What does it mean that God is good?

This chapter properly expresses the circumstances of the remnant; and though it may not apply directly to ourselves, yet the moral principles of it are true with us. It is very blessed to see how all comes out from God's side. It was the stay of the heart then; it is equally so now. Every child of God is in circumstances of trial and pressure, because we are still in the wilderness. Our comfort is, "The Lord is good." This is His nature. His power, omnipotence, omniscience, are His attributes; but He Himself is good. When we get the light of the New Testament shining upon it, what do we find? He gave His Son - He gave His Spirit. It is only as we know the heart of God that we know the purpose of His ways; judging of God by our feeble sense leads to infidelity. His ways are no interpretation of Him. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." God manifest in the flesh, is God's revelation of Himself.

"God so loved … that He gave." Here we have the expressed revelation of the love of His heart through the Son of His love. He came and revealed the secrets of that bosom. There is not a secret of His heart that is not manifested. Nothing but love marks Him. You must bring the nature of God to shine on His ways, otherwise we shall bring our own puny reason to account for them. "His way is in the sea," etc. Is that all? "Thou leddest thy people like a flock." Here we have His tender, watchful care and interest. We are led by the hand of our great Shepherd, not by the hand of Moses and Aaron. "He is a stronghold in the day of trouble." It does not say He will take us out of the trouble, or that He will lighten it; but it is what He Himself is - "a stronghold in the day of trouble." Have we learnt what it is to have a resource, and not relief only? We are so often looking for relief merely, we need as well a resource; it is what He Himself is - "a stronghold," etc. What a blessed thing to have a resource before relief comes; and the relief is then no less sweet to us. A person who is looking only for relief is always impatient, because he desires to have the weight removed, the difficulty taken away; and the will of man is apt to clothe itself in the deceiving garment of seeming good; viz., how much more freely and happily I could serve and follow Him, if this weight were removed. "For this thing I be sought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me;" but when Paul heard the voice of Jesus announcing the sufficiency of His grace, and how His power worked, he accepts unmitigated the thorn, in order that the power of Christ may (episkenose) pitch its tent over him.

Again, observe how those who count on God are described. He does not speak of what they have left, or what they have obtained; but they "trust in Him." They make every thing of Him. Observe too, it is not their knowledge, not that they are devoted, blessed as that is; it is they trust in Him, and He knows it. It is a blessed thing to be satisfied with the knowledge of God about us. It is strikingly seen in restored Peter, when the Lord tested him as to the point he had boasted in. He says, "Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee." He had confidence in himself before; he now retires on his Lord's knowledge of him; he had found out what he was, and he has not a word to say for himself. His solace is, "Thou knowest." In 2 Timothy, when the apostle describes the last days, it is the same blessed principle which is put forth to guide the faithful heart. To the one who departs from iniquity, what a comfort it is, "The Lord knoweth them that are His." May our hearts be so with Him as to find out the reality and sustainment of this word: "The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knoweth them that trust in Him."

As we pass through wilderness circumstances on our way (often so painful and trying) to the rest of God, there is nothing that so braces the soul and cheers the heart, imparting a fresh spring of life and energy and joy, as the sense of what God Himself is, and, we may add, of what He must of very necessity be, in the deep perfections of His Being. We feel the trials of the way - sorrow, suffering, pressure, need; but the soul that knows God - is acquainted with Him, well knows that of these things He is but the origin and source because it is His joy to bless, His nature to do good; and thus that only what is good, and worthy therefore of Himself, can ever flow from the heart of the blessed God. No taint of sin, no seed of suffering or sorrow, was there to mar that fair and wondrous scene of a completed creation when the Creator, as He looked on the work of His hands, pronounced it all very good. And as we look at the ruin and the desolation, and feel its sad effects, whether in us or without us, we can only say, "An enemy hath done this;" while we look forward to that blessed and unending rest, the rest of God Himself, in which all shall be the eternal witness, the everlasting display of goodness supreme that must expend, but can never exhaust, itself in the blessing of all within its sway.

Of first importance is the fact of who He is, which always precedes what He has done. To begin with, He is good, in contrast to all others, for "there is none who does good, no, not one" (Rom. 3:12). Because it is God's very nature to be good, therefore everything He does is good, even though it may mean dreadful judgment for the ungodly. "His mercy endures forever." This is repeated in every verse of this psalm, for it is a fact that needs to be learned well, and will be learned in the millennium.

