God’s Goodness Blesses Others

All the goodness that there is in this beautiful world is caused by the perfect goodness of God. For a basic fact of Biblical doctrine is that God who is good in himself shares that goodness with others. God’s essential goodness – his goodness in himself – the goodness of his being and nature, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is given in all kinds of ways by the Creator for the good of creatures, who are not God. That perfect Divine goodness is everywhere in Scripture, running clearly and consistently from beginning to end through the Bible’s grand storyline. In the heart of the Bible’s God and so ‘at the heart of the universe,’¹Peter Jensen, At the Heart of the Universe: What Christians Believe (IVP, 1991). there is goodness.

Goodness in the Beginning

It is first expressed ‘in the beginning’ by the superb world God made. The creativity and power at play in the opening passage of the Bible is over and over said to result in good. Then, all God’s good creative work is crowned with the very special goodness of human beings made in his image and likeness. The overall impression given by the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis with such heavy repetition of goodness is of fruitful harmony: (1) harmony between God and all his creatures, as well as (2) between human beings and all the other creatures.

At the very beginning of the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2, in the very foundations of God’s actions we see the shape of this harmony, its quality of forming a pleasing and consistent whole, springing from God’s own inner being and life.  He has created us, in his own image, for relationships. ‘Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness … ” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them’ (Gen 1:26-27). The plural in God, ‘let us make man in our image,’ creates a singular ‘likeness’ which is itself a plural, ‘male and female he created them.’ Man and woman, Adam and Eve in their relationship together, are the image of God, which answers to, images, the inner plurality of the one God. For eventually, through his loving actions to redeem and rescue our fallen world, with the coming of God himself in the person of Jesus Christ – the Son of the Father – and the gift of the Holy Spirit, we see that this one God is triune. God is one Being in three distinct Persons who, of one same Divine essence, mutually indwell each other.

So, the very goodness of God himself, and the good it has produced in creating us, is fundamentally relational. Loving relations within God himself have, out of sheer grace, created something other than himself to live alongside him, in loving dependent fellowship with him. This relationality is threefold. First, between God and us. It is direct and intimate. Even in the tragedy that unfolds in Genesis chapter 3 we get a glimpse of the nature of this loving fellowship God has created Adam and Eve for. It appears that God habitually walks ‘in the garden in the cool of the day,’ and Adam and Eve see him and are greeted by him (Gen 3:8). Second, between each other. Humanity, which images God, is differentiated, a differentiation which supports and is sustained by mutually dependent, loving fellowship between Adam and Eve. Third, in turn, Adam and Eve are given a sovereign relationship, control over the rest of creation for its good order and for the common good of humankind.

This utter goodness imaging God’s own goodness is emphasized again and again in the creation account. Eight times, either God pronounces or the writer refers to what God has created, as ‘good’ (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25; 2:9, 12). The final evaluation in 1:31 is emphatic. The heavens and the earth with humanity in it was so full of goodness that when the Almighty Creator ‘saw everything that he had made … behold, it was very good.’

The opposite of good appears first in God’s words to Adam – words of permission and prohibition: ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’ (Gen 2:17; cf. 2:4-3:24, esp. 2:9, 16-17; 3:3, 6, 11, 12, 22). In this way, the Bible begins to fill out the nature of Divine-human relations, their boundaries, commitments, and possibilities, including the horrors that result from breaching them. Evildoing violates the affection, trust, responsibility, and closeness integral to personal fellowship between the Creator and the creature. It receives God’s curse (Gen 3:14, 7; 4:11 etc.). But the built-in goodness of creation, and the essential goodness of the Creator from whom all good comes (and whose demand upon creatures is absolute), provide the dominant themes. In Genesis (chapter 2 vv. 16-17):

‘good is set against its opposite evil in a context where decisions, and pronouncements are made that are either favourable or unfavorable. … What is forbidden to man is the power to decide for himself what is in his best interests and what is not. This is a decision God has not delegated to the earthling. … Man indeed has become a god whenever he makes his own self the center, the springboard, and the only frame of reference for moral guidelines. When man attempts to act autonomously [on his own and for himself] he is indeed attempting to be godlike. It is quite apparent why man may have access to all the trees in the garden except this one.’²Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 166. ‘We want to understand, as profoundly as we are able, the nature of the Good that stands behind all proximal goods … We want to identify, likewise the Villain who stands behind all acts of villainy – the nature of the spirit who wishes to produce all the suffering of the world for the sake of nothing but that suffering. We want to understand Good so that we can be good and understand Evil so that we can avoid being evil’ (Jordan Peterson, We Who Wrestle with God: Perceptions of the Divine (Allen Lane, 2024), xxx).

