-good.
d. Goodness touches all parts of God’s nature and
character.
e. Goodness can refer to something you admire and
appreciate.
f. Goodness is aligned with
God’s glory, a summary of His attributes which is to be appreciated and
admired. Goodness is God’s glory.
3. Goodness
in Essence
Turn to Mark 10:17
You have to love the way Jesus addressed deeper issues in
people’s lives. Jesus didn’t talk to people like a politician or like a coach,
like a philosopher or a person that wanted to be loved by everybody; He talked
to people by shooting clear for the central issue at hand, which sometimes
involved going around the questions that others had for Him. It’s remarkable.
But here, Jesus makes a masked point about this man’s
conception of God. The man asked what to do to inherit eternal life, and he was
already expecting an answer that would involve doing good things and being a
better person. So to address that internal misconception, Jesus delivers by stating
the truth that only God is good.
Given what we’ve learned about “goodness” as it applies to
God, we can see now perhaps a little more clearly how true this statement of
Christ is.
Have you read this passage before and maybe thought in the
back of your mind, “well, that’s a little unfair; after all, there are good
people in the world”. But in comparison with good, this is simply not true.
There are certainly some admirable people in this world,
whom we appreciate for their good deeds and actions from our perspective. But
people merely have goodness as a
temporary trait. Even “good” people get impatient, upset and do bad things.
People can possess goodness and do good things sometimes, but that doesn’t
negate what Christ said.
He said “no one IS good but God”. Though humans can have goodness and show goodness and do good
things, God alone IS good.
Listen to this quote by Arthur Pink: God “…is originally
good, good of Himself, which nothing else is; for all creatures are good only
by participation and communication from God. He is essentially good; not only
good, but goodness itself: the creature’s good is a super-added quality, in God
it is His essence. He is infinitely good; the creature’s good is but a drop,
but I God there is an infinite ocean or gathering together of good. He is
eternally and immutably good, for He cannot be less good than He is; as there
can be no addition made to Him, so no subtraction from Him”.
In so many words: Goodness is central to God’s nature,
whereas we know that goodness is foreign to human nature. When we approach the
Goodness of God, we must immediately realize that we’re approaching something
which is essentially alien to human life.
My wife and I enjoy watching documentaries. One recent
documentary we watched was on my favorite marine animal: the cuttlefish. There
are many fascinating things about these creatures, but one of the most
fascinating is their intelligence.
On the documentary, marine biologists were conducting
experiments to determine whether cuttlefish can learn to associate symbols with
meaning and actions with rewards.
One such experiment involved placing a cuttlefish into a
chamber that had to holes on either side, one hole which led to freedom from
the chamber and the other hole which was covered up and blocked by clear
plastic. Whenever the chamber’s true exit was on the right, they’d place a red
brick in the chamber. Whenever the chamber’s exit was on the left, they’d put a
bit of plastic seaweed in the chamber. What they found is that the cuttlefish
easily and quickly began to associate the red brick with the right exit, and
the plastic seaweed with the left exit. Once they figured it out, the
cuttlefish did the same thing every time, having learned the correct behavior.
At this point in time, scientists don’t really know much
about what goes on in the brains of these intelligent animals, with their
complex patterns, colors, and hunting and courting behaviors. They’re
approaching something essentially alien, so far removed from what human life,
human environments, behavior, thoughts and interaction is like that they need
to be consciously careful to be open-minded, not to portray human intelligence
onto the cuttlefish, but rather discover precisely how the cuttlefish operates
independently.
In the same way, the divine life is totally different from
ours, following a perfect inclination towards good, contrary to the fact that
our fallen nature tends us toward evil. God does not struggle with choice
making, since He knows which is the best and is motivated by His goodness to
choose the best. God does not wrestle with things like temptation or doubt. He
about the social awkwardness you and I experience.
Even His form of goodness is something unlike our own human
idea of what goodness is, when we see it in fellow human beings. This is not
just another human being. God is not a powerful old man living beyond the
universe, such as the Olympian gods of the Greeks.
God made us in His image, not the other way round. And we
would be sorely mistaken to confuse God’s attributes by trying to make them
simply more like ours. His Goodness is different from human goodness, so much
so that Jesus could say “No one is good except for God”.
Before our final point, let’s have our Project Scriptura
verses. We shall see further the biblical descriptions of God’s goodness:
4.
Goodness as Revolutionary
At the beginning of tonight’s study, I suggested that
believing that God exists and that He is good should change the way you look
out into the starry night. It should also revolutionize a few other things, if
you both know and believingly act upon these truths.
Firstly,
believing the Goodness of God should revolutionize how you view God.
I came across a message by Greg Laurie today. In it, he says:
“A few years ago, USA Today published an article about how people view or see
God. The article, entitled ‘View of God Can Predict Values, Politics,’ was
based on a survey conducted by Baylor University that identified four
viewpoints of God, or as the researchers put it, ‘Four Gods.’ Respondents were
asked to agree or disagree with the 10 descriptions of their personal
understanding of what God is like. The researches then identified what they
thought represented the four views of God.
