This is another redone and reposted old post.
The term goodness in relation to the character of God can be used in two ways. Some who write on God’s attributes use it to describe the uprightness of God—his moral purity. (I’ve already done a piece on this aspect of God’s character and I called it God’s righteousness.) More commonly, however, this term is used to describe God’s benevolent nature—his generosity. This is the way I’m going to use the word goodness in this series of posts on God’s attributes.
God is by nature a giving God. He gives to his creation and sustains it out of his goodness. He provides all that is needed for everything he has made.
The Lord is good to all,
and has compassion on all he has made.
The Lord supports all who fall,
and lifts up all who are bent over….
Everything looks to you in anticipation,
and you provide them with food on a regular basis.
You open your hand,
and fill every living thing with the food they desire.
(Psalm 145:9,10,15,16 NET)
It gives God pleasure to treat his creatures benevolently. Psalm 104 tells us that God’s provision for human beings and his other creatures comes because God finds “pleasure in the living things he has made (v. 31).”
Our good God is the source of everything that is good:
All generous giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or the slightest hint of change. (James 1:17 NET)
Every blessing we have and every benefit that exists comes from the heavenly Father. All that sustains us and gives us true joy is given by God. Even when we receive good things through the benevolent acts of others, we are receiving from God’s goodness, for no one can give except from what they have already received as a good gift from the Father.
God’s love, mercy, and grace have their source in God’s goodness. Sometimes those words are even used synonymously with his general benevolence. In scripture, for instance, God’s providence for both “the evil and the good” is tied to his love in Matthew 5:44. However, these terms are often used specifically for God’s benevolence as it relates to the gift of redemption, and I plan to consider each of them separately later in this series on God’s attributes.
That God is unchangeably good doesn’t mean that every person receives equally from his goodness. Some receive more good gifts than others, and that doesn’t negate God’s goodness. The parable in Matthew 20 suggests that as long as God does no one wrong, he can be more generous to some than others while remaining true to his goodness:
“Am I not permitted to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Matthew 20:15 NET)
The truest picture of God’s goodness can be seen when this aspect of his nature is viewed in relationship to his other perfections. God is benevolent, but he is also just, and because he is just, he is never benevolent in a way that overlooks sin:
The Lord , the Lord the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness, keeping loyal love for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression and sin. But he by no means leaves the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:6,7 NET)
Out of his goodness, he is long-suffering toward sinners, slow to be harsh toward our sin, but in the end, our sin must be dealt with and God’s severity expressed against it.
God’s goodness toward those who belong to him has a benevolent purpose that goes beyond providing for their well-being in this temporal world. His generous intent is designed to save them from his just harshness toward sin.
Or do you have contempt for the wealth of his kindness, forbearance, and patience, and yet do not know that God’s kindness leads you to repentance? (Romans 2:4 NET)
God’s kindness is working something of eternal consequence within his own. His kindness is intended to lead to repentance—to turn people from their sin to faith in the good God.
Those without an attitude of repentance show contempt for God’s goodness and for God himself, leading directly to “wrath…in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed! (Romans 2:5 NET).” Considering God’s goodness alongside his wrath against sin should bring sinners to God with an open hand of true repentant faith.
And there is even more good news of God’s goodness toward his own: Every single life circumstance works toward a good end in the lives of those who love him. For those who love God, even life’s difficulties are good gifts serving a benevolent purpose, for they are remaking them into people who are like Christ. (Romans 8:28-29)
How can that not make us thankful to our good Father? He is the source of everything good that we have, and he gives to us because he is good, not because we have a right to what we are given. And since every single circumstance is a good gift—an undeserved good gift—for those who belong to him, God’s people should be the kind of people who give thanks to him in all circumstances.
Let them give thanks to the Lord for his loyal love,
and for the amazing things he has done for people!
For he has satisfied those who thirst,
and those who hunger he has filled with food.
(Psalm 107:8,9)