‘The proper object of faith is God’s goodness, by which sins are forgiven’ (John Calvin).¹

GOD IS GOOD BECAUSE HE IS FATHER, SON AND HOLY SPIRIT

God’s Perfect Life

‘God is the Blessed One because he is at rest in the fullness [plenitude] of his perfections. … [H]e is blessed in himself as the sum of all goodness, of all perfection’ (Herman Bavinck).²

‘He is at rest in the fullness of his perfections . . He is blessed in himself as the sum of all goodness.’ It is worth pausing here to ask: what does this mean?

It means, first, that his blessedness is not something external or added to him, but arises from the fact that he is in himself the sum of all goodness and perfection. God’s goodness is identical with his perfection, and it is this perfection that grounds both his blessedness and his self-sufficiency.³

And second, all that God does flows from that blessedness and self-sufficiency: creation, the reversal of our sinful rebellion in the defeat of sin, death, and the devil through the person and work of Jesus Christ, the bringing in of the new creation. The work of God adds nothing to his own goodness but is an expression of it — of the overflowing, other-person-centred love and kindness that belong to his very being.

In this section, God is Good Because He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we explore the deeper, interconnecting characteristics of God’s perfection in himself; in the next, how the gospel of Jesus Christ is the gracious outworking of that divine plenitude.

To speak of God’s perfection, then, is to affirm that he possesses the fullness of all divine qualities without any deficiency or lack. ‘The perfection of God consists in all those divine attributes, as of one in whom there are no shortcomings.’⁴ There is no good proper to God that he does not have entirely. ‘God’s perfection means that God completely possesses all excellent qualities and lacks no part of any qualities that would be desirable for him.’⁵ He is complete in every respect. His perfection, therefore, consists in the total possession of all that is good and fitting to his nature.

Yet God does not merely have these attributes as qualities distinct from himself. Rather, his attributes are identical with his being. He is not simply wise, true, good, holy, just, and merciful; he is wisdom, truth, goodness, holiness, justice, and mercy. Everything that God has, he is. God is his attributes. In this way, he is not only perfect in himself but also the source and fountain of all perfections found in creatures. Whatever goodness exists in creation derives from him as its abundant and inexhaustible source.⁶

Thus, God is wholly and perfectly himself in all that he is. There is no division or composition in him, no gap between what he is and what he possesses. Everything that he is, he is in unsurpassable and unchallengeable perfection. Yet this perfection is neither arbitrary nor contingent; it belongs necessarily to his very being and is inseparable from who he is. ‘God is altogether everything that he is. In everything that he is, he is himself. And everything that he himself is, he is in unsurpassable, unchallengeable perfection. But he is so in his own perfection, not in one which is arbitrarily determined.’⁷

The particular perfection that belongs properly to the true God is made known at various points in Scripture. ‘There can be no knowledge of God in the mind of man, unless God, whether in a general way in nature and history, or in a special way in the Son, has revealed himself.’⁸ Yet it is especially in the written Word of Scripture that God’s perfection is clearly defined for us in practice, for there God has made himself known by declaring his own perfections.

Biblical teaching about God’s life indicates that it is perfect in two fundamental respects:

1. God’s perfection in himself, and
2. God’s perfection in his works.⁹

Just as God’s goodness may be understood as God in himself and God in relation to his creatures, so his perfection encompasses both who he is in himself and how he relates to us.

God’s perfection therefore gathers together his identity, nature, and character in their fullness. It is nothing less than ‘the essence of God, with all the perfections of his nature.’¹⁰ In the first place, this perfection consists in the uncreated and eternal fullness of loving communion—the other-person-centered fellowship of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the second place, it is expressed in God’s superabundant generosity toward his creatures: his unconditional commitment, inexhaustible resourcefulness, perfect wisdom, and boundless benevolence.

Following God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ, perfection must be understood in terms of fellowship—family, friendship, relationship, partnership, and collaboration—what Scripture ultimately names as communion (for example, Philippians 1:5 and 4:5, where the term can also be rendered ‘partnership’). These words can sometimes sound abstract or merely religious, but they point to something deeply personal, relational, and practical. God’s perfections, then, must not be understood as impersonal.

God is sheer goodness and perfection because he is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — an eternal communion of Persons. As Scripture testifies, we are drawn into this reality and relationship: we have fellowship with the Father and with his Son (1 John 1:3).

Divine perfection, then, is the perfection of Persons in communion: a life of union, reciprocity, sharing, and participation—of mutual giving and receiving. It is a living fellowship, like a family, a society, or a community bound together in harmony and purpose. For us to be made for fellowship, therefore, is to be made to live, to love, to communicate, and to work together in fellowship with others, reflecting in creaturely form the perfect life of God himself.

The following subsections unpack these characteristics of divine perfection further.

God’s Perfection in Himself

God is perfectly good. His goodness and perfection indicate that ‘whatever he has he has from himself. Unlike everything else, he is not dependent on anyone or anything outside of himself for who he is, nor may he be affected by anyone or anything that he has created unless he sovereignly chooses to be so.’¹¹ This is what is meant by teaching about divine self-existence or ‘aseity.’

From this follows the exclusivity of God’s perfection. It belongs to him alone, uniquely and un-derivatively. He is the only perfect being. To say that God is perfect is to say that he lacks nothing and owes nothing to any reality beyond himself. His being is entirely ‘self-originating, self-moving, self-expressing, self-fulfilling.’¹² Moreover, this perfection cannot be increased or improved, ‘for nothing can be added to that which is full.’¹³ ‘God, whose fullness supplies all else with excellence, cannot be added to.’¹⁴

The Trinity: Persons in Communion

Yet divine independence must not be misunderstood as isolation. Even as we affirm God’s independence and uniqueness, we must also recognize that his perfect goodness is personal and relational in its very nature. God’s perfection is not abstract or solitary but consists in living communion. Being perfectly good and entirely perfect, ‘God is defined by his relations; he is a communion or fellowship of love. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit mutually glorify and love each other.’¹⁵ ‘God is his relations; the Persons are eternally constituted by these relations.’¹⁶ The divine Persons are not constituted apart from these relations, but exist in and through them, so that God is, in his very being, this communion.

God’s Perfect Life of Love

This communion is living. Indeed, the triune God’s essential goodness—his perfection—is his ‘life in himself’ (John 5:26; cf. 14:26; 15:26): a life that originates in the Father, is given to the Son, and is shared in the Holy Spirit. God’s perfection is therefore personal, relational, and communal. It is the perfection of mutual love: a life of giving and receiving, of shared fellowship, in which honour, value, and delight are eternally communicated among the three persons.

In this way, God’s love is personal, belonging to his very essence, and is eternally complete and perfect. It is this same love with which he loves us (Rom. 5:5). The church, established by God’s free and loving will, is the outworking and visible demonstration of this perfection in the world.¹⁷ The New Testament particularly attributes this reality to the Holy Spirit, whose person and work are described as gift (Acts 8:20; John 4:10), as love (Rom. 5:5; 1 John 4:8, 16), and as communion or fellowship (2 Cor. 13:14), even as the bond of peace (Eph. 4:3). In the Spirit, the perfect love and fellowship of God are not only revealed but also shared with his people.¹⁸

The Unity and Harmony of God’s Character

Because God’s life is this perfect communion, his character is perfectly unified and harmonious. As the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—God’s identity, persons, relations, and fellowship are perfectly and eternally complete. His perfection is not something acquired but is an eternal fullness, consisting in mutual glory, harmony, honour, and love, enjoyed before the foundation of the world (John 17:5, 23–26). God’s perfection, therefore, is the perfection of three divine Persons living in ceaseless communion and unbroken fellowship.