Benevolence, Blessing, and Benefit

The goodness of God and the nature of his goodness towards us, so strikingly presented to us in the opening chapters of Genesis, is developed further throughout the other books of the Bible. Now, ‘Good is, first of all, a general term of commendation. We describe as good any kind of excellence, including beauty, economic value, usefulness, or skilfulness – indeed, anything that evokes a favourable response.’³John Frame, The Doctrine of God (P&R Publishing, 2002), 403. But ‘[b]y far the most common meaning of goodness in Scripture (Hebrew tov; Greek, agathos, kalos) is “benevolence.” A good person is one who acts for the benefit of others.’⁴Frame, Doctrine of God, 410.

Indeed, ‘blessing’ is the basic word conveying the Creator’s goodness to his creatures: ‘And God blessed them,’ we are told (Gen 1:22, 28). Blessing is the ‘bestowal of good,’⁵New Bible Dictionary. Third Edition (IVP, 1996), 143. the communication of benefit. Words of blessing appear some 400 times in the OT and about 70 times in the NT.⁶Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1:754; New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 1:212. God’s spoken blessing puts the gift of God’s goodness into words. It verbalizes the goodness of God. Spoken blessing ‘involves a word invested with power;’ that is, blessing transfers, imparts, and endows one who receives it ‘with beneficial power.’⁷New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 1:207; emphasis supplied. Words of blessing are God’s ‘first recorded words’ to human beings.⁸J. V. Fesko, The Giver of Life: The Biblical Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Lexham Academic, 2024), 40. And God’s blessing, expressed verbally, proceeds from the earliest point of creation (Gen 2:3), extending beyond the fall to Abram, in whom God promised that ‘all the families of the earth shall be blessed’ (Gen 5:2; 9:1; 12:2-3), and concludes with his ultimate blessings in the perfect world (Rev 22:7, 14).

Among the chief blessings granted to human beings in the early stages of Scripture are conscious individual personal life itself, marriage, parenthood, companionship, dominion, sonship, inheritance, mercy, redemption, righteousness, forgiveness, a new heart, preservation, protection, and restoration. It is a beautiful picture, crowned and framed by God’s covenant with his people, conveying untold benefits to them, and indeed to all God’s creatures, based on the varying kind of relationship in which they stand to their Creator.

And that is the most important point about the blessing of God in Scripture: whatever specific benefits may be conferred – prosperity, enjoyment, ability, contentment – the benefits themselves are secondary. ‘The primary factor of blessing is the statement of relationship between parties. God blesses with a benefit on the basis of the relationship. The blessing makes known the positive relationship … The focus [is] on relationship rather than content.’⁹Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1:754. Having said this, of course, when one views fellowship with God as the fundamental good created by God – i.e., interactive, immediate, personal, direct, satisfying, and everlasting relationship with God as the blessing above all other blessings – other things find their proper place.

God’s Goodness in the Old Testament

The Book of Genesis concludes with the conviction that God’s overriding purpose is good, whatever happens. To the brothers who had sold him into slavery, Joseph said: ‘you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive … Thus he spoke kindly to them and comforted them’ (Gen 50:20).

In the Book of Exodus, the LORD tells Moses at Sinai: ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you’ (33:19). Here, goodness is the quality that captures God’s nature, name, and will. Goodness sums up God’s grace, presence, mercy, and glory.

In the Psalms, the goodness of God is a regular theme, receiving about 40 mentions. For example, Psalm 85:12 says that ‘the LORD will give what is good,’ and the rest of the Psalm fills out in some detail the nature of that given good – favor, restoration of fortune, forgiveness of sins, withdrawal of wrath, turning away from ‘hot anger,’ salvation, revival, steadfast love, peace, glory, faithfulness, and righteousness.¹⁰See further, Pss 25:8; 33:5; 34:8; 52:1; 73:1; 100:5; all of 103 and 104; 106:1, 44-46; all of 107; 118:1, 29; 135:3; 145:7-9, 13-16.

