The Most Dense Attribute of God
Theologian Chris Holmes says that this attribute "has a scriptural density and range that even the other great attribute—love—does not quite have.”
When I was in college, I was a part of a Bible study and we were having a discussion about the topic of God’s goodness. We were in a series about “tough” or “deep” questions about things like predestination. On this particular week we were asking the question, in a world of suffering, “How can we know that God is good?” It was one of those discussions that generated a lot of opinions, and a lot debate, and, at the end of it, more heat and friction than illumination and light.
I had been a Christian for a long time, but I couldn’t get my mind around the answer to this question. While talking with my dad later that week about the question, his short answer blinked a light bulb on in my mind:
“God is the definition of good,” he said. “Everything that God is is good, anything he does is good.”
It was one of those answers that surprises you by its seeming simplicity. It reminds me of when our family does brain teaser questions at the dinner table after we’re done eating. We try to trick our kids with questions like this, “Which weighs more—a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks?” They want to say bricks, but then they realize— “Duh!” A pound is a pound.
Similarly, for God being good is the same as God being God. This simple answer is the consistent testimony of the Scripture, and especially of the book of Psalms. Perhaps most clearly and pointedly:
“You are good and you do good, teach me your statutes” (Psalm 119:68)
Theologian Chris Holmes has written an entire book about this single verse called, The Lord is Good. On the first page of that book he says, “God is goodness itself….Goodness has a scriptural density and range that even the other great attribute—love—does not quite have.” He continues, “There are compelling reasons to consider God’s goodness as the source and basis of God’s love, just as there are for God’s great works of mercy and grace that his goodness as communicated accomplishes” (pg. 1).
We cannot pit God’s attributes against each other, because God is all of his attributes, the fullness of his character in every way. Still, this points toward the preeminence of goodness in God as the way that the God is love and kind and merciful and gracious.
That’s the first thing we see in Psalm 119:68.
God is good (an attribute)
Sometimes we refer to the biblical descriptions of God’s nature as attributes, because we attribute them or describe the indescribable God with these concepts. I like the word “attribute,” but maybe an even better term is something the historic Christian tradition would call a “perfection” of God. God is perfect. God is complete, and full. He is life. He is love. He is goodness. His triune nature is perfect and all of his attributes or character traits are perfections of his own nature or being, equally true of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Holmes says, “Goodness consists in the action by which God delights in and enjoys himself” (pg. 33). The Father eternally delights in the Son in the fellowship of the Spirit.
We’re entering blinding light territory here, things we can barely see or describe. Like looking into the sun with the naked eye. A few years ago, there was going to be a partial solar eclipse. Everyone was getting special glasses to filter out the UV light, because looking at the sun even for a moment could permanently damage your eyes. Everyone except for me. I didn’t get a pair of the special glasses, and as the sky darkened while the moon block the part of the light of the sun I got overly curious. I wanted to what everyone else was seeing, so I did a very stupid thing. I glanced up just for a moment at the glory above me. Immediately I regretted my decision. I was seeing spots for hours. I was calling my wife Laura in a panic, “I think I’m going to have permanent eye damage.” She, as the generally calm and rational one, said, “You will probably be fine.” Thankfully, God was kind and I didn’t permanently damage my eyesight.
Looking into the glory of God is more traumatic than staring into the surface of the sun: it’s so glorious that our created senses can’t take it in. We can see veiled and muted senses of his goodness through his revelation to us. John Calvin said that God speaks to us through a lisp, like we do baby talk with our kids. If he truly showed us his goodness, we would evaporate. Like he told Moses, we can only see his back because, “You cannot see my face”—the fullness of my glory—“and live” (Ex 33:20).
Goodness is not something God reaches or matches up with. Goodness is not a standard above God. God’s very nature defines goodness. God is good and goodness itself. This means that any definition you have for good is infinitely less good than the God who is goodness. Take your idea of goodness and double it, then multiply it by 10, then triple it, then realize that God is mind-bogglingly better than that.