‘God lives his perfect life in the abundance of many individual and distinct perfections. Each of these is perfect in itself and in combination with all others.’Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.1:322.¹⁹ His character is entirely coherent and integrated, lacking any tension or contradiction. In God, all possible perfections are united in perfect simplicity and unity. He possesses every perfection—goodness, wisdom, mercy, knowledge, power, and love—in an absolute, infinite, eternal, unchangeable, and harmonious manner. Thus, God’s perfection involves ‘an infinite fullness of forces.’²⁰  He lacks nothing that is worthy of being or having, and he fully realizes and possesses every excellence of nature, character, personhood, relation, and fellowship to the highest conceivable degree.²¹

The truth of God’s being stands in stark contrast to how we and our ancestors have conceived, and still conceive, our own gods — whether external to ourselves or ourselves as gods. Our gods, both ancient and modern, are marked by volatility, jealousy, and cruelty. That is, they lack the excellence of nature, character, and personhood we see in the living God.

What it Means to Say ‘God is Good’

This harmony and unity of divine perfection is expressed succinctly in the confession that God is good. In the statements ‘God is good’ and ‘God is goodness,’ the words ‘good’ and ‘goodness’ sum up the entirety of God’s character. The excellence they express encompasses his whole nature—both who he is in his identity and what he is like in all his attributes, perfections, and qualities.²² The declaration that ‘God is good’ therefore extends beyond his being to include his words, his ways, and his works. Everything he desires, decides, plans, and speaks is wholly and perfectly good. ‘Goodness is his sheer perfection: original, unfading, incomparable.’²³

God’s Goodness Compared to Human Goodness

At this point, the distinction between divine and created goodness becomes clear. God is good – we have said – in essence; he is essentially good. Goodness is necessary to God, and inherent in him. Goodness belongs to God’s being. Yet ‘in his goodness, God the Creator is wholly unlike all creatures, for the goodness of creatures is had by participation or gift, whereas God alone is good by nature.’²⁴ His goodness is self-contained and self-generated, absolute, and independent, depending on nothing beyond himself for its existence.

What is more, the goodness of God is impossible to corrupt. Human goodness, however, is dependent, finite, and (for now) prone to corruption.²⁵ God’s goodness remains incorruptible and unchanging.  He is always good to us, and the pervasive goodness of the world reflects the fact that he is perfectly and essentially good in himself.

God’s Goodness as Generous and Giving

Precisely because God’s goodness is absolute, it is also communicative. It is inclined to give. In his goodness, God is disposed to share and eager to act for the benefit of others. His attitude is benevolent, and his actions are beneficent. God’s benevolence—his settled will and determination to do good—together with his beneficence—the concrete acts by which he bestows good upon his creatures—constitute the outward expression of his inward goodness. Together, they show that God’s goodness overflows in generous self-giving, bringing life, blessing, and flourishing to what he has made.

God’s Goodness Revealed in Creation and Christ

This communicative goodness is evident in God’s ongoing relation to creation. God is perfectly good in himself, and this goodness thus includes the willing of the highest and best for others. In his goodness, he is disposed toward his creatures, giving, preserving, and perfecting their life. Scripture most often expresses this in terms of divine benevolence: God’s will for the true happiness and flourishing of his creatures. He cares for us, provides for us, and actively promotes our welfare.

Yet God’s goodness toward creation is most fully revealed in redemption. The deepest ground of that goodness lies in who he is in himself: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. His goodness toward us flows from this eternal life. In salvation, this goodness is accomplished by the triune God through the incarnate person and work of the Son, Jesus Christ. In his personal triune goodness, God has acted to restore us to right relationship with himself and with one another. This saving goodness, centred on Christ’s Lordship through his death and resurrection, is communicated to sinful human beings through the gospel.

The Trinity as the Source of All Goodness

Thus, all divine goodness—whether in creation or redemption—has its source in the triune life of God. God is unique, but not solitary. Rather, his goodness is defined by his perfect life of reciprocal love, eternally shared among the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The goodness of God is therefore fundamentally interpersonal and tripersonal—generated by divine relationships and marked by eternal honour, harmony, and glory. This same goodness is extended to all creatures in creation and redemption.

This trinitarian pattern in God’s saving goodness is especially evident in the Gospel of John. In 1:1–18, John introduces the main theme: the Son, the Word of God, God himself in the person of Jesus Christ, has come from the bosom of the Father²⁶ to bring us back to the bosom of the Father. In chapters 14–16, Jesus tells us that in this saving movement he will send from the Father the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father. It is this Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, whom the Father sends in Jesus’ name, who convicts us and draws us into saving relationship with God.

Why God Cannot Do Evil

Finally, this account of divine goodness clarifies the moral nature of God’s will. Because God’s goodness belongs to his very being as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it is impossible for him to will or command what is evil. His goodness is necessarily relational and personal, characterized by communion and constituted by fellowship. He cannot, for instance, make cruelty good or command it as such, for this would contradict his own identity and being. Yet he does command his creatures, directing them according to his perfect goodness, so that his will expresses what is fitting to his own eternal life of holy love.

God’s Perfection in his Works

‘God’s own eternal life as Father, Son and Spirit is perfectly happy and complete. Just so, God does not need the world; there is nothing lacking in God’s life that the world can make up. However, the perfection of God’s life is infinitely beautiful, and the perception of beauty by intelligent beings is a moral good, and so it is better that this recognition should happen than not. The ultimate reason for creation, then, is for intelligent creatures (angels and human beings) to exist and behold God’s glory, the shining beauty of his perfection. In all that he does, God acts that the perception of his glory, and so the enjoyment of his beauty, may be maximized. God does not gain anything by being thus glorified: how can perfection be improved? It is, however, a moral good that this should happen, and so he acts to make it happen.’²⁷

We turn now more directly to God’s perfection as it is expressed in relation to what he has created.

The gospel reveals that God’s inward perfection is not closed in upon itself but extends and communicates itself outward. God’s creation of something other than himself is not an accidental by-product of impersonal forces, whether physical or metaphysical, as in much of human thinking. God’s own Word and Spirit created us and the universe we inhabit (Gen 1:1–31; John 1:1–4). We are created in his image (Gen 1:26–27).

Even where human beings have destroyed the life given to them by God through their own sin, God the Creator confirms his perfection by freely giving himself as Saviour in the Person of his Son. God’s own perfect life thus becomes the source of human life not only in creation but in abundant re-creation (John 10:10).

Yet God’s perfection, exclusive in its source, is not exclusive in the sense of being solitary or isolating. He ‘is the only perfect Being, who has everything he has from himself, [yet] has by a free decision, by grace, out of that love which is his own being, bound the church to himself and himself to the church in the person and work of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.’²⁸

Accordingly, God welcomes others into existence and establishes the conditions for their life and flourishing. More than this, he continues to reveal and express his perfection to his creatures even in the face of their recklessness, rebellion, and rejection of him. His perfect life is shown to be perfect precisely in its outward movement: in giving life, in judging, in saving, in forgiving, in reconciling, and in adopting.

The perfection of God is such that he supplies ‘good to all outside himself … that there may never be a cessation of blessings.’²⁹ In all his works, God’s perfection is not diminished but displayed, not exhausted but abundantly communicated.

Creation and salvation alike confirm the perfection of God, for in both God commits himself to humanity—even rebellious humanity—at ultimate cost to himself. The Father sends the Son, and through the Son’s perfect obedience—’to the point of death, even death on a cross’ (Phil 2:8)—the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit to dwell in and with his people.

In this way, through his outward works of love—election, creation, revelation, covenant, incarnation, atonement, propitiation, reconciliation, regeneration, justification, and adoption—God’s perfect life of fellowship as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit brings forth and restores fellowship with human persons. The triune communion of God becomes the source and pattern of redeemed human life.

Thus, God’s perfection graciously communicates itself in the life he gives to creatures. He calls them into existence, upholds and sustains them by his providence, saves them through redemption and reconciliation, and brings them ultimately to their appointed end: a created participation in perfection, corresponding to his own.

