Untitled Sermon

Goodness

Goodness is a mysterious term that communicates a sense of delight and fathomless depth-a glad mystery. A review of the words goodness or good as found in the Bible quickly reveals the reason for this: goodness in the Bible is God himself. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are good, do good and create good. God’s people are not good in themselves but become capable of doing good through the empowerment of God’s Spirit and the presence of God in their lives through Jesus Christ. What then is goodness? How does the beauty of the Bible’s imagery uncover for us the richness of the words good and goodness that appear more than six hundred times in the Bible?

The Goodness of God. Goodness is in accordance with God’s nature. As it is in the nature of water to be wet or fire to be hot, it is the nature of God to be good. This characteristic is not changeable or diminishing, nor does it have a beginning or an end. When Moses requests to see the glory of God, God replies, “I will make all my goodness pass before you.” But “you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live” (Ex 33:19–20 RSV). God’s goodness is here an image of mystery, transcending human comprehension. During the same encounter, God passes before Moses and proclaims, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty” (Ex 34:6–7 RSV). All of these qualities-mercy, grace, love, faithfulness, forgiveness and righteousness are what it means for the Lord to be good.

This sense of the goodness of God encompassing many things is echoed in the Psalms. The goodness of the Lord can be seen “in the land of the living” (Ps 27:13), implying that human life in this world is the arena within which God’s goodness is accessible to us. In Psalm 31, a psalm of thanksgiving for deliverance, the poet exclaims, “O how abundant is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for those who fear thee” (Ps 31:19 RSV), and the catalog of evidences includes God’s righteousness, steadfast love, compassion, faithfulness, grace and generosity. Psalm 145, a praise psalm, likewise extols God’s “abundant goodness,” linking it with such moral and spiritual attributes as greatness, majesty, righteousness, mercy, steadfast love, compassion and providence. God is good in his very being: Jesus asserts that “no one is good but God alone” (Lk 18:19 RSV), and the psalmist writes, “Thou art my Lord; I have no good apart from thee” (Ps 16:2 RSV).

Not only is God good; he does good. The psalmist links the two when he writes, “Thou art good and doest good” (Ps 119:68 RSV). In the OT, God “promised good to Israel” (Num 10:29) and kept his promise. Although Joseph’s brothers “meant evil against” him, “God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive” (Gen 50:20 RSV). At the dedication of the temple, the people “went to their homes joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the LORD had shown to David his servant and to Israel his people” (1 Kings 8:66 RSV). In Psalm 23, a psalm that catalogs God’s acts of provision, the poem rises to a confident prediction that God’s “goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life” (Ps 23:6). In the NT, God is similarly portrayed as the God who does good. Jesus “went about doing good” (Acts 10:38). Paul expressed the confidence that “in everything God works for good with those who love him” (Rom 8:28 RSV).

The Good Creation. There is probably no more famous biblical passage built around the theme of what is good than the six declarations in the creation story (Gen 1) that “God saw that it was good,” culminating in a seventh statement that “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31 RSV). Here is another cluster of biblical images of the good-the creation that God called into being and that continues to bless the human race. God’s creation, including people, who are created in his image, is an extension of his own goodness; no wonder it is good in principle. Paul’s asserts that “everything created by God is good” (1 Tim 4:4 RSV).

Because of the link between God and his creation, human life in this world is viewed in the Bible as good in principle. Two passages in the book of Jeremiah can be taken as a summary. The redeemed “shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the LORD” (Jer 31:12 RSV), and the picture of God’s goodness that follows includes grain, wine, oil, flocks and herds, life so full that it is “like a watered garden,” and people rejoicing in dance (Jer 31:12–13). People thus blessed “shall be satisfied with my goodness, says the LORD” (Jer 31:14). Here the goodness of God extends to the good things of this life-images of human satisfaction as well as God’s inherent goodness of character.

A similar catalog of images of the good construed as the blessings of God on his creatures occurs two chapters later: “There shall be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voices of those who sing, as they bring their offerings to the house of the LORD. Give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good, for his steadfast love endures for ever!” (Jer 33:10–11). This is indeed the proverbial good life, with God and people in harmony and people rejoicing in both God and the human blessings that he bestows. The goodness of God is not isolated from life but is the basis for what is good in it.