We know the attribute of God’s nature as goodness itself, because of the actions of God in the world that are good. That’s the second thing Psalm 119:68.
God does good (an action)
God always acts according to his attributes. Everything God does aligns with who God is.
What are the actions of God in the world?
First, God created. The constant song of the creation story in Genesis 1-2 is that everyone God made was good. “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed” (Gen 1:31). It was good and God rested an rejoiced in the goodness of work. We get some sense of the satisfaction God had in the world he made when we complete a task and step back and enjoy our labor. Before planting a church, my family lived and served a church in Hollywood, Florida. At our house in Hollywood, I would spend many Saturdays mowing the lawn. After I was done, I would grab a cold drink and settle into one of the Adirondack chairs on our front porch and look out over the work I’d done in the breezy South Florida air and think, “This is good.” You have also sensed that satisfaction when you have finished a project, or cleaned the kitchen, or washed your car.
Second, God redeems. God does good in creation, and he does good in redemption. One of the most persistent songs of the Old Testament is this refrain:
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his faithful love endures forever.
(2 Chr 5:13, 7:3; Ezra 3:11, Ps 100:5, 106:1, 107:1, 118:1, 29, 136:1; Jer 33:1, you get the idea…)
His enduring, faithful love is his hesed, his covenant love for his people, his redeeming love. God’s hesed is his unstoppable intention to save people from their sins and bring them back to him and into fellowship with one another. Thus, the goodness of God is displayed most brilliantly in the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is why the gospel is literally called “good news.” In the life death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has offered the world a way back to him, so that if anyone will turn from their sin and trust in Christ God will forgive them their sin and give them eternal life.
If God is good and if he does good, there’s really only one thing for us to do, and that’s the third thing for we see David say in Psalm 119:68.
We respond (an attitude)
“Teach me your statutes.” David here confesses his helplessness and neediness, acknowledging his inability to learn the good character and conduct and commands of God for himself and by himself. We can only get so far by studying and learning about the goodness of God. The goodness of God is ultimately something we have to experience in the context of worship as we acknowledge our need.
The Bible describes this sort of response in all sorts of ways:
Thanksgiving (Ps 106:1)
Teachability (Ps 25:8, 119:68)
Praise and prayer (Ps 52:9)
Hope (52:9)
Sacrifice (Ps 54:6)
Taking refuge (Ps 73:28)
Being satisfied (Ps 103:5)
Singing (Ps 135:3)
Following (Ps 145:9)
Waiting (Lam 3:25)
But I think the most concise and pointed expression of response is Psalm 34:8: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Taste and sight are very immersive and primal experiences, pointing us to enjoyment and awareness. We have to know the greatness and sovereignty of God. We must know that God is in total control of our world and our lives; but if this awareness of the great sovereignty of God is not known in light of the goodness of God, we will spend our lives shying away from God. Often this experience is forged in the fires of suffering. In college I read a memoir by Joni Eareckson Tada, telling of her agony of paralysis after a diving accident. In the darkness on her bed of suffering, she tells of repeating over and over into the pain, “God is sovereign. God is good.”
Dane Ortlund says in his wonderful blockbuster, Gentle and Lowly, “If we only see God’s greatness we will crumble, we have to taste and see his goodness (Ps 34:8)” (pg. 97). Similarly the little book of Puritan prayers, The Valley of Vision, says: “It is the discovery of thy goodness alone that can banish our fear, allure us into thy presence, help us to bewail and confess our sins.” (pg. 394)
Once you taste the goodness of God, you see it painted all over your life. It’s like putting on a pair of glasses to see the glory of the sun. You see the attribute and action of the good Lord, and it changes—transforms—your attitude.
If God is good and he does good, you can trust him for the biggest things like the salvation of your soul through the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you can trust him for the smaller things like your protection, provision, and empowerment in the daily details.