(9) His Goodness. Perhaps this should not be differentiated from His love, and yet it is displayed where men have no eye for His love. See Matt. 5:45 "He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good." Throughout the Gospels, we have the constant testimony to His goodness, forbearance, longsuffering, etc. These general attributes may be classed under this one head, suggesting His benevolence. As has just been said, this is in close connection with His love. The distinction however can be recognized.

The answer is now given to this call to bear witness, and the ground traveled over in the former psalm is gone over here again, but in short sentences to every one of which the celebration of Jehovah's loving-kindness in what is spoken of is attached. Be it creation; be it redemption; judgment on their enemies,or mercy to themselves, this seal is set upon all His work, that Jehovah's loving-kindness has been working in it. And indeed in all His acts all that He is must act: if He be good, as God is, He must be good in everything He does.

God still shows Himself to be good. He does not leave Himself without witness to this. He is the preserver of all men and He gives us "rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness" (Acts 14).

He gives the increase of the earth in answer to man's toil upon it. Yea, every good and perfect gift comes down from Him, and He continues to give though the multitudes never so much as thank Him for His gifts. He makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust, and He is kind to the unthankful and the evil, and He turns the very miseries that result from man's inhumanity and injustice to one another to the good of all those who turn to Him, so that their sorrows often become their greatest blessings. His goodness is manifested in His command to men to repent, to turn from their own ways that can only involve them in everlasting ruin to Him who alone can do them good. It makes itself eloquent as He beseeches men to be reconciled to Him; it shines forth from the face of the Saviour who sits at His right hand, but who was once crucified at Calvary that men might believe that God loves them. "For God commends His Love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us."

But the power of God does not in any way lessen His loving-kindness. He remains marvelously gracious and full of compassion. Indeed, Israel's history has shown this, and it will be wonderfully manifest to them in their entering their promised thousand years of peace. They will recall their past history in which God has been "slow to anger and great in mercy" (v. 8). His goodness will be manifest to all (not only Israel), and certainly if any refuse Him they are refusing His goodness. On His part, "His tender mercies are over all His works" (v. 9). If men refuse this, they are choosing their own doom.

"For thy goodness' sake," "for thy name's sake:" there is ground on which the soul founds is confidence. Impossible that God should fail His own name. (John 17:6.) He is "good and upright." What does the goodness of God to a trembling and miserable sinner? It does not cast up to him his misery, but takes cognisance of it to inspire him with full confidence and give him courage. God would deny Himself if He failed in His goodness in this case. God cannot do otherwise; He sets to His own name, His glory, His truth, His grace, in a word to all that He is, as we see in the father of the prodigal son. (Luke 15:20-23.)

What a very striking combination of "goodness and severity" we observe in these few lines! We have the "cutting off" of the nations of Canaan, because of their consummated wickedness which had become positively unbearable. And, on the other hand, we have a most touching display of divine goodness in the provision made for the poor manslayer, in the day of his deep distress, when flying for his life, from the avenger of blood. The government and the goodness of God are, we need hardly say, both divinely perfect. There are cases in which goodness would be nothing but a toleration of sheer wickedness and open rebellion which is utterly impossible under the government of God. If men imagine that, because God is good, they may go on and sin with a high hand, they will, sooner or later, find out their woeful mistake.

Now God tells us this plainly in order to act upon our consciences; He tells us He is light, and that darkness can have no communion with Him; that nothing defiled can enter into the heavenly Jerusalem as it is called. He warns us that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness. He says there is oppression and wrong, but encourages the Christian to the patience which Christ Himself shewed. And how? By the solemn word, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord" (Rom. 12:19). He is a righteous Judge, as well as a God of love. He takes notice of good and evil, and hence necessarily judges. Yet we are sinners, and, as regards such, what can righteousness do? But He is love. Does His love destroy His judgment against sin? does it put an end to His righteousness? No: that would not be grace and love, but indifference to evil; and would lead our hearts alas! to be indifferent to it too. Why should not we be, if God were? But it would be a real curse to us, and He would not be really the true and holy God.