Sometimes Scripture simply states that God ‘is good’ (2 Chron 5:13; 7:3; also Jer 33:11; Lam 3:25; Nah 1:7; Amos 5:4, 6, 14). Other passages link God’s goodness with God’s love (1 Chron 16:34; also 2 Chron 5:13; 7:3; Ezra 3:11; Psa 25:7; 100:5; 106:1; 107:1; 109:21; 118:1; 136:1; Isa 63:7; Jer 33:11). Other passages still pair God’s goodness with his mercy (Exod 33:19; Psa 23:6; 69:16; 145:6).

Repeatedly, the LORD promised good to the people of Israel (Num 10:29; Psa 73:1; cf. Deut 26:11; 28:12, 63; 30:5; Josh 24:20, 45; Judg 17:13; 2 Sam 16:12; 1 Ki 8:56; Ezra 3:11; 8:18; Neh 9:20). Here the object of God’s goodness is the nation to whom he made special commitment, and his ‘goodness is a covenantal category,’¹¹Frame, Doctrine of God, 410. a form of Divine Lordship, expressed ‘in his giving … gifts to Israel: Law (Deut 6:24); Land (9:4-5l 17:18-20; 26:5-10); prophets (18:22); and priests (18:6-7).’¹²Bruce K. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology (Zondervan, 2007), 506.

The LORD’s goodness is here (as everywhere) the ground of gratitude.  The stress rests on ‘the debt which Israel owes to God. All its life, both political and religious, is … dependent upon what God has given … Consequently there is not part of this life which is not a cause … to show gratitude to the LORD who has made it possible, and it is this gratitude which … [is] the true basis of worship.’¹³R. E. Clements, God’s Chosen People: A Theological Interpretation of the Book of Deuteronomy (Judson Press, 1969), 69, cited in Waltke, Old Testament Theology, 506-7; slightly amended.

Yet at the same time as the goodness of God reaches his chosen people in all (saving) ways so his goodness in some ways extends unceasingly outward in universal generosity:

‘The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made. … The LORD upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing. The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works’ (Psa 145:9, 14-16).

So God’s goodness is unrestricted, and in real measure extended in sending all-round all-inclusive blessing – sun, rain, seasons, fruitfulness, food, and gladness – reaching those who do not necessarily love and serve him as they ought (Acts 14:17), and including also – Christ expressly taught – enemies: ‘your Father who is in heaven … makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust’ (Matt 5:45). For human beings at all times everywhere, ‘God does not owe us anything, yet we can trust with absolute certainty that he will “do right” by us, not because of who we are, but because of who he is.’¹⁴Katherin A. Rogers, Perfect Being Theology (Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 126.

Indeed, the new covenant to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ promised provision of a regenerated heart for God’s people, with which they would fear him ‘forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them.’ The ‘everlasting covenant’ involved the LORD never turning ‘away from doing good to them.’ He would ‘rejoice in doing them good’ forever (Jer 32:39-42).

God’s Goodness in the New Testament

And so, the new covenant unfolded in the text of the New Testament Scriptures deepens, enlarges, and extends the vision limitlessly. Obviously, the Christian good news arises out of God’s goodness. The gospel of Jesus Christ the Lord comes to us out of the perfect goodness of God. Its greatest and chief good is Christ’s atoning death. By bearing and bearing away sin’s penalty and effect for us at the cross on what came to be called Good Friday, the only perfectly good person to have ever walked the earth triumphed over evil by doing good once and for all. For through the Good Shepherd laying down his life came saving good, beginning with the forgiveness of sins that reconciles us with God the Father forever.

Through the Person and work of Christ, that reconciliation is at great depth, as seen in the parable of the prodigal son, arguably better titled as the parable of the waiting Father (Luke 15:11-32). Reconciliation restores our broken relationships, between us and God, between us and each other, whether in individual or cosmic contexts (Luke 15:20-24; Rev 21:1-18). Yet long before his death for our sins the goodness of the Good Shepherd was on display. His mighty works are a staggering case in point.