The Fruit of the Spirit. People, made in God’s image and restored to that image by redemption, are also capable of good. Their actions, like God’s in a perfect sense, are declared to be “good.” The “good deeds” of Hezekiah were so noteworthy that they were committed to a written record (2 Chron 32:32). The writer of Proverbs declares that “a good man obtains favor from the LORD” (Prov 12:2) and is filled with the fruit of his deeds (14:14). Joseph of Arimathea was “a good and righteous man” (Lk 23:50), and Barnabas was “a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith” (Acts 11:24). Here then is another category of goodness in the Bible-characters who display the godlike qualities that the Bible portrays as comprising the ultimate good.

Goodness is one of the celebrated fruits of the Spirit that characterize those who belong to Christ (Gal 5:22–24). We noted earlier that God is the source of all goodness; hence, “he who does good is of God” (3 Jn 11). Human goodness is not self-generated: “No one does good, not even one” (Rom 3:12), Paul writes; and again, “nothing good dwells in me” (Rom 7:18). Yet Paul can enjoin those who have the Spirit to “do good to all men” (Gal 6:10), just as Jesus commanded his followers to “do good to your enemies” (Lk 6:35). Jesus also taught that “a good tree bears good fruit” (Mt 7:17).

The Cosmic Conflict. An important aspect of goodness in the Bible is that it is set over against its opposite. The backdrop is the biblical assumption of a great spiritual conflict between good and evil. Virtually every story in the Bible gives us a variation on the theme. The conflict begins in Paradise, with its tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:9, 17). After eating from the forbidden tree, Adam and Eve know good and evil (Gen 3:22). Thereafter good and evil are intertwined-the lot of those living in a fallen world.

A prime responsibility for those living in such a world is to discern good from evil (2 Sam 14:17; 1 Kings 3:9; Heb 5:14). Another is to do good rather than evil, to actively choose good over evil (Ps 34:14; 37:27; Prov 14:22; Is 7:15, 16; Amos 5:14, 15; Rom 12:9; 1 Pet 3:11). Goodness is something that must be actively sought (Prov 11:27). Another variation on the theme is that the human race is assumed to fall into two categories: the good and the evil (Prov 15:3; Eccles 9:2; Mt 5:45; 12:35; Jn 5:29), just as actions are assumed to be either good or evil (Eccles 12:14; 2 Cor 5:10). The resolution of the cosmic conflict of the ages will occur in the eschaton, and although the words good and goodness do not appear in English versions of the book of Revelation, a major meaning of the book is the final and conclusive triumph of good over evil.

Images of the Good. The image of goodness, along with the stock adjective good, is the most frequently used biblical term to denote what is positive in human experience. Something of its richness will emerge if we simply note the range of things that various biblical writers declare to be good. In one category we find obviously moral and spiritual phenomena. We are invited to “taste and see that the LORD is good” (Ps 34:8 RSV). Giving thanks to God is good (Ps 54:6; 92:1), and being near to God is good (Ps 73:28). So are the hand of God upon a person (Neh 2:18), God’s statutes and commandments (Neh 9:13), the promise of God (1 Kings 8:56), the godly life (2 Chron 6:27), and doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with God (Mic 6:8).

But the list of good things keeps expanding into less obviously “spiritual” areas of life. A pasture can be good, for example (1 Chron 4:40; Ezek 34:14). So can the work of building a wall (Neh 2:18) and finding a wife (Prov 18:22). Believers’ dwelling in unity is good (Ps 133:1). So are a word in season (Prov 15:23); eating, drinking and finding enjoyment in work (Eccles 5:18); wisdom (Eccles 7:11) and a conscience free from guilt (Acts 23:1; 1 Tim 1:5). The fruit of a tree can be good (Mt 7:17), as can the gifts parents give to their children (Mt 7:11) and the precepts of a wise person (Prov 4:2). Even affliction can be good (Ps 119:71).

Summary. The references to goodness in the Bible tell us that God is good and that through his life in us we grow in goodness and in our likeness to him. Meditating on the goodness of the Lord engenders a sense of true virtue that speaks to the best that is in each believer. As creatures made in the image of God, we can aspire to goodness, surrounded by a world and society that includes much that is good.

Leland Ryken et al., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 343–345.