Tag: God’s goodness

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A Personal Reflection on God’s Perfect Goodness

I learned to delight in God’s holiness when I recognized its goodness.

delight in God holiness

While the holiness of God is wonderful beyond human understanding, it took me decades to learn to delight in it.

For most of my life, the subject of the holiness of God was not inviting to me. I recall long ago seeing a book titled The Holiness of God (by R. C. Sproul), and my response was a combination of fear and an awareness that this was a subject I did not understand as well as I should. I did not buy the book, and frankly I did not want to read it because for whatever reason the subject was more than I could deal with.

And this was not because I was living an unholy life. I was a pastor serving God with all my heart. I loved God and pursued a life of purity. What’s more, I loved God’s Word and studied and meditated on it continually. It was God’s Word itself that had inculcated in me a sense of respect and fear for God’s holiness mingled with a sense of the mystery and uncertainty of it. When I passed on reading that book, I guess I was afraid of what I would find out.

And that explains my reticence at learning more about the holiness of God for most of my life. I was afraid of what I would discover, for I knew God’s holiness was awe-inspiring, and not a few people died in the Bible because they crossed a line in relation to that holiness that mankind must not transgress. Looking back now, I realize I was afraid I would learn something about God that I did not like, that would hinder enjoying the God who meant everything to me.

So, what changed?

Learning to delight in God’s holiness

First, I finally stopped avoiding the subject. I wanted to know God more, and I realized I could not know him as he is without understanding more about his holiness.

So I read that book I had avoided for years. It is an excellent book—a vitally important especially in our culture today—which confirmed the importance of understanding God’s holiness and of maintaining a proper fear of God. Proper reverence draws us to God rather than drives us away (Isaiah 11:3 says of the Messiah, “His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord”). The book dispelled the fear I would learn something about God I did not want to know. It greatly helped me.

But I needed to know more. Years passed, and helped by that book I deepened in my appreciation of the awesome glory of God. I grew in my love of the power and greatness of God, loving God in the way I love a thunderstorm or some other act of nature that is truly awe-inspiring. I was then and am now thoroughly impressed by God.

Then I began writing this blog on the theme of knowing God. I have maintained a discipline of writing one post each week, and that has profoundly deepened my understanding of our great God. Along the way I decided one theme I wanted to explore more was his holiness. I knew most Christians need to understand it better just as I did, and I wanted to understand it better myself by comprehensively studying what Scripture says about it, something I had never done in 40 years of pastoral ministry.

You can count on it that studying the Bible firsthand, thoroughly and inductively, will open your eyes and transform your heart even when you have already thought much about something. What I expected to be a six- or eight-week series of articles turned into six months, writing as succinctly as possible. The more I wrote and meditated on Scriptures related to God’s holiness the more I saw to write about.

The goodness of God’s holiness

After weeks in that series, I happened upon the most important breakthrough in my understanding of God’s holiness. When we say God is holy, it necessarily means God is good. Psalm 65:4 says, “Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple!” Notice the synonymous parallelism in the second sentence: “the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple.” Because goodness and holiness cannot be separated, the persons God brings into his courts are blessed and satisfied at the deepest level.

You cannot fully understand or delight in God’s holiness apart from its perfect goodness. To say God is holy is to say he is perfectly good in every aspect of his being and in all his ways with his creation, even in his acts of judgment and self-vindication.

It is critical we understand why this is so. Therefore the articles in this series regularly make the connection between God’s goodness and holiness.

There is nothing off-putting to me about God’s holiness. Everything about him is as it should be, including everything about his holiness, for he is perfect. If we think otherwise, it is because we are deeply flawed and influenced by a fallen culture far more than we realize. Jesus said, “No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18). He alone is good in every way. He is love, and his love is holy. Instead of fearing the thought of meeting God face to face, I look forward with excitement to learning about God’s holiness for all eternity.

Stay with me in the journey.

Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)

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Perfectly Good

God is holy because he is perfectly good.

perfectly good

When the topic of God’s holiness comes to mind, we typically associate it with his posture toward human sin. Because we are born sinners, that naturally makes us squirm, but it is only part of the picture of God’s holiness. The larger picture of God’s holiness, which few understand, should cause us to delight. The big picture is what we see in the earthly ministry of Jesus, who Scripture says is “the Holy One” (Revelation 3:7).

What Jesus displayed in ways even born sinners can appreciate is the goodness of God’s holiness. He said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). So he healed the sick, cleansed lepers, opened the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, enabled the lame and paralyzed to walk, drove demons from tormented souls, even raised the dead. He taught people how to live in ways that bring happiness and peace. This was the holiness of God in action.

Jesus touched the unclean

The religious leaders of his time based their understanding of God’s holiness solely on the Old Covenant’s stress on separation, a stress that was good and true, but only a partial understanding of holiness and intended by God to be a temporary emphasis. What was holy should not come in contact with what was unclean. Even the high priest, who was supposed to be the holiest man in Israel, would become unclean by touching a corpse or a person with skin disease or chronic hemorrhage.

But Jesus came and mixed with people suffering every form of “uncleanness.” When healing a leper, he made a point of touching him though he could have healed him simply with a command as he often did. When a woman with a chronic flow of blood touched him, Jesus did not become unclean; rather, the woman was healed! When Jesus touched the funeral bier of a dead man and the hand of a dead girl, these corpses did not make Jesus unclean; rather, the dead sat up restored to life. When Jesus ate with sinners, he did not become a sinner.

God’s kindness to everyone

When the pharisees found fault with Jesus for mixing closely and regularly with sinful, “unclean” people, he explained, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). Jesus regarded himself as both a spiritual and physical physician, healing body and soul. He came bringing good to people in need.

And he did good to everyone, not just those who had turned from their sins. He healed and delivered them before they repented, not just after, and then called them to walk in the his ways.

Holiness and blessing

The point in this focus on the good that Jesus did for hurting, needy, sinful people is that he did this because of God’s holiness, not in spite of it.

Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Notice how the following psalm links, through the parallel structure of verses 1–2, God’s holy name—that is, his holy identity—with his giving boundless good to people.

Psalm 103:1–5: “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”

This psalm says God gives all these benefits because he is holy.

Goodness and holiness

Jesus said, “No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18 ESV).

His holiness and goodness are one. Goodness is what holiness is. Scripture says God is love (1 John 4:8), and Scripture says God is holy (1 Peter 1:16). This is not a contradiction or dichotomy. His goodness is his holiness. His holiness defines his goodness and vice versa. Everything he does is good, and everything he does is holy.

Psalm 145:9 says, “The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.”

James 1:17 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

Thus in God’s holy goodness he is infinitely gracious, loving, righteous, just, benevolent, generous, and kind. In his holy goodness, he is the giver of every good thing. In his holy goodness, he sends life-giving rain and sunshine on both the evil and the good. And in his holy goodness, he is light, and in him is no darkness. In his holy goodness, he gives life to everything that lives. In his holy goodness, he gives food and water to every being that eats and drinks. The presence of God and his holy goodness brings blessing, while the absence and loss of God’s presence brings death.

Savior and judge

Jesus said, “I did not come to judge the world but to save the world” (John 12:47).

Judgment and salvation are both expressions of God’s holiness (Isaiah 33:22, James 4:12). However, during his three years of earthly ministry, Jesus said his purpose was to save, not to judge. This was why the holy Father sent him to earth: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)

Perfectly good as Savior in the Old Testament

Contrary to what many think, the holy Father had revealed himself as a loving savior in the Old Testament as well. He graciously saved Israel out of Egypt, even though later events revealed that nearly every person in Israel did not believe in or obey him. Nevertheless he provided a way for them to find forgiveness through the religious rites of the tabernacle, the sacrifices, and the mediating ministry of the priests.

What often catches greater attention about God’s actions in the Old Testament era, however, are his judgments. Though he showed mercy and kindness again and again, we remember his terrible judgments on the persistently wicked, and in these judgments he definitely showed his holiness.