For the present, our knowledge of God’s perfection remains partial. We know truly, but not yet fully. The fullness of that knowledge lies in the future and awaits our own final perfection, when all things will be brought to their proper and promised consummation: ‘when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away … then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known’ (1 Cor 13:10, 12). In that day, we shall perceive with clarity what we now grasp only dimly. Then we shall appreciate ‘how fitting, how supremely right the whole matter is.’³⁰

The Perfection of God’s Will and Its Fulfilment

God’s perfect will—his counsel, decisions, and intentions—is complete and without compromise, both in its purpose and in its execution. Perfection belongs to the very character of God’s being and nature. It names the fullness of who God is: the sheer excellence, authenticity, and complete realization of all that he is; the fulfilment of all that he intends; the integrity of all that he does; and the truth of all that he speaks. His nature is boundless and complete. He is plenitude and blessedness in their highest, most ultimate, and incomparable form (Isa 46:5, 9).

Accordingly, God is perfect both inwardly in himself and outwardly in relation to creation. That is why Jesus teaches us to pray, ‘Our Father … your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’ (Matt 6:9–10).

What does the fulfilment of God’s will look like? How is it expressed? How may we experience it?

His eternal perfection is expressed and communicated in goodness and grace through the creation, salvation, and glorification of creatures who are not God. Perfection thus characterizes not only God’s being but also all his works—his ways, knowledge, law, beauty, will, power, and patience (Deut 32:4; 2 Sam 22:31; Job 36:4; 37:16; Psa 18:30; 19:7; 50:2; Matt 5:48; John 17:23). Indeed, perfection is also the goal toward which all God’s works move, including the appointed end of human beings (1 Cor 13:10; Phil 3:12; Heb 9:9; 10:1, 14; 11:40; 12:23).

This perfection is enacted and made visible most fully and clearly in Jesus Christ. In him, God’s perfection is not only revealed but accomplished, for he is both the one who has been ‘made perfect’ through his priestly work (Heb 5:9; 7:28) and the ‘founder and perfecter of our faith’ (Heb. 12:2). Notably, the perfection of God in Christ includes a movement of condescension, as the Son humbles himself (Phil. 2), demonstrating that divine perfection is not diminished but displayed in self-giving love.

Thus, God’s perfection is expressed most powerfully in life-giving, loving, speaking, and serving. He creates, redeems, reconciles, and brings his creatures to their intended perfection. In this way, perfection is not only a divine attribute but also a communicated reality: ‘You must therefore be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matt 5:48).

The Perfection of God in the Gospel

The perfection of God as revealed in the gospel may be expressed in distinctly threefold – trinitarian – terms:

‘God the Father wills fellowship with that which is not God, bringing the creature into being out of nothing to exist as his child. God the Son sustains this fellowship, above all by stepping into the place of the ruined creature, bearing its alienation from the Father, and repairing the deadly breach that has opened up between the Creator and the objects of his love. God the Holy Spirit completes this fellowship, realizing it in the present by drawing the creature into the sphere of Christ’s childlike relation to the Father and by promising to perfect the creature in heavenly fellowship of the redeemed.’³¹

This threefold pattern of God’s work in salvation – where the Father wills, the Son accomplishes, and the Spirit perfects – has long been recognized in the church’s teaching. As John Calvin observes, even in the government of the church the Father does nothing apart from the Son, but acts always in and through him, so that their works are inseparable:

‘in the government of the church the Father does nothing except through the Son, so that all his actions are taken together with the Son. The apostle Paul calls God the Saviour, a title more usually assigned to the Son. And yet it is a title well-befitting the Father himself, for it was he who gave us his Son, so that it is right to assigned the glory of our salvation to him. For we are saved only because the Father so loved us that it was his will to redeem us and save us through the Son.’³²

This same logic extends to the gift of the Holy Spirit, through whom salvation is brought home and applied to us personally. Reflecting on Jesus’ teaching that the Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask him (Luke 11:13), Jonathan Edwards remarks that this ‘good gift’ is ‘the greatest blessing that can be asked.’ He then poses a searching question:

‘What manner of father is he of whom this gift is asked. ‘Tis a heavenly Father.  Not an earthly Father such as children come to and ask bread of, but an heavenly Father who, as he exceeds earthly fathers in glory and excellency, so he does in goodness and love, as much as the heaven is high above the earth. … As a heavenly Father is infinitely high above an earthly father, so heavenly love and kindness is infinitely above all earthly love.’

Thus, with regard to the greatest good that can be sought, the One who gives this gift is no ordinary giver, but the heavenly Father himself—whose goodness and love infinitely surpass all earthly analogies. As Edwards notes, just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so the Father’s goodness exceeds all creaturely goods without measure.³³

GOD’S GOODNESS IN THE GOSPEL

The Big Me

Contemporary media and entertainment overwhelmingly promote values that place the self at the centre. The highest good is increasingly defined in terms of personal identity and emotional well-being—what might be called the sovereign self, or ‘THE BIG ME’:  my feelings, my inner life, my happiness, my personal peace and affluence.³⁴

This is not to deny the reality or strength of natural affections—love for spouse, family, friends, and community – remain genuine and powerful. Nevertheless, many commentators have observed the corrosive effects of this sustained focus on the individual self, especially on how the self perceives and validates itself.

When the self – literal selfishness – is elevated above all else, both individuals and societies are shaped less by maturity, responsibility, duty, and concern for others, and more by childishness, self-absorption, narcissism, and, ultimately, a pervasive sense of emptiness.³⁵

The Long-Term Goal of God’s Goodness

The Bible contains numerous passages that present God’s goodness as expressed in his care for the physical, material, and emotional well-being of his people (Psa 65:11; 104:28; Matt 6:28–30; Acts 14:17). Israel was indeed given ‘good promises’ (Josh 21:45) concerning ‘a good land’ (Deut 1:25, 35; 3:25; 4:25), and the ‘good things’ promised to God’s people encompass the whole of life as ordered and given by God according to his purposes (Josh 23:14–15).

Yet the goodness in view is not merely immediate, psychological, or material; it is God-directed, other-person-centred, and ultimately long-term. This is evident in David’s prayer, where the ‘good’ promised by God is the enduring establishment of his house before the Lord:

‘“The LORD of hosts, the God of Israel is Israel’s God,” and the house of your servant David will be established before you. For you my God, have revealed to your servant that you will build a house for him. Therefore your servant has found courage to pray before you. And now, O LORD, you are God, and you have promised this good thing to your servant. Now you have been pleased to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever before you, for it is you, O LORD, who have blessed, and it is blessed forever’ (1 Chron 17:24-27).

In the same way, the ‘good things’ brought through Christ’s saving ministry as Prophet, Priest, and King include such practical blessings without being limited to them or based on them (Heb 9:11; 10:1).³⁶ These goods are truly good because they come from the God who created all things ‘very good’ (Gen 1:31).

The Christian gospel is therefore good in the fullest sense: it addresses every dimension of reality while directing all things toward God himself, who is good in every way and at all times.

Moreover, God’s goodness is covenantal—that is, it is bound to his faithful commitments and expressed in his promises. Accordingly, his goodness is also redemptive: ‘God’s goodness to his people is the blessing of heaven itself for the sake of Christ.’³⁷ The ‘good work’ that God begins in those who believe he will bring to completion ‘at the day of Jesus Christ’ (Phil 1:6; cf. 2 Thess 2:16).

Christ as the Fullness of God’s Saving Goodness

At the same time, the good news of the Christian gospel is not diffuse or vague but sharply focused. It centres on the saving good that God has accomplished in Jesus Christ, our living Lord and Saviour. Here lies the heart of divine goodness in the gospel: in who Christ is, in what he has once for all achieved, and in what he now continues to accomplish for his people.

The goodness of the good news concerns God’s goodness in its most concentrated and costly form. The gospel’s goodness is goodness in the face of badness, goodness in response to badness – indeed, goodness that overcomes objective badness.

