What does it mean that God is good?

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The goodness of God is one of the great themes running through Scripture, touching every aspect of His dealings with mankind — from creation, through the history of Israel, to the full revelation of Himself in Christ. God's Goodness Displayed in His Ways An article in An Outline of Sound Words on "The Ways of God" traces God's goodness back to the very beginning: "The goodness of God is seen in His ways with Adam, for He brought him into a paradise of His own making, where there was everything to gratify the heart of man in innocency; and even when the severity of God was manifested in expelling the sinners from Eden, the goodness of God can still be traced in prohibiting man from eating of the tree of life. How dreadful it would have been to have a race of sinful men living for ever in this world, men like Cain, with bitter hatred in their hearts to God and to others." An Outline of Sound Words Even God's severity, then, is an expression of His goodness — He did not permit man to live forever in a fallen state. David, having experienced God's ways throughout his life, reached the same conclusion: "Psalm 18 was written by David 'in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies,' and having considered God's ways with him, he was able to say, 'As for God, His way is perfect' (verse 30). There can be no doubt about the perfection of all that God does, but how good it is when the soul is in the realisation of it." God's Goodness as Shepherd — Psalm 23 The Bible Treasury exposition on Psalm 23 unfolds how the believer experiences God's goodness day by day: "It is the application of this power and goodness of God to my everyday need that I shall feel; and all this must go on the ground of sin forgiven. Now I have found out not only my need of being justified, but that He has justified me." "I now find God Himself the source of all, and not only this as a present thing, but seeing what God is, I can say, 'goodness and mercy shall follow me,' etc., and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. We shall never want goodness and not find it. It 'shall follow me.' The goodness of God is better than man's, if we could get it, and there is a place to dwell in — 'I shall dwell in the house of the Lord,' etc. That is my hope." The point is striking: God's goodness is not something distant or abstract. It is personal — applied to the believer's everyday need — and it is unfailing: "goodness and mercy shall follow me." God's Goodness Leads to Repentance Hamilton Smith, commenting on Romans 2, gives perhaps the fullest treatment of what the goodness of God means in relation to sinful man: "In His goodness God forbears to judge and suffers long with evil. It was so in the days of Noah, when God lingered for one hundred and twenty years before executing the judgment of the flood: it was so in the history of Israel, with whose evil ways God bore long before destroying Jerusalem and scattering the nation. It is so to-day when God in grace lingers over this judgment doomed world." "How then does man treat this longsuffering of God? Alas! men despise the riches of His goodness. Because of this 'forbearance' men think that God will never judge: because of His 'longsuffering' men think that God is indifferent to evil. Thus men despise the goodness of God, not seeing that the reason God 'forbears' and 'suffers long' is to give men space for repentance." "Moreover, the experience of the goodness of God in the midst of trials strengthens 'hope' in the soul. We look outside and beyond this world of trial to the rest that remains in the world to come." God's Goodness Fully Revealed in Christ William Kelly, commenting on Luke 11, brings it to its deepest point — that God's goodness is ultimately seen in the gift of His Son: "Man is not a giver himself, least of all does he feel that God gives continually and abundantly in the natural sphere of man's wants. But that God should give His best, the Son of His love, to deliver him from evil and from judgment, to blot out his sins, to give him life eternal, so exceeds all that is in his own heart and all that his conscience justly needs, that he cannot, will not, believe it... He is averse to the glad tidings, because it makes nothing of man, everything of God's own goodness in Christ." "But to own himself only evil, God alone good, most and best of all in giving His Only-begotten that he might live and have Him as propitiation for his sins, this indeed is God's love beyond creature thought, yet the very love we are called to believe in the gospel." Hamilton Smith draws the same lesson from the story of Joseph and Jacob: "The grace and goodness of Joseph breaks down the unbelief of Jacob.... Nor is there any other way of blessing for a sinner today.... as we hear the grace of the words of Christ, and see that all has been done that we might be blessed, our hearts are won — the goodness of God leads to repentance." The Mark of the Spiritual Man A brief but luminous fragment from the Bible Treasury ties it all together: "It is well for us to consider what marks the spiritual man. First, a spirit of dependence, whatever may be the state of faith and the blessings we may have realized. Secondly, an entire confidence in the goodness of God; for God is love. Thirdly, Christ, the constant object of the affections of the heart (Phil. 1:21), for the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart is to fill it with the thought of Christ." God's Goodness in Grace and Government William Kelly draws a beautiful distinction from Psalms 105 and 106: "In Psalm 105 it is God reviewing His people... and through the whole of that Psalm, no matter what He may have to say, grace triumphs. In Psalm 106... it is His government that is in question; and the consequence is, that however He may intervene and may cause in the end His goodness to prevail, righteousness takes its course." "Now we have to do with both; with this only difference, that we begin and go on, through the infinite goodness of God, with His grace; and this makes a mighty difference." A. J. Pollock makes the sobering counterpoint that punishment alone never produces repentance — only the goodness of God does: "Pain does not lead to repentance in this passage. 'The goodness of God leads... to repentance' (Rom. 2:4), is the testimony of Scripture. That despised is only the treasuring up of wrath against the day of wrath." A. J. Pollock To say that "God is good" is far more than naming one attribute among others. It is the character of all His dealings — in creation, in patience toward sinners, in discipline toward His own, and supremely in the gift of His Son. His goodness is seen even in what may appear severe: barring man from the tree of life, sending trials, withholding judgment to give space for repentance. The supreme proof that God is good is the cross — that He gave His Only-begotten so that sinners might live. And the proper response to His goodness is not to presume upon it, but to be led by it into repentance, into confidence, and into worship. The mark of the spiritual man, as the fragment puts it, is "an entire confidence in the goodness of God; for God is love."

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