Reading the story of God’s dealings with rebellious Israel after he delivered them out of Egypt and through their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness contrasts greatly with reading the story of Jesus in the four Gospels. Why such a difference? God does not change, nor does his holiness change, but what he chooses to reveal about himself changes. In the Old Covenant with Israel he chose to reveal his judgments far more than he did during the earthly ministry of Jesus, which Scripture calls “a favorable time” and “a day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2), and which Jesus identified as “the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:19). It was and continues—until Jesus returns again in the clouds—to be a special season.

Perfectly good as judge in the New Testament

What we overlook in the New Testament is that while Jesus came primarily to reveal God’s merciful salvation during his three years of earthly ministry, he does at other times also act as judge (see for example Revelation 2–3, and 19:11–21).

In fact, at the Final Judgment the judge on the throne will be Jesus himself. The apostle Paul proclaimed, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30–31) That man whom God has appointed judge, whom he raised from the dead, is of course Jesus.

Therefore in his holiness God both saves and judges, both in the Old Testament and in the New. In holiness, he is perfectly good, under both covenants.

Perfectly good

God is holy because he is alone is perfectly good. He is not malevolent. However he certainly is a just judge, and that is because he is a good judge. He gives life and every blessing because he is the Holy One. His holiness resembles the sun and rain that give all life and blessing to the earth, or the loving father and mother who bring life to their children. That is what God’s holiness is. When God sent his Son as the savior of the world, that was his benevolent holiness in action—in fact, his ultimate demonstration of holiness.

Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)

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Holy Means Good: And Good Means Just

God’s justice and holiness are aspects of his goodness.

God's justice and holiness

 

 

 

After exploring for several weeks (beginning here) the goodness of God’s holiness, we now turn to the aspect of God’s holiness that may have been the first thing that came to your mind when you think of the holiness of God: his judgments. Because God is holy, he judges evildoers.

God’s justice and holiness are aspects of his goodness

God’s justice is actually a necessary part of his perfect goodness. A good person cannot be indifferent or passive regarding evil. A good person cannot be unjust. And God is 100 percent good, so he must be 100 percent just.

For example, if someone is walking down Madison street and sees someone being robbed at gunpoint on the other side of the street, but does nothing about it—not calling the police but rather turning and running away to protect himself—that is bad. That is neglecting one’s responsibility to another person in need.

Similarly, if a person is a registered voter, and there is an election with moral issues at stake, but that person doesn’t bother to vote, that is moral negligence. He or she is contributing to evil in society by failing to act to prevent it. A truly good person is not passive or indifferent about any moral situation.

This is particularly so with someone who has the role of a judge in society. A good judge must uphold justice by condemning evildoers. A judge who ignores the laws and its punishments, who thinks he is being compassionate by regularly releasing murderers, thieves, rapists, corrupt politicians, lawless corporate executives and financiers, and drug dealers without punishment is not being compassionate to the past victims of their crimes, or to future victims of their crimes, or to society as a whole as law and order break down, and law-abiding citizens live in fear.

God’s justice and holiness require punishment of evil deeds

But justice is about more than protecting law-abiding people from predatory people. Justice requires punishment for its own sake. Justice requires that evildoers reap what they sow. God has created a moral universe where there are rewards and consequences for how a person acts, morally or immorally.

So, justice demands that an evildoer not only be kept from harming others in the future but also that the evildoer suffer punishment for doing evil. For that reason, putting an evildoer in a prison that kept him or her from society but provided a paradise of luxury living with gourmet food, daily live entertainment, and so on, would not be just. That would be rewarding evildoing. Justice requires negative consequences for evildoing.

I’m laboring this point because this is one idea Western culture has trouble embracing. Our culture does not like to punish evil-doing except in the most extreme cases, and this reluctance is a fault. It is unjust. It is this uneasiness with punishment that leads some people to dislike that God punishes evildoers.

Why many people disagree with God’s justice and holiness

This uneasiness with punishment can stem from noble impulses. We don’t want to be hypocrites, and we know we all fail in one way or another, and so we can feel hypocritical about punishing others when that means we also deserve punishment in some area of our lives. What’s more, we want to be compassionate, and it does not feel compassionate to inflict punishment on others, even evildoers. Moreover, we want to do to others what we want done to us, and we all want mercy for ourselves, not judgment.