The condition which the Christian gospel addresses is not superficial but real and grave. Yet God’s goodness acts decisively within it: replacing death with life, hostility with peace, emptiness with fullness, and guilt with forgiveness and reconciliation.

In doing so, the goodness of God in the gospel does not merely respond to human need – its reveals and defines what true goodness is. In Christ, we see that goodness in its fullest expression.

This goodness is vividly displayed in the accounts of Jesus’ mighty acts—his healings, his feeding of the hungry, his casting out of demons, and his authoritative teaching. All of these culminate in the greater work to which they point: the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, and the restoration of humanity to its true end—eternal, unceasing life in loving fellowship with God and each other, in the presence of God.

Jesus presents himself as the one who supplies all that is truly necessary for life. A dominant image of God’s perfect goodness is that of the Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14), through whom God’s goodness becomes personal, visible, and tangible. In John 6:35, Jesus declares, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.’ Throughout his teaching, the images he uses—bread, water, banquet-giver, wedding host, and winemaker—are drawn from among the most basic and universal goods of human experience. These are not only sources of pleasure but also the essential means of nourishment, satisfaction, and fellowship. In identifying himself with such realities (cf. John 4:7–14; 6:27–40), Christ reveals that he himself is the fundamental good, the one who sustains and satisfies human life now and forever.

The emphasis of the gospel’s goodness, therefore, rests wholly on the saving ministry of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God. He took on our humanity and lived our life in every respect—yet without sin; he revealed the Father through his words and works; he died for our sins and rose again; he ascended to reign and intercede at the right hand of God; and he sends the Holy Spirit to distribute and apply the saving benefits of his work. The gospel is thus ‘the good news about Jesus’ (Acts 8:35), the proclamation of ‘peace through Jesus Christ’ (Acts 10:36), in whom the fullness of God’s saving goodness is given and made known.

Jesus himself spoke of his deeds as ‘many good works from the Father’ (John 10:32), and the Apostle Peter likewise affirmed that ‘God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power… He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him’ (Acts 10:38). Christ is the ‘Good Teacher’ (Mark 10:17; Luke 18:18), uniquely anointed by the Spirit ‘to proclaim good news to the poor’ (Luke 4:18; cf. 7:22). The message he announced is the ‘good news of the kingdom of God’ (Luke 4:43; 8:1; 16:16): a kingdom that is the Father’s gracious gift—’Fear not, little flock… for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom’ (Luke 12:32). This kingdom, sown like ‘good seed’ in the world (Matt 13:24, 37–38; cf. Mark 4:20), is given by the Father through the Son, who reigns as its King.

The Good Shepherd

Central to this vision is Christ’s self-identification as the Good Shepherd. The shepherd is ‘good’ not in a sentimental sense but in the dignity and value of his action: he labours, protects, provides, and, if necessary, suffers for the sake of his sheep. ‘I am the good shepherd,’ Jesus declares, ‘I know my own and my own know me’ (John 10:14).

‘Many people … are inclined to think of shepherds as … somewhat effeminate, with their arms full of cuddly lambs … But [in Jesus’ day] the shepherd’s job was tiring, manly, and sometimes dangerous. The word kalos [translated ‘good’] suggests perhaps nobility or worth: [therefore meaning] the noble shepherd or the worthy shepherd.’³⁸

The true measure of this goodness is revealed in his willingness to lay down his life. On what came to be called Good Friday, Christ fulfilled his earthly calling by freely offering himself in obedience to the Father: ‘I lay down my life … No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord’ (John 10:17–18).

‘[T]he assumption is that the sheep are in mortal danger; that in their defence the shepherd [voluntarily] loses his life; that by his death they are saved. That, and that alone, is what makes him the good shepherd. … Jesus’ death is here presented as a sacrifice peculiarly directed to the redemption his sheep.’³⁹

Christ’s goodness, therefore, is most fully shown and given in his sacrificial suffering and death, through which he redeems his people and overcomes the powers of sin and death. ‘If, he says, the Good Shepherd is the one who accepts suffering for every affliction of his sheep, since I am going to die for the salvation of the whole world, the testimony about me is beyond doubt. “I am the Good Shepherd.”’⁴⁰ To repeat, Christ’s goodness is a saving goodness: ‘By his passion he made atonement for our evil passions, by his death he cured our death, by his tomb he robbed the tomb, by the nails that pierced his flesh he destroyed the foundations of hell.’⁴¹

The Ultimate Purpose of God’s Goodness: Conformity to Christ

The goodness of God revealed in the gospel is both all-powerful and integrally shaped by who God is and what he is accomplishing for us in Jesus Christ. Its overriding purpose and governing objective is an end-goal of surpassing excellence: the perfect goodness of God announced in the gospel promises the perfecting of human beings in a perfect environment forever in the new creation. This ultimate good is not defined simply by what is immediately pleasurable or desirable, nor does it exclude such things; rather, it is ordered toward final good or true good (cf. Rom 8:28).

All things are directed toward the enduring good of God’s people, culminating in their conformity ‘to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers’ (Rom 8:29).

‘It was his goodness that created us and provided everything we would need for sustenance in this life. It was his goodness that reached out to us when we were disobedient, and provided a means to reconcile us to him. And it is his goodness that does its best to make us fully aware of the reality of our fallen condition, not in order to condemn us with that knowledge but in order to persuade us to trust in his goodness for forgiveness and eternal salvation.’⁴²

God’s perfectly good plans and purposes, therefore, extend far beyond the promotion of temporary happiness. Rather, the goodness of God demands that permanent human happiness comes about and into place through a particular person (the Lord Jesus Christ) in a particular way (his crucifixion and Kingdom).

For those who love God, all things are being directed toward this final good: conformity to Christ (Rom 8:28–30). The gospel thus declares both the seriousness of human sin and the depth of divine mercy: though all have sinned and stand under judgment, God has intervened in grace, offering salvation through his Son. In this way, the goodness of God is revealed not merely as benevolence, but as a sovereign, saving purpose that brings his people into eternal life with him.

The Power and Provision of God’s Goodness in Christ

‘In Jesus Christ God’s goodness is limitlessly potent.’⁴³ Its redemptive power is not closed off or confined, but open, extensive, and enduring. Its goal, as Webster puts it, ‘is the remaking of creatures and of our creaturely relation to God.’⁴⁴

Accordingly, the goodness of God’s saving work in Christ is therefore not partial or static – it is living, active, and transformative. In just one place, Scripture describes this goodness in a rich range of different ways: it is reconciliation (Col 1:19-21); deliverance from dark dominion (1:13); redemption and the forgiveness of sins (1:14); being made alive (2:13); the cancellation of our debt (2:14); the disarming of hostile forces (2:15); and transfer into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son (1:13).

These are not isolated descriptions, but together they describe ‘a decisive alteration in reality brought about by a new act of divine goodness, by which we human creatures are secured for the perfection God intends.’⁴⁵ Through Christ, the whole creation becomes the object of rescue and renewal – delivered from one dominion to another, comprehensively restored, being ‘set in a reconciled relation to God.’⁴⁶

And this new reality – this ‘counter-reality’ – is accomplished by and results from Jesus’ resurrection. Christ is ‘the firstborn from the dead’ (Col 1.18); and believers have been ‘raised with him’ (2:12; cf. 3.1), and ‘made alive together with him’ (2.13).

The ultimate and greatest good of which the gospel speaks is this: that God gives us personal knowledge of himself and brings us into eternal fellowship with him and with one another. God’s goodness is not merely the provision of benefits, but his steadfast resolve to be with us — and to have us be with him and with one another. That is, for us to be his children, brothers and sisters in Christ, who call him as he truly is, ‘our Father’. In this way, God secures our good by establishing us in living relationship with himself and all members of his family through Jesus Christ.⁴⁷

Salvation in Christ—and because of Christ—brings ‘eternal comfort and good hope by grace’ (2 Thess. 2:16). Yet God’s goodness is not only the origin of salvation but its immediate, current, and ongoing power in the life of the believer. As Paul reminds us, ‘God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure’ (Phil. 2:13). His goodness is active, shaping our understanding, desires, choices, behaviour, relationships, trials, and opportunities.