Jesus’ Miracles

Far more miracles are associated with Jesus Christ than any other figure.¹⁵See the discussion of ‘Other First-Century Miracle-Workers,’ in David Seccombe, The King of God’s Kingdom (Paternoster, 2002), 284-289. Among ‘the chief characteristics of Jesus’ miracles … the first is the sheer number of them.’¹⁶Seccombe, The King of God’s Kingdom, 291. Activity on the scale reported in the four Gospels – some 35 different miracle stories, including frequent mass healings carried out in front of thousands of people – is utterly unique.¹⁷For summary details of the range and number of Jesus’ miracles in the Gospels, see Paul Barnett, Gospel Truth: Answering New Atheist Attacks on the Gospels (IVP, 2012), 117-119. Barnett’s broader discussion (109-127) is most valuable. ‘All the miracle stories give the impression that such activity was natural [to Christ], and made no more demands on him than anything else.’¹⁸Seccombe, The King of God’s Kingdom, 292. Yet it is too often somehow strangely overlooked that through the course of his public life, ‘deeds of power’ (dynameis, Matt 11:20-21, 23; 13:54, 58; 14:2 etc.) – of such critical importance to Jesus himself and to those who met him – signal not merely his astonishing Divine power, authority, identity, and Deity, but his amazing benevolence. They were ‘signs,’ to be sure, yet also ‘wonders’ (John 4:48), obviously designed to amaze by impressing people with his capability, but to astound people also by blessing and benefitting people wonderfully, permanently, and incomparably.

Certainly, there is the objective to reveal to the people and his disciples his Divine identity and mission. Jesus Christ is and was God in human form. But the mass feedings, raisings from death, exorcisms, healings, and nature miracles (not remotely paralleled anytime anywhere by anyone else in kind, degree, or frequency) together with his own explanation of their significance, demonstrate not just the competency of God’s Kingdom but they communicate its good and benevolent nature.

In the Gospels, of course ‘the miracle stories carry the signature of the one who performed them.’ Yes, they were ‘signs of his unmistakable identity, origin, and destiny.’¹⁹‘Miracles and Miracle Stories,’ in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Second Edition, 603. But his incomparably good character and intent, and the good nature of his Kingdom – other-person-centred, compassionate, service-oriented, designed to benefit, intent to bless, willing to provide, and to deliver – are equally fundamental.

Jesus’ miracles are almost all moved by compassion. He was intent on reliving misery, pain, and suffering, whatever its form, removing whatever deprives, diminishes, and destroys human life. ‘With perhaps one exception, none of the gospel miracles are performed for Jesus’ own benefit.’²⁰Seccombe, The King of God’s Kingdom, 293. One who witnessed the majority of Jesus’ miracles firsthand – the apostle Peter – summed things up this way: ‘He [Christ] went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him’ (Acts 10:38).

The effect and impact of such goodness gathered huge crowds about him, to follow him, accompany him, ‘hear him and to be healed of their infirmities’ (Luke 5:15; also 14:25; cf. Matt 4:25; 8:1; 13:2; 15:30). ‘[G]reat crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and he healed them’ (Matt 15:30). The magnitude of blessing that this scope and size of ‘doing good’ – feeding, healing, teaching, deliverance, resuscitation – was such that sometimes when he appeared and spoke in public ‘so many thousands of the people gathered together that they were trampling one another’ (Luke 12:1).

Little surprise some wanted to take him and make him king by force (John 6:15). When a person has the capacity to feed groups of thousands with a packed lunch, empty intensive care, bring the dead back from coffins and tombs, produce instant peace for psychiatric patients, expose, and disperse evil spirits, still storms, that person’s effectiveness at the distribution of goodness and the restoration of health, provision of plenty, and maintenance of order lends itself to very popular rule. Christ’s fame was massive and immediate precisely because such good things backed up and occurred alongside everything he had to say (Mark 1:21-34). His impact at the time was instantaneous and far-reaching, and directly to do with his reputation as a wonderworker and healer. ‘For nothing is more expressive of the character and presence of the Kingdom than that unaffected and effectual compassion which was so unique a mark of his ministry.’²¹Seccombe, The King of God’s Kingdom, 311. Thus, the incarnate Son’s miraculous mighty works are:

‘those by which Christ bears witness not only to his power, but also to his goodness, so that he may attract men to himself by the delightfulness of his grace. For he came not to condemn but to save the world (John 3:17). Therefore when the sick are healed and others are set free from demons, those blessings which are bestowed on their bodies represent the spiritual grace of Christ.’²²John Calvin, Comm, Acts 1-13 [5:12], trans. Fraser and McDonald, 138.