The effect of all this is, the more aware we are of our own faults, the less willing we will be to punish others for similar faults, or for any faults. So, as our culture becomes increasingly immoral, we have become increasingly unable to dispense justice and punishment. People in our culture are confused about justice and uncomfortable with punishment.

And therefore, people are confused about God, who is the judge of all because he is the creator of all. People have trouble embracing the One who is perfect justice and righteousness. Therefore, we can be uncomfortable with God’s holiness. This is particularly the case when we realize that we or someone we care about deserves to receive punishment. Then we have skin in the game, and we lose impartiality.

How Scripture links God’s justice and holiness

Having laid this introduction, we come finally to the Scriptures. Because there is so much injustice and evil in the world, the Bible often and rightly talks about God’s holy judgments, for example:

From the Old Testament: “Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Behold, I am against you, O Sidon, and I will manifest my glory in your midst. And they shall know that I am the LORD when I execute judgments in her and manifest my holiness in her; for I will send pestilence into her, and blood into her streets; and the slain shall fall in her midst, by the sword that is against her on every side. Then they will know that I am the LORD’” (Ezekiel 28:22–26).

From the New Testament: “And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say, ‘Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments’” (Revelation 16:5).

This is God being good—doing what a good judge must do. Holy means good, and good means just.

God is never cruel; he is always perfectly just, and perfect justice is often severe, toward severe evil, and sometimes violent, for the wages of sin is death; this is not because God loves violence but because he is perfectly good, perfectly just, perfectly holy.

Our ways versus God’s ways

Our ways: We are for justice as long as nobody gets hurt, especially not we and people we care about, and especially not people who seem nice even though they break God’s moral laws.

God’s ways: God is completely, impartially just. He never compromises justice—never ever—because he is perfectly good. He always does what is right. But in holiness he has made a way to be both just and merciful: through the Cross of Jesus Christ. Through the Cross of Jesus, justice is completely satisfied, and at the Cross, mercy is offered to all who will believe and follow Jesus.

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Holy Means Good: God’s Many Benefits

God’s holy name is kindness revealed in countless benefits.

God's holy benefits

We have not yet seen the full extent of God’s holy kindness and goodness, though we have seen much (see preceding posts one, two, and three to get the full picture). Let’s explore another Bible passage that reveals much more.

Psalm 103 begins:

“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (verses 1–2).

These verses tell us what the psalm is going to be about. It will reveal (a) God’s holy name, and (b) all the ways God benefits us.

(a) and (b) are one. We saw last week that people in Bible times used the word name not merely as a label but rather as a substitute for self. If I said that you had a good name, I meant that you are good, that your character is good. So, this psalm will describe God’s name, character, ways, identity. But the writer summarizes all the description that follows in verses 3–18 here in verse 1 as “holy.” We should read each verse in the psalm as a facet of God’s holy name.

God’s holy benefits

Those who experience God’s “holy name” experience “benefits.” Holy means good and kind. Holy means God brings good things into our lives, and verses 3–18 provides the heaping list of holy benefits:

God is the one “3 who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
5 who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
6 The LORD works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.
7 He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. 8 The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9 He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. 10 He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
13 As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. 14 For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. 15 As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; 16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
17 But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, 18 to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.” (Psalm 103:3–18)

All this is God’s holy name. This is who he is in holiness, what he does in holiness, the ways he deals with us in holiness. This is why the writer begins the psalm by saying he wants to bless God’s holy name.

So, when you think about God as holy, this is a major part of what should come to your mind: benefits, kindness, goodness. The writer of the psalm wants to bless our holy God because holy means good.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: We may be more likely to associate only God’s purity or wrath with his holiness, than to associate his kindness with his holiness.

God’s way: God’s holy name is kindness revealed in countless benefits.

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Holy Means Good: God Gives Waves of Holy Blessings

When God comes near in holiness, he comes near with holy blessings.

holy blessings

Let’s talk more about the all-important idea that holy means good. When we say God is holy, that means God alone is perfectly good. Last week we saw that when the super-holy ark of God came to the property of Obed-edom, it brought blessing and good.