This same goodness is shown in God’s gracious provision for our deepest needs. He forgives: ‘You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive’ (Psa 86:5). He leads us to repentance through his kindness (Rom. 2:4). And he tenderly cares for us, inviting us to cast all our anxieties on him, because he cares for us (1 Pet. 5:7).

In all these ways, the power of God’s goodness is not distant or abstract, but present, personal, and effective—bringing comfort, transformation, and faithful care and collaboration to his people.

The All-Encompassing Goodness of God

Scripture invites us not only to understand God’s goodness but to experience it: ‘taste and see that the LORD is good!’ (Psa 34:8; cf. 1 Pet 2:3).

God is good—perfectly and consistently so. In all his words, actions, intentions, and relationships, he is wholly good at all times.

As we reflect on what the Bible reveals about the fullness of God’s goodness—everything he is, says, and does—we begin to see that it is all good news. While not every part of Scripture is the good news of the gospel itself, everything God is and everything he reveals is good, and therefore carries good news for us.

Everything he has made known is for our good. Every word he speaks and every work he performs expresses his goodness. There is no limit to the goodness of his speech, no end to the goodness of his works, and no boundary to the goodness of his nature—revealed to us in Scripture and supremely in the Lord Jesus Christ.

‘God is the final standard of good, and all that God is and does is worthy of approval. … What is good? God is what God approves. … [T]here is no higher standard of goodness that God’s own character and his approval of whatever is consistent with that character.’⁴⁸ Therefore, everything God says to us and does for us, his children, is good—and only good (Psa 84:11).

God’s goodness is seen in his care for the poor (Psa 68:10). It is not abstract or distant, but active and compassionate.

His goodness is also deeply personal. It is not generic, but tailored to individual lives, expressed in ways uniquely suited to each person (Gen 30:20; 2 Sam 7:28; Psa 23:6; 51:18; 119:68). At the same time, his goodness operates on every scale—from the smallest details of our lives to the unfolding of his eternal purposes (Rom 11:22; Eph 1:5, 9).

All these varied expressions of goodness are gifts, and they are inseparably connected to the good news of Jesus Christ—the many dimensions of his Lordship established through his death and resurrection.

God’s goodness is also the source of our forgiveness (Psa 86:5; Rom 2:4). It is his kindness that leads us to repentance and restores us to himself.

Ultimately, Christ himself is the good news. His very title—Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One—proclaims the eternal goodness of God’s kingdom, a reign established and sustained by him forever.

Essential Elements of the Good News

Here are five summary phrases, offered as a framework for organizing the ‘goods’ contained in the good news of Jesus:⁴⁹

1. God’s character and relationship to us
2. Sin and its consequences
3. Christ’s identity and saving work
4. Salvation – based on forgiveness and leading to eternal life
5. Conversion – full-hearted faith, life-long trust, and turning from sin God

The Biblical gospel encompasses a range of themes, proclaimed by many voices, recorded by multiple authors, and expressed across diverse literary forms. It addresses a wide variety of subjects. This does not mean that ‘the gospel’ includes everything in the Bible, everything in the New Testament, or anything within the Christian faith. Still less does it suggest that the gospel can be reduced to whatever we personally find most appealing about Jesus or Scripture.

Rather, even a brief survey of Biblical texts that summarize the gospel (e.g., Matt 4:23; 9:35; 24:14; Mark 1:1, 14–15; Acts 13:16–41; 14:15–17; 17:22–31; Rom 1:3–4; 1 Cor 15:3–5; 2 Tim 2:8) reveals more than a single point. And beyond these summaries lies a much broader body of material to consider.

The four Gospels and the wider New Testament together present a rich and varied account of the gospel, comprising multiple interrelated truths and dimensions. The gospel, therefore, is not a single soundbite, but a message both expansive and layered.

So, ‘the gospel’ can refer to a person – our Lord Jesus Christ; to actions and events – his saving work; to their accomplishments, status, and ongoing reality – Jesus’ Lordship and Kingdom; to the benefits of these achievements – our salvation; to a defined set of written accounts, the canonical Gospels; and to a broader message – a body of truth to be proclaimed, explained, heard, received, and faithfully responded to.

A Simple Summary of the Gospel

Here is a simple, conversational summary of the good news:

• Jesus is fully God and fully human.
• Without him, we stand under the reality of sin and its consequence—eternal separation from God.
• Yet Jesus loves us: he lived for us, died for our sins, and rose again from the dead.
• Because of what he has done, we can be forgiven and made right with God—now and forever.
• Jesus is alive today and reigns at the right hand of God.
• He can be personally known, loved, and trusted.
• Through him, we enter into a new relationship with God and experience his power at work in us.
• Life now remains hard, yet it is truly good, because we do not face it alone—our heavenly Father is with us by his Spirit.
• Beyond death, there is a glorious future in a renewed and perfect world.
• Therefore, we are called to turn from sin to God, to believe and trust these truths, and to live for him—serving the Lord in his strength until he returns.

The Content and Focus of the Gospel

When Jesus, the apostles, and the other New Testament authors ‘preach the gospel’ (Luke 9:6; Acts 8:25; Rom 1:15; 1 Cor 15:1; 2 Tim 2:8; 1 Pet 4:6), the Scriptural witness shows that this ‘good news,’ though rich and expansive, is focused on a definite and particular good.

The gospel does not speak of God’s goodness in general, nor is it vague or speculative. Rather, it proclaims a specific, defined goodness—clear in content and concrete in substance.

The good news of Jesus Christ is indeed comprehensive, multifaceted, and far-reaching. It embraces many themes and carries wide implications. Yet all its richness is gathered around, and held together by, one central reality: the person and work of Jesus Christ.

The gospel proclaims ‘the Christ’ (Acts 8:5), announces ‘the good news about Jesus’ (Acts 8:35), and declares ‘the kingdom of God’ while teaching about ‘the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Acts 28:31). At its heart is the confession: Jesus is Lord (Rom 10:9; Phil. 2:11).

Its central truths are these: that Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead (1 Cor 15:3–4); that he is the Son of God in power (Rom 1:4); and that he has been exalted above every name (Phil 2:9–10). Through him, sin is dealt with, forgiveness is granted, and new life is given by the Holy Spirit.⁵⁰

The gospel promises salvation—deliverance from sin, death, judgment, and the powers of evil—and reconciliation with God (2 Cor 5:19). It addresses humanity’s deepest problem: not only death itself, but the righteous judgment of God that follows it. In the face of this, the gospel offers real hope, true comfort, and a complete and lasting solution.

This good news is grounded in historical reality. It is not merely a teaching, but a proclamation of events—God’s acts in history through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. These events accomplished God’s saving purpose decisively, once for all, and for all time.

Through Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection sinners are rescued, and the kingdom of God is established as a present and eternal reality. The gospel therefore declares not only what Christ has done, but what is now true: Jesus reigns.

His resurrection did not conclude his work but inaugurated his rule. Exalted to the highest place, he now governs all things as Lord of the universe, head of the new humanity, and King of the kingdom he has established.

The gospel of grace, then, is the greatest good news because it proclaims forgiveness instead of condemnation, new birth instead of death, and eternal life in place of judgment. It promises restored relationship with God—life in loving fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and with one another.

This salvation reaches to the depths of our being and extends into eternity. It culminates in resurrection life, where God’s people are made perfect, living in a renewed creation, fully alive in love, joy, and fellowship with him forever.

The Saving Goodness of God in Christ

We have seen that the declaration ‘God is good’ appears throughout Scripture, and that his goodness extends to all his creatures. The Creator’s goodness is given, in various ways and measures, to every kind of creature and to every individual human being.