‘Jesus’ miracles were invariably done out of compassion for the diseased, the hungry and the fearful. Furthermore, his miracles did not violate the “good” in creation, where healing routinely occurs within the body and where storms eventually cease. Under Jesus the good purposes of God were focused and accelerated for the benefit of others. Jesus’ miracles pointed to the goodness of the Creator, to his unique Sonship of that Father, and were signs that his Kingdom had indeed come, and of hope that it would come in its fullness, when injustice, pain, crying and death will be no more.’²³Barnett, Gospel Truth, 121.

It is significant that he miraculously helped and provided particularly for the poor and afflicted.

‘Notable among the people Jesus … healed were disabled beggars: the blind, the deaf, and the lame. Such people found it hard to find work, and, unless they belonged to a wealthy family, were obliged to beg. … But begging was not an enviable lifestyle, and, by healing these people, Jesus gave them back their dignity and a place in society.’²⁴Richard Bauckham, Jesus: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011), 40.

As Christ pointed out, it is sick people who need a doctor (Matt 9:12 and parallels), the needy who require provision. The paralyzed, lepers, and demon-possessed were outcast from society as well as barred from the presence of God in the Jerusalem temple, so when Christ restored their physical state, he also restored their social, cultural, and spiritual relationships. He brought them back to their families, friends, and communities.²⁵Bauckham, Jesus: A Very Short Introduction, 40. His exorcisms dramatized and displayed his ability and intention ‘to overcome the forces of evil and to rescue the those who were enslaved to them,’²⁶Bauckham, Jesus: A Very Short Introduction, 41. that is, in a real sense, everyone.

For ‘as he saw it his real enemy was not flesh and blood, but the dark power behind all human beings and institutions. He was directing his attack against the very stronghold of evil, within whose power all humans were to be found, from the Emperor of Rome to the High Priest of Israel down to his own disciples.’²⁷Seccombe, The King of God’s Kingdom, 313; slightly amended.

If the Gospels and the Book of Acts are to be believed, Jesus’ miracle-working ability was in some real measure transferable to his disciples. Counterpart things were said about the impact of ‘many signs and wonders [being] regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. … And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women’ (Acts 5:12-16; cf. Rom 15:18-19; 2 Cor 12:12 on ‘the signs of a true apostle’). Yet it is their sheer kindness, their compassionate competence of character, the clear objective of such staggering power and scale to bless, which is most telling.

To repeat the point, the miracles of Jesus Christ were revelations of goodness as much as revelations of ability. They are designed to reinforce confidence in the genuinely good character of God’s kingdom, in the ability and intention, competence and kindness, of Christ the Saviour and King of God’s Kingdom. ‘His words were remarkable, and his words and his miracles actually hang together. … he spoke of a coming kingdom in which the world would be renewed, evil put to flight, the sick healed, the prisoners released, the poor card for and the hungry fed. … His miracles embodied the kingdom of God.’²⁸Peter Jensen, The Future of Jesus (Matthias Media, 2008), 49. The rule of God revealed in Jesus Christ is very good. It targets the poor and renews the people of God.²⁹Bauckham, Jesus: A Very Short Introduction, 47-54.

Every Spiritual Blessing

Yet there is a broader dimension to the benevolence and benefit of God’s goodness. For the Christian believer ‘our covenant union with Christ is the ground of all the blessings which we as the people of God possess or hope for.’³⁰Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians (Eerdmans, no date), 31.

According to Ephesians chapter 1, ‘The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ is to be ‘blessed’ (that is, praised and thanked) because:

‘[The Father] has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will’ (Eph 1:3-5; cf. all of Gal 3).