Hundreds of years prior to that event Moses taught the same principle, that a right relationship with the holy God brings waves of good into a person’s life:

“1 If you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God. 3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. 4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. 5 Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 6 Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

“7 The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. 8 The LORD will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

“9 The LORD will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in his ways. 10 And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you. 11 And the LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.

“12 The LORD will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. 13 And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, 14 and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.” (Deuteronomy 28:1–14)

Holy blessings

God is good, abundantly good. People who walk in his holy ways experience wave upon wave of his goodness. (You might ask, does this mean God promises material prosperity to holy people today? That question is not my point here. My purpose is only to show the relationship between God’s holiness and goodness.)

Holy means good. In the center of this expansive promise of blessing, Moses said, “The LORD will establish you as a people holy to himself” (v. 9). That is what makes blessing possible. God is holy, and he makes his people holy. Holy brings good, because holy means good.

Moses said in verse 10 that when the other nations of the earth saw the blessings on Israel, they would also take note that Israel was “called by the name of the LORD.” The nations would associate blessing on a nation with God’s name, which the Bible emphasizes is a holy name.

God’s holiness and goodness are one.

Let’s explore the relationship between God’s holiness and goodness further next week in a story that is one of the greatest revelations of God’s character in the Bible.

 

 

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Holy Means Good

If we love what is good, we should love God’s holiness, for his holiness is goodness to perfection. Holy means good. The holy God brings wholly good.

Holy means good

When we say that God is holy, we are saying that only he is good.

Jesus said, “No one is good except God alone” (Luke 18:19).

The connection between God’s goodness and holiness is illustrated by one story about the ark of the covenant. The ark of the covenant was the chest that God commanded Moses to make on Mount Sinai, in which he was to put the two tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. This was the ark that God commanded Moses to place in the Holy of Holies. It was the only furniture in the holiest place of the Tabernacle. On its cover were two carved statues of cherubim. They symbolized the cherubim that surround God’s presence on heaven’s throne. So, God’s special, manifest presence rested above the ark.

Therefore, it was the holiest article in the holy tabernacle. During Israel’s 40 years of desert wanderings, when they would dismantle and later set up the Tabernacle again, most of the workers were to take care not to touch or even look at the ark, so holy was it (Numbers 4:4–20).

What the ark reveals about the goodness of God’s holiness

At one point King David tried to bring the ark to Jerusalem, but the leaders mishandled the operation, breaking some of God’s clear rules and leading to a tragic death (I’ll write about how this relates to God’s goodness soon). Second Samuel 6:9–12 says:

“David was afraid of the LORD that day, and he said, ‘How can the ark of the LORD come to me?’ So David was not willing to take the ark of the LORD into the city of David. But David took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. And the ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months, and the LORD blessed Obed-edom and all his household.

“And it was told King David, ‘The LORD has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.’ So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing.”

The holy brought the good

God’s holy presence brought blessing when the people treated him with proper reverence and protocol. Because of the presence of the super-holy ark, God blessed the man Obed-edom, blessed every person in his household, and blessed all that belonged to him, all his possessions.

That means they experienced a sudden, unmistakable wave of health and abundance when the super-holy ark came to their house (such as Deuteronomy 28:1–14 describes). Sick children suddenly got well. The crops suddenly grew better. The vines grew better, bigger grapes. Pests disappeared from the fields. The perfect amount of rain fell softly on the fields. More sheep and cattle conceived, and the animals delivered healthy young.

This was because the holiest article in Israel’s religion—the ark—was perfectly good. God’s holiness brought blessing and life to his people.

Our ways and God’s ways

Our ways: Fallen people think they are good. But they question whether God is always good, in particular as they try to reconcile human suffering and the presence of evil in the world with God’s goodness. And they are especially dubious about God’s holiness being good and attractive.

God’s ways: God is holy. That means God alone is good, and he is infinitely, perfectly good in all his ways.

I have more to say about the goodness of God’s holiness and crucial Scriptures to see both in the Old and New Testaments. So, let’s resume this topic next week.