Yet this truth reaches its fullest expression in Jesus Christ. In him, God’s goodness is incarnate—made visible, embodied, and lived out in the human life of a divine Person. Through the death and resurrection of the one human being who is perfectly good—good in the fullest and absolute sense—we, ‘who believe in him’ (Rom. 4:24), become the recipients of the saving good proclaimed in the gospel.

The goodness revealed in the gospel is God’s generosity reaching those who would otherwise face sin and its resulting judgment. It comes to those in misery, distress, and danger. God’s goodness in Christ is rich and multidimensional: it is marked by mercy, compassion, patience, and holy love directed toward those who are undeserving.

Its purpose is rescue and redemption, forgiveness and reconciliation. In this way, God shows himself to be truly good—gracious even to those who are evil.

The Story of God’s Best Actions

There are different kinds of good actions: some are obligatory—duties that must be fulfilled—while others go beyond obligation. The goodness of God in Christ, as revealed in the gospel, belongs to this latter kind. It exceeds what is required.

Certainly, God’s goodness ensures that he fulfils all his obligations. Yet the gospel reveals more than this: it reveals the best possible good God has to give.

As has been expressed, ‘[W]e must understand God being perfectly good as God doing no bad actions and many good actions, and always doing the best or equal best action (or action of a best or equal best kind) where there is one available to him.’⁵¹

The gospel, therefore, proclaims not merely that God acts well, but that he acts in the best possible way. It is the story of God’s best actions, marked by undeserved, overflowing love that restores us from our miserable self-centred rule to himself, as his sons and daughters.

Dignity, Depravity, and Declared Good News

Human beings are clearly precious to the God revealed in Jesus Christ. The good news assumes and affirms our dignity, excellence, and worth—as creatures made in the image of the perfectly good God, and as those for whom the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, laid down his life.

Yet the gospel also speaks with equal clarity about the tragic reality of our condition. We are not only precious, but also corrupted. The good news is truly good because it is addressed to those who are both dignified and deeply fallen.⁵²

Sinful human beings remain valuable as God’s creatures, yet the sobering truth is that, by nature, we are not good but evil—not children of God, but ‘children of wrath.’ Apart from Christ, we are ‘dead in trespasses and sins’—separated, alienated, strangers, without hope, and without God in the world (Eph 2).

The goodness of God in the gospel is seen precisely here: it comes to those who are not good. Morally, relationally, spiritually, and even materially, we are in desperate need. Without God’s intervention in Christ—the very heart of the gospel—we remain on a path that leads from death to judgment.

Yet, this saving goodness is not only accomplished in Christ; it is also graciously communicated to us by God himself. And as far as the good news is concerned,

‘it is not so much from a regard to himself as for men’s good that he [God] raises up heralds of his gospel, by whom he witnesses to us concerning his will. In this there shines his wonderful goodness, that he accommodates all things to our salvation. It is therefore for us on our side to endeavor that his care in saving us may not be in vain.’⁵³

From Universal Goodness to Saving Goodness

As we have begun to see, divine goodness is real and reliable — even toward the mutinous, the lost, the lonely, and the undeserving.⁵⁴ Even for sinful human beings, whose distorted nature leads them to oppose both God and one another, ‘the Most High … is kind to the ungrateful and the evil’ (Luke 6:35).

God’s goodness is universal in scope, extending in various ways to all people — the just and the unjust alike. Yet this must not be confused with a sentimental notion of divine love, where ‘the picture is of one who bathes the universe with the warm glow of his undiscriminating pleasure.’⁵⁵ God is wholly good, and evil is truly evil. ‘The LORD tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence’ (Psa 11:5).

God is perfectly good. Yet his goodness is expressed differently across his creation, according to the nature, role, and place of each creature within his purposes in history.

However, God’s universal goodness is not itself the good news. That good news is the gospel — the proclamation of God’s actions to save us in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Ponder the context and content of that gospel. There is no comparison, no rival, no contest, and no challenge to the greatness and goodness of those actions by God in Christ. Against that mirror we see clearly the foolishness of the depravity which began with the rebellion of our first ancestor, Adam: to make ourselves gods, and thus live in deadly competition with one another, divorcing ourselves from the only source of all good.

Yet true to his character, God’s goodness enacted and revealed in Christ has freed us from such blind corruption — making us his children, who call upon him as ‘Father.’

God’s love and justice are attributes of his being, of his goodness. His love is shown in acting justly. That God judges is good news. Out of love and in justice he judges sin and evil to remove it and its deeply hurtful effects on us, on our relationships with one another and with the world around us, and with him. In that context God graciously summons us to accept the forgiveness and reconciliation he wrought for us in his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ — that in saying ‘no’ to self-centredness we might say ‘yes’ to living beside him and one another in love (Gal 5:13–26). All this is accomplished in and by Christ (1 Cor 15:20–28; Rev 20:7–21:8; 22:13).

These actions are not remote. We are not his children superficially — an adoption by paperwork, at a distance, so to speak. God has elected us, chosen us, predestined us to be his sons and daughters, brothers and sisters of his own dear eternal Son (Rom 8:28–30; Eph 1:3–14).

‘Election’ — to be chosen — is not a description of a decision made by a remote, impersonal divinity. In the New Testament it is language denoting a deeply personal divine decision and action, signifying true sonship, true childhood. The voice of the Father declares to the disciples, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!’ (Luke 9:35). And we are told that we have responded in faith to the promises God has fulfilled in his Son because he has elected us, chosen us, appointed us to that faith and the embrace of salvation it brings (Acts 13:48).

The gospel of Jesus Christ reveals that in his goodness and love God is sovereign over sin, death, and the devil — and sovereign also in our coming to faith. As we contemplate the addictive nature of our self-centredness, the saving goodness of God in electing, choosing, and appointing us is good news indeed.

Part of that good news is that God in his goodness remains sovereign over us, even when in our self-centredness we reject his Son. No evil — including the evil of unbelief — operates as an independent force alongside our good God, beyond his sovereignty. This truth is sombre and serious. As we harden our hearts and reject the goodness he has revealed both in creation (Rom 1:19–23) and in Jesus Christ, God as an act of judgement hands us over to our dark desires. ‘Reprobation’ is the theological term for this. As we persist in hard-hearted rejection of the goodness evident in creation and in Jesus, God hands us over to the desires of our hearts (Rom 1:24–32). It is an act of judgement, defeating the reign of sin. God will bring in the fullness of his new creation even against rebellious resistance to the contrary (Rev 19:1–21).

In this sombre light stands a further truth of God’s saving goodness. In Romans 9–11, tracing the history of Israel, Paul shows us that God acted sovereignly through Israel’s manifold rejections of him to bring his saving goodness to the rest of the world — the world for whom Christ died (John 3:16–21). In reprobation, God acts in a way that advances his saving purposes despite human refusal.⁵⁶

The gospel offers this saving goodness. To those who believe — who turn to him in repentance and trust in Jesus Christ — God’s goodness comes in its fullest and richest form through the blessings of salvation. For the Christian, God’s goodness comes in all ways, through creation and redemption alike.

This good news declares that the perfectly good God has accomplished eternal good for us through the only perfectly good person — the Lord Jesus Christ — ‘the only one who is good’ (Matt 19:17).

God’s Goodness in the Cross of Christ

The goods proclaimed in the gospel are many and great. Yet it must be stated clearly: the greatest good of the gospel is the death of the Son of God.

The crowning expression of God’s goodness is found in the cross, where the crucified Lord laid down his life for the world. The fullness, weight, and worth of God’s goodness, as declared in the gospel, converge here. According to Scripture, the depth and reality of divine goodness are most clearly revealed at this point. The good news finds its focus and foundation here—and here alone. All Biblical teaching flows to and from this central truth: ‘Jesus Christ and him crucified’ (1 Cor 2:2).