In this passage, the blessing declared is extremely rich. Its beginning stretches back before time began (so preceding any of us, and all our life and action), and its extent is cosmic and eternal. The blessing combines all the good that an infinitely good God has to give. Based on the forgiveness of sins, moved by love, and featuring moral cleansing, the goodness of God in the Lord Jesus Christ is put into words, promises, plans, and deeds which deliver ‘a blessing rooted in eternity past, participated in now and connected with an eternal future that remains for those who share in it. It is a blessing that comes from beyond, a transcendent form of life that God supplies to those who trust him.’³¹Darrell L. Bock, Ephesians [TNTC] (IVP Academic, 2019), 32.

The great relational good acclaimed and offered in the good news of Jesus’ Person and work is our adoption as beloved sons and daughters (Rom 8:15, 23; 9:4; Gal 4:5; Eph 1:5), joining and being in the family of God the Father (Eph 3:15). But that is to jump ahead to God’s goodness in the gospel. At this stage, the point is simply this – recognition of God’s goodness, in himself as well as in all his ways and works to bless others, is widespread in both Old and New Testament Scripture and straightforwardly stated at many points. So, we can say that, in the heart of God and ‘at the heart of the universe,’³²Peter Jensen, At the Heart of the Universe: What Christians Believe (IVP, 1991). there is goodness.

God’s Goodness is Fatherly Goodness

There is indeed goodness at the heart of the universe, and the Divine goodness which is at the heart of things is a Fatherly goodness.

Now, in the Gospel according to Luke, as well as many other places in the Bible, a governing assumption is that the goodness of God reaches out particularly to the disadvantaged, to those in special need.³³See David Peter Seccombe, The Poor and Their Possessions: Possessions and the Poor in Luke-Acts (Wipf & Stock, 2022). It is, for example, ‘the hungry’ who are ‘filled … with good things’ (Luke 1:53). In a similar vein, the Lord Jesus Christ taught God’s distinctive generosity to those deserving precisely the opposite: ‘love your enemies,’ he said, ‘and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is good [chrestos = kind, good] to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful’ (Luke 6:35-36).

It is extremely significant that Christ presented Divine kindness as parental. The nature of God’s goodness extending especially to the poor, disabled, and dispossessed is paternal.

God the Father is the beginning of everything, and all good begins with him. It is Fatherly goodness that is at the foundation and origin of all things, Fatherly goodness which shapes and rules reality, Divine and human.

Christ made clear that Fatherly goodness determines the most fundamental human relationships: ‘If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!’ (Matt 7:11). Divine goodness is then the largesse of a Divine Parent. All goodness we experience and enjoy originally comes from ‘the heavenly Father’ (Luke 11:13; cf. Matt 5:48; 6:26, 32). ‘Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father’ (Jas 1:17). God’s goodness is firstly and primarily God the Father’s goodness; and it is this Fatherly goodness of God which we see reflected in the ‘good gifts’ human parents give to their children.

Thus, the goodness of God is the goodness of the Almighty Father, and the Father’s Almighty goodness is an infinitely powerful goodness that is correctly appreciated (without emotionalization or sentimentality) as totally generous, genuinely affectionate, caring, open-handed, forgiving, patient, compassionate, pitying, and as magnanimous as the best imaginable parent. The Fatherly nature of God’s goodness emphasizes the abundance, authority, responsibility, and tenderness of his character, reaching down in condescension toward human children in whom – as the archetypal and original big-hearted and proud parent – he delights.³⁴Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology (Thomas Nelson, 1998), 199.

Now, the best and highest good is communion, fellowship with God the Father and with Jesus Christ, ‘the Father’s Son’ (2 John 3). ‘God’s pattern of dealing with us has always been determined by the model of sonship’³⁵Sinclair B. Ferguson, Children of the Living God (Banner of Truth Trust, 1989), 119; slightly amended. (cf. Luke 3:38). Individual and personal sonship to God, and God’s Fatherhood to each of us, is established in two events, firstly, by our regeneration (new birth, re-creation), and secondly by our adoption into his family. Again, our lasting, true, and valuable good is fellowship with God the Father, the Father after whom all fatherhood and every family (Gk. patria) in heaven and on earth in named (Eph 3:15). This Divine Fatherhood, Sonship, family, and fellowship is what the whole Person and mission of Jesus Christ – his death atoning for sin being the costliest good, with all its benefits and blessings – is focussed on fulfilling: the ultimate good of reconciling sinful human beings to unending relationship with God our heavenly Father.

