“God is good.”
What does this sentence truly mean? What is the true meaning of this well-known statement? How are we to live in light of its meaning?
When thinking about how to define “good,” I had a hard time because of two simple reasons: my view of goodness in the world is distorted and my view of God’s goodness is too low.
I have often heard - even from myself a long time ago - that we are all basically good people. We don’t kill people. We don’t lie that much. We don’t steal that much. We do some good things on occasion for others. We are basically good people.
The sad and sobering truth is this: We are not good people. We are not basically “good.” We are sinners by nature. When we are born we naturally want to sin and commit sins against God.
Without God’s intervention, we are all sinful (Romans 3:23, 1 Kings 8:46, 1 John 1:8), everything we do against God is sin (Romans 14:23, Hebrews 11:6), we are morally incapable of loving God as we need to (John 3:5-7, Romans 6:17-18), and our sin deserves to be eternally punished by God and His wrath (Matthew 25:46).
The Bible portrays a very different reality than we believe that we live in.
Okay, so if that’s true… Why does that even matter?
Because God is good!
Karis Church, the church I am an intern and have been a member at for two years, sums up God’s goodness like this:
Our Lord is perfectly good. This means that He is morally excellent, but it means more than that. He is also completely satisfying. We were made to find our joy in Him. Coming to Him brings deep satisfaction.
God is perfectly good. He is way more “good” than we believe. We place a value on goodness based on our experience and our moral standard, but God’s goodness is perfect in nature because His nature itself is perfect. In His perfection, His goodness surpasses our finite understanding of “good.”
Everything that happens is tied to God’s goodness because He is by nature perfectly good in all ways, at all times, and in all situations. Those who believe in God’s goodness through His Son Jesus Christ will find refuge and comfort (Psalm 34: 8, Psalm 106:1-5, Matthew 5:4).
Jesus Christ is the ultimate picture and revelation of God’s goodness. Jesus, God in the flesh, came to reconcile God to His chosen people. He, in perfect goodness, lived a perfect life. He, in perfect goodness, willingly died on the cross for sinners to be reconciled to the Father God. He, in perfect goodness, defeated death by raising from the grave three days after his death. He is perfectly good in all that He does.
In light of this, how we are to respond?
By placing our faith in Jesus Christ and His perfect goodness.
There is no need to look for anything else to satisfy your thirst for something pure, everlasting, and fulfilling. We are all constantly looking for a greater pleasure, a greater high, a greater this and that. The problem is that we seek for “goodness” in all the wrong places.
We find perfect, pure, righteous, holy, just, loving, forgiving, gracious, and unchanging goodness in Jesus Christ alone!
God is good. God is good. God is good!
Trust Jesus. He is perfectly good.
God is good and gracious.
Jacob Luis Gonzales