It is here, too, that the distinctiveness of the Christian understanding of God’s goodness is most clearly seen. In the cross—through this act more than any other—evil is both exposed and overcome. The cruelty, humiliation, suffering, and shame endured by Christ are good, not in themselves, but because they are ‘for us and for our salvation.’ In this most brutal and unjust form of death, evil is brought into the light and decisively defeated.

The cross stands as Christ’s—and therefore God’s—definitive good deed. Here God acts to secure the eternal good of his people. As has been well said, ‘in and through Christ crucified God substituted himself for us and bore our sins, dying in our place the death we deserved to die, in order that we might be restored to his favour and adopted into his family.’⁵⁷

Christ’s sacrificial death is the ultimate good because it deals fully and finally with sin, bearing its penalty as ‘payment of a debt to Divine justice in our place.’⁵⁸ His death is for the ungodly — for those who are not good, but sinful, estranged, and deserving of ‘the wrath of God’ (Rom 5:6–11). It is a satisfaction of divine justice (Gal 3:13). The New Testament further describes Jesus’ death as:

• the solidarity of Christ with the race of Adam, into which we enter through our union with Christ by faith (Rom 5:12–21; 6:5–11);
• enlightenment (1 Cor 1:18–2:5);
• cleansing for worship (Heb 9:14, 22–23; 1 John 1:9);
• conflict and victory (Col 2:13–15);
• the example and paradigm for Christian living (Mark 8:34–38).

In this, God gives his greatest gift. The cross of Christ is the greatest good God has to give.

The crucifixion of Christ in our place and for our good is the supreme demonstration of God’s goodness. For as sinners, we deserve condemnation. Morally and legally, we merit judgment; relationally, separation; spiritually, death and everlasting ruin. Yet in the cross, Christ bears the full weight of these consequences. In doing so, he pays the penalty in full and opens the way to life.

Thus, the cross is the highest expression of divine goodness — the place where justice is satisfied, evil is overcome, and sinners are saved. Although the cross is the foundation and focal point of the gospel, the good news itself extends beyond the doctrine of atonement alone. The Biblical gospel is not an atonement-only message; yet it is unmistakably a message grounded in the coming and dying of Christ in our place, and in his consequent resurrection victory and present heavenly rule for us.

This is what has been called the ‘The self-substitution of God’⁵⁹ – in the sin-bearing, punishment-absorbing, penalty-paying, wrath-deflecting, cleansing, victorious, and enlightening crucifixion and death of the incarnate Son, for us.⁶⁰

God’s Goodness as Kindness – From Here to Eternity

The gospel’s goodness stresses God’s ‘grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus’ (Eph 2:7). The Greek noun chrēstotēs, translated here in this verse as ‘kindness,’ conveys ‘moral excellence and perfection, in which inner greatness [is] linked with genuine goodness of heart.’⁶¹ It may also be rendered as ‘goodness,’ yet it expresses a particular kind of goodness—one marked by: ‘friendliness, kindness, mildness … and readiness to help’⁶² (cf. Rom 2:4, twice; 11:22, three times; Titus 3:4; cf. 1 Cor 13:4; 2 Cor 6:6; Gal 5:22; Col 3:12).

God’s kindness comes to us supremely in Jesus Christ. And the kindness of Christ is not cold, abstract, or distant, but concrete and personal—a living kindness by which he, as it were, ‘stretches out his hand to lead us heaven.’⁶³

Ephesians 2:7 further declares that, ‘in Christ Jesus,’ God’s grace in goodness-as-kindness is so extravagant and rich that it will captivate us ‘in the coming ages.’ The wealth and worth of God’s kindness not only bring us to heaven but will occupy us forever once we are there. For revealing the Christ-like kindness of his character in the everlasting eternal future ‘is one of God’s goals for salvation.’⁶⁴

The phrase, ‘the coming ages’ implies ‘one age supervening upon [transitioning into] another like successive waves of the sea, as far into the future as thought can reach. … Throughout time and eternity the church, [a] society of pardoned rebels, is designed by God to be the masterpiece of his goodness.’⁶⁵

Kindness, then, is goodness in action—goodness directed toward particular people. It is generosity of heart made tangible in attentive, compassionate care. It is warm, tender, and consoling: goodness personally and practically applied.

More precisely, kindness is goodness savingly extended to those who deserve the opposite. Gospel kindness is goodness given to the ungrateful, the rebellious, and the undeserving. It is God’s goodness reaching sinners—those who are, by nature, ‘evil’ (Matt. 7:11; Luke 11:13). Far from abstract, this kindness is practical and particular: it meets people in their need, addressing the morally broken, the relationally estranged, and the materially distressed. It is goodness given person-to-person, case-by-case, to those in trouble and need. God’s kindness includes good done ‘by the name of Jesus Christ’ to people who are afflicted, infirm, feeble, and sick (Acts 2:8-10).

The kindness of God is therefore integral to the full reality of the gospel—where wrath and mercy, sin and grace, judgment and salvation, all converge in the person and saving work of Jesus Christ. Its beauty is most clearly seen in this: that God shows mercy and grace where rejection and wrath are deserved (Eph. 2:3–4, 7). This kindness flows from ‘the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses’ (Eph. 2:5).

‘God’s fatherly kindness’⁶⁶ in Christ is saving, renewing, and exalting. It raises us up and seats us ‘with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus’ (Eph  2:6). It is a kindness that does not end with this life, but stretches forward into eternity.