The Father’s goodness is centred and focussed on Jesus Christ. It is as the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, our elder brother and mediator, that we enjoy the Father’s goodness (Heb 2:10-18). Yet it is also the case that the greatest good is the Father himself, and the deepest good is the Father’s love. Jesus said, ‘If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him’ (John 14:23).³⁶There is ‘no lack, deficit, or neediness on his part. … The Triune God, though absolutely one, is not personally solitary. We can see that this most obviously by considering the eternal fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in which there is no empty space for loneliness or isolation. To put it as positively as possible, God is blessed eternally sufficient to himself, delighting in the love and light that make his Divine life. … God desires to dwell in the midst of his people, not out of need or greed but freely, truly, and deeply’ (Fred Sanders, The Holy Spirit: An Introduction (Crossway, 2023), 70). ‘This is that which Christ came to reveal – God as a Father … for the love of the Father is the only rest of the soul.’³⁷John Owen, Communion with God, eds. Kelly M. Kapic and Justin Taylor (Crossway, 2007), 112; emphasis supplied. ‘This,’ according to Owen, ‘is the great discovery of the gospel: for whereas the Father, as the fountain of the Deity, [that is, God as he actually and really is at the deepest level, in himself] is not known any other way but as full of wrath, anger, and indignation against sin, nor can the sons of men have any other thoughts of him – here [in the good news] he is now revealed peculiarly as love, as full of it unto us; the manifestation whereof is the peculiar work of the gospel.’³⁸Owen, Communion with God, 107. To adapt Owen’s words: the love of the Father is the only good of the soul.

Knowing the Father and belonging to him, conscious of his grace, mercy, and peace, in truth and love, is supremely good, and it is God’s ultimate gift to sinners (2 John 3). For as the Saviour said, knowing the Father, ‘the only true God, and Jesus Christ,’ whom he sent ‘is eternal life’ (John 17:1, 3). ‘In these two pregnant words are summed up … all the blessings of salvation.’³⁹B. B. Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings (P&R Publishing, 1973), 2:647-48. Eternal life is forever and yet also ‘the present possession’ of those who rely on Jesus Christ. Without it there is no relationship to God, but only universal death. ‘This is the reason why the gospel of life is so great a gospel. It is a gospel of life out of death.’⁴⁰Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings, 2:648.

‘The principle of the new life we have received is … the principle out of which … all else is to flow. For here is the astonishing fact which illuminates our whole consciousness and transfigures our whole living; we now know God and life in communion with him, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. … When we say we “know” a person, we mean that he is our familiar friend, and with whom we have an intimate intercourse and constant companionship. The life which Christ brings his people is the introduction of them into this close and continuous communion with God.’⁴¹Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings, 2:649-50.

Calling God, ‘Abba, Father!’ (Mark 14:36; Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6) – in all ethnicities and languages, addressing God as dear Father, my Father, our Father – is profoundly good. As God’s holy and beloved children ‘we may speak with the Father just as [Christ] speaks with the Father, for the Father’s ear will open as readily to our cries as it does to the voice of his own Son’⁴²Ferguson, Children of the Living God, 33. (John 14:13-14; 15:16; 16:23-26). ‘To come to God as a Father, through Christ, by the help and assistance of the Holy Spirit, revealing him as a Father unto us, and enabling us to go him as a Father, how full of sweetness and satisfaction it is!’⁴³John Owen, A Discourse of the Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer. Works of John Owen. Volume 4. ed. Thomas Russell (Richard Baynes, 1826), 82; cited in Sanders, The Holy Spirit, 79. Whatever we ask in Jesus’ name the Father will give. The Father ‘is far too great to neglect the needs of those he has made … [and] the Father is ceaselessly active in the world he created.’⁴⁴Leon Morris, New Testament Theology (Academie/Zondervan, 1986), 250. ‘When the Father sends his Spirit into us, the cry “Father” sounds forth from the innermost depths as a human word spoken from our deepest hearts and simultaneously as the same word from the heart of God.’⁴⁵Sanders, The Holy Spirit, 81.