“First was the Authoritarian God, described as being angry
at humanity’s sin and engaged in our lives and world affairs. Next there was
the Benevolent God. Those who saw God in this way believed in a primarily
forgiving God who would want us to care for the sick and needy and so forth. Then
there was the Critical God, whom respondents viewed as having a judgmental eye
on the world, but would not intervene either to punish or to comfort. Lastly,
there was the Distant God. People who held this view simply believe there was a
cosmic force that launched the world and left it spinning on its own.
“As I read through the descriptions of these “Four Gods,” I
was trying to figure out which one I believed in. The problem was that none of
them worked for me. There were certain aspects in the different descriptions of
God I agreed with, but none totally summed up where I stood. So I came up with
a fifth category of my own: the Biblical God.
“The Biblical God is angry at the sin of humanity, like the
Baylor researchers’ “Authoritarian God,” but he is kind and full of mercy, as
those who believe in the so-called “Benevolent God” would say. And he does care
about the sick and the needy. But the Biblical God certainly would not be
described as a Critical God or a Distant God. It is very important that we
understand who God really is and what he is really like, because the way we see
God will influence how we look at life.”
So how do you view God? I think an illuminating way to
consider how you view God is to think about what you would tell someone if you
were to invite them to your church? What would you say to them? What would you
focus on to get them to want to come with you to church? Maybe what aspects of
God would you mention in your invitation?
These are insightful questions and we should carefully
consider how we view God, because essentially it is our view of God which we
are going to tell others about. I’m going to talk about the God I believe in,
and therefore I need to know what I believe and Who I believe in with great
biblical accuracy. We must be prepared to share God with others by knowing God
and learning about Him, precisely what we’re attempting to do through these
college studies. And the Goodness of God plays a large part in that. Do you
portray God as admirable and worthy of appreciation, as “good”, to others? Or
does your behavior, your body language, even your words portray Him as someone
you just have to put up with? A cosmic-killjoy, maybe? A tremendous bore,
perhaps?
We can’t expect others to want to come and learn about God
if we’re not excited to do so ourselves.
So not only should God’s Goodness as part of a correct view
of God revolutionize how we view God, but…
Secondly,
believing the Goodness of God should revolutionize how you come to God.
The Bible says “But
we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy
rags” in Isaiah 64:6. Romans 3:10-11 says “There is none righteous, no, not one; there
is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God.”
Tozer, again, writes: “…sin has made us timid and
self-conscious, as well it might. Years of rebellion against God have bred in
us a fear that cannot be overcome in a day. The captured rebel does not enter
willingly the presence of the king he has so long fought unsuccessfully to overthrow.
But if he is truly penitent he may come, trusting only in the loving-kindness
of his Lord, and the past will not be held against him… The greatness of God
rouses fear within us, but His goodness encourages us not to be afraid of Him.
To fear and not be afraid – that is the paradox of faith.”
Clearly, Scripture sets up the picture as thus: we have
sinned against a holy God who has every right to punish us, though He pardons
us and welcomes us into His presence by His goodness.
Many of us only get half of that picture correct. Most
people you’ll meet know deep down that they’ve done some bad things. Think
about how many people live with a kind of self-conscious depression, of feeling
like they’re never good enough. But that’s just half the picture when it comes
to God.
Truly we aren’t good enough, but He delights to forgive the
very people who sought to rebel against Him. And this is how we ought to come
to God: both with a total conviction of our own sinfulness and with a perfect
affirmation of His own goodness.
“If we would be welcomed as the prodigal son was, we must
come as the prodigal son came…” How’s that? In humility, knowing he has done
wrong, but coming only on the basis of his father’s mercy, hoping upon his
father’s goodness.
Thirdly and
finally, believing the Goodness of God should revolutionize how you react to
tragedy and hardship.
Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together
for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His
purpose.”
When I think back on the events in my life, this is
probably the clearest and most practical way that I have seen God’s Goodness
take action. We’re not talking yet about God’s sovereignty, about God being in
control of circumstances. No, we’re talking merely about when things happen in
one’s life that seem irreconcilable with the existence of an all-good God.
You watch, where there is tragedy, hardship, trials; where
there’s the death of a loved one, a friend; where ever Satan or humankind tries
to work for evil, God will act and His Goodness can take the worst of
circumstances and turn it into the best possible outcome.
Doesn’t mean God snaps His fingers like magic and all the
pain and the loss and the hurt goes away. But it means that He will take the
bad and turn it into the good, as an activity of His own attribute of Goodness.
I would venture to say that you should look for this, expect this when
something bad happens. Look for the hand of God turning the bad into the good,
because that’s what He does and that’s what He is.
That’s where the revolution of our way of thinking comes
in. Yes, you’ve known all this since Sunday school. You’ve heard that God is
good from church, from parents, from other Christians, from books, from
placards, from preachers, from pastors, from wall-decorations, from
inspirational cards, from the Bible. But knowing this isn’t the whole thing.
This is an old truth, yes, but it should produce a new outlook for us.
Can you put the knowledge into active belief? Can you
challenge yourself to expect God’s goodness whenever you experience grief or
suffering?
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