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1. Calvin, Institutes, 3.3.19; trans. Battles, 614. Very many thanks are due to Robert Doyle for commenting so graciously and helpfully on an earlier draft of this work.
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2. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged, 204. ↩︎
3. See Benjamin Dean, Great Truths – God is Good (Part 1): God is Goodness Itself: Dimensions of God’s Perfect Goodness, available at https://www.greattruthsglobal.org/god-is-good-part-i/ ↩︎
4. Leiden Synopsis, 6; trans. Faber, 54; cf. 6:43, trans. Faber, 67. ↩︎
5. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 2^nd ed. (IVP, 202), 260. ↩︎
6. ‘His attributes coincide with his being. Every attribute is his being. He is wise and true … good and holy, just and merciful, but he is also wisdom, truth, goodness, justice and mercy. Hence he is also the source and fount of all the attributes of man. He is everything that he possesses and is the source of everything that creatures possess. He is the abundant source of all goods’ (Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith, 135). ↩︎
7. Barth,Church Dogmatics, II.1:376. ↩︎
8. Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith, 131. ↩︎
9. The technical terms for God’s inward and outward perfection are processions and missions. See the introductory discussion in Bray, God is Love, 183-221; then to the intermediate treatment in Scott Swain, The Trinity: An Introduction (Crossway, 2020), 32-34, 59-62, 101-2, 113-119; and the more advanced discussion in Fred Sanders, The Triune God (Zondervan, 2016), 37-154. ↩︎
10. Stephen Charnock, Discourse Upon the Existence and Attributes of God (Bohn, 1853), 198; cited in Paul Helm, Faith, Form, and Fashion: Classical Reformed Theology and its Postmodern Critics (Cascade, 2014), 104. ↩︎
11. Robert Doyle, The Evangelical Doctrine of the Church: The Church and Kingdom Communities of Those Who Belong to the Lord (Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2022), 252; slightly amended. See also Benjamin Dean, Great Truths – The Creation of the Universe: 1. God’s Life in Himself, available at https://www.greattruthsglobal.com/the-creation-of-the-universe/ ↩︎
12. John Webster, ‘God’s Perfect Life,’ in Michael Welker and Miroslav Volf eds., God’s Life in Trinity (Fortress Press, 2006), 143; slightly amended. ↩︎
13. Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations 28.31; NPNF 2.7:300. ↩︎
14. Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations 28.31; trans. Wickham, 63. ↩︎
15. Doyle, Evangelical Doctrine of the Church, 7. ↩︎
16. Doyle, Evangelical Doctrine of the Church, 7. ↩︎
17. These sentences express those of Doyle, Evangelical Doctrine of the Church, 7. ↩︎
18. Doyle, Evangelical Doctrine of the Church, 7. Augustine’s discussion is located in The Trinity, 6:7; trans. Hill, 209-10. ↩︎
19. Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.1:322. ↩︎
20. Isaac Dorner, cited in Webster, ‘God’s Perfect Life,’ 148. ↩︎
21. Paul Helm, Faith, Form, and Fashion, 27-28. ↩︎
22. Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology, 1:782; following Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Baker Books, 1996), 2:220; Discourse 12, ‘On the Goodness of God.’ ↩︎
23. Webster, God Without Measure, 2:53. ↩︎
24. Webster, God Without Measure, 2:54. ↩︎
25. Paul Helm, ‘Goodness,’ in Philip L. Quinn and Charles Taliaferro eds., A Companion to Philosophy of Religion (Blackwell, 1999), 246. ↩︎
26. ‘No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known’ (John 1:18). In the Greek original, ‘at the Father’s side’ is literally, ‘in the bosom of the Father.’ Thanks to Robert Doyle for expression of this matter. ↩︎
27. Stephen R. Holmes, ‘Shapers of Protestantism: Jonathan Edwards,’ in The Blackwell Companion to Protestantism, eds. Alister E. McGrath and Darren C. Marks (Blackwell, 2004), 183. This is a summary of Edward’s argument in his Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the World. ↩︎
28. Doyle, Evangelical Doctrine of the Church, 253. ↩︎
29. Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations 28.31; NPNF 2.7:300. ↩︎
30. Webster, ‘God’s Perfect Life,’ 152. ↩︎
31. Webster, ‘God’s Perfect Life,’ 145; slightly amended. ↩︎
32. Calvin, Comm1 Timothy 1:1; trans. Smail, 187. ↩︎
33. For further reflection on themes related to those discussed above, see Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1.1.4-6; and Summa Contra Gentiles, 1.100-102; Gerald Bray, The Attributes of God (Crossway, 2021), 98-102, 108, 118-19m 130, 142-43; Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, rev. and ed. Ernst Bizer, trans. G. T. Thomson (Wakeman Classics, 2000), 57-104, 194f; Oden, ST 1, 127ff; Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 1-23. ↩︎
34. The phrase ‘the big me’ was coined by Robert Doyle. Its characterisation here owes much to the work of Carl R. Trueman – see, for example, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to the Sexual Revolution (Crossway, 2020). ↩︎
35. In chronological order: Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism (W. W. Norton, 1979); Alasdair Macintrye, After Virtue (Duckworth, 1997); Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Harvard University Press, 2007); idem, The Ethics of Authenticity (Harvard University Press, 2018); Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self; idem, Strange New World (Crossway, 2022). ↩︎
36. See Michael S. Horton, Elizabeth W. Mburu and Justin Holcomb eds., Prophet, Priest, and King: Christology in Global Perspective (Zondervan, 2025). ↩︎
37. Frame, Doctrine of God, 411. ↩︎
38. D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, 386 (IVP, 1991). ↩︎
39. D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, 386-87 (IVP, 1991). ↩︎
40. Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on John 4.10.10-11, in John 1-10, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. New Testament 4a (InterVarsity Press, 2006), 344-45. ↩︎
41. Basil of Seleucia, Homily 26.2, in John 1-10, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. New Testament 4a (InterVarsity Press, 2006), 344-45. ↩︎
42. Bray, God is Love, 159. ↩︎
43. Webster, God Without Measure, 2:7. ↩︎
44. Webster, God Without Measure, 2:8; slightly amended. ↩︎
45. Webster, God Without Measure, 2:16; slightly amended. ↩︎
46. Webster, God Without Measure, 2:16. ↩︎
47. ‘God’s goodness [therefore] extends beyond caring for personal and corporate physical and material needs to people’s spiritual needs. Paul says that God’s elect were chosen because of God’s good purposes (Eph 1:5, 9), and because of the results, we can see that God’s good purposes and pleasure are beneficial to the elect. Moreover, we see the results of God’s salvation to those who believe (whether Jew or Gentile), and it is all evidence of God’s goodness (Rom 11:22)’ (Feinberg, No One Like Him, 368). ↩︎
48. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 2^nd ed., 236. ↩︎
49. Material under this heading and the following two headings is adapted from Benjamin Dean, Great Truths – The Gospel of Jesus Christ, available at https://www.greattruthsglobal.org/the-gospel-of-jesus-christ/ ↩︎
50. J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (IVP, 2010 [Orig. 1961]), 66. ↩︎
51. Richard Swinburne, Was Jesus God? (Oxford University Press, 2008), 11; the emphasis is in the original. ↩︎
52. Fine discussions of human dignity and depravity include Graham A. Cole, God the Peacemaker: How Atonement Brings Shalom (Apollos, 2009), 53-66; and John Stott, The Contemporary Christian (IVP, 1992), 33-45. ↩︎
53. Calvin, CommJohn 5:34; trans. Parker, 136. ↩︎
54. Thanks to Robert Doyle for re-writing my earlier draft of this subsection. ↩︎
55. Peter Jensen, The Life of Faith (Matthias Media, 2022), 188. ↩︎
56. It should be noted that amongst some within the Reformed tradition — including, regrettably, Calvin at points — election and reprobation have been presented as symmetrical, parallel aspects of a single predestinating decree. The most striking illustration of this is William Perkins’s famous chart in A Golden Chain (1590), titled ‘A Survey or Table declaring the order of the causes of salvation and damnation’, conveniently available in The Works of William Perkins, vol. 6 (Reformation Heritage Books, 2018). It is worth noting that although Perkins’s chart is indebted to Theodore Beza’s Tabula, he differs from Beza in placing the work of Christ as ‘mediator of the elect’ firmly at the centre. The supposed symmetry of election and reprobation, however, is not warranted by Scripture. The Bible does not coordinate election to life with reprobation; rather, it coordinates reprobation with a real and genuine offer of salvation. It accounts for human rejection and for God’s sovereignty in and over that rejection — a sovereignty which acts to advance his saving purposes despite human refusal (Rom 9; 11; cf. 10) — but it does not coordinate reprobation with election. A sensitive recent treatment of these questions is Stephen Williams, The Election of Grace: A Riddle without a Resolution? (Eerdmans, 2015), esp. ch. 2, originally delivered as the Kantzer Lectures. Also worthwhile is Andrew David Naselli, Predestination: An Introduction (Crossway, 2024). ↩︎
57. John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Inter-Varsity Press, 1986-2021), 7; and ch. 6. ↩︎
58. Michael Horton, Pilgrim Theology: Core Doctrines for Christian Disciples (Zondervan, 2011), 201. ↩︎
59. Stott, The Cross of Christ, 133-163. ↩︎
60. Good starting points are Stott, The Cross of Christ; Steve Jeffrey, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach, Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution, foreword by John Piper (Inter-Varsity Press, 2007);and J. I. Packer and Mark Dever, In My Place Condemned He Stood: : Celebrating the Glory of the Atonement, foreword by Ligon Duncan, C. J. Mahaney, Mark Dever, and Al Mohler (Crossway, 2007). ↩︎
61. NIDNTT, ed. Brown, 2:105. ↩︎
62. NIDNTT, ed. Brown, 2:105. ↩︎
63. Calvin, Comm Hebrews 6:19-20; trans. Johnstone, 87. ↩︎
64. Darrell L. Bock, Ephesians, TNTC (Inter-Varsity Press, 2019), 67. ↩︎
65. F. F. Bruce, as cited in Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, PNTC (Eerdmans, 1999), 173; slightly amended. ↩︎
66. NIDNTT, ed. Brown, 2:106. ↩︎