There is personal security, ‘because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever’ (2 John 2). No one can snatch us from the Father’s hand (John 10:29); he will keep us from harm, and guard us from the evil one (John 17:12, 15). Not only so, but ‘[t]he moment we are born into the kingdom of God we become members of the family of God. We have new brothers and sisters. The Christian life brings not only a new Father and a new disposition, but also new family relationships.’⁴⁶Ferguson, Children of the Living God, 53. This family fellowship forever and ever is the Father’s goal is all his giving and goodness to us. ‘We are children of God; we, therefore, receive an inheritance from him. Our final destiny is to enter into the full enjoyment of that inheritance.’⁴⁷Ferguson, Children of the Living God, 120.

That is the end – ‘eternal life’ – for which the Father’s love moved and motivated him to give his only Son (John 3:16). In the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ – the only begotten Son – we see the Father’s goodness expressed most fully and vividly. Christ accomplished costliest good on the cross; the benefit and possession of it are communicated to us through the gospel, the good news that guides us to the good.

It is the reason why the Father gives ‘the Holy Spirit to those who ask him’ (Luke 11:13). ‘God the Father’s plan has always been to dwell among this people, and the Holy Spirit is, in Person, the fulfilment of that plan.’⁴⁸Sanders, The Holy Spirit, 68. For in sending the Helper, the Holy Spirit – ‘the Spirit of your Father’ (Matt 10:20), ‘the promise of the Father’ (Acts 1:4; also Luke 24:49; Acts 2:33), ‘the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father’ (John 15:26; also 14:17; 16:13), ‘the Spirit of adoption as sons’ (Rom 8:15), and ‘the Spirit of his Son’ (Gal 4:6) – the Father’s kindness to us his children is crystal clear. ‘It is from the Father, who pours out through the Son’s accomplished atonement, the Holy Spirit’s personal presence in believers.’⁴⁹Sanders, The Holy Spirit, 72. ‘The outpoured Spirit mediates the presence of the incarnate one [Jesus Christ] during the time between his ascension and his return’ (73). For ‘the Spirit is the earnest and pledge of our adoption, so that we are surely convinced of God’s Fatherly attitude towards us.’⁵⁰John Calvin, Comm, Galatians [4:6], trans. T. H. L. Parker, 75. The good news is that God is our Father, and he is perfectly good. The gift of his only-begotten Son and the gift of his very own Spirit are the two ultimate goods that the Father has to give. The Holy Spirit empowers, distributes, extends, and applies, the Father’s goodness to us through the Son. For in giving his own Son and Spirit, the Father gives his very self. The biggest benefit and best good that these two Divine Persons grant to us is an ongoing and everlasting personal experience of the first Divine Person’s – our heavenly Father’s – ever-present love.⁵¹Garry J. Williams, His Love Endures Forever (Crossway, 2016), 79-97. This is Cyprian of Carthage (early 3^rd century North Africa, present-day Tunisia):

‘Many and great, beloved brothers and sisters, are the Divine benefits for which the large and abundant mercy of God the Father and Christ both has laboured and is always labouring for our salvation: that the Father sent the Son to preserve us and give us life, in order that he might restore us; and that the Son was willing to be sent and become the Son of Man, that he might make us sons of God; humbled himself, that he might raise up the people who before were prostrate; was wounded that he might heal our wounds; served, that he might draw out to liberty those who were in bondage; underwent death, that he might set forth immortality to mortals. These are many and great goods of Divine compassion.’⁵²Cyprian, Treatise 8, On Works and Alms, in Ante-Nicene Fathers [ANF], ed. Schaff, 5:476; slightly amended.

Our Good is God’s Great Goal

From infinite goodness, the Bible’s God created a fundamentally good world. It is a world that provides for and sustains relationships, the reason for which God has created us. God has created something other than himself to live alongside him in a fellowship of dependence and love. Jesus’ summary of the law captures it: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. . .  You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Mark 12:30-312).” That is the fundamental goodness of the world he has created.

By that same goodness, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit preserve, sustain, and provide for the good world they made and love.  Despite its flight into evil and corruption, God is guiding this world to its goal. The earth on which we live is not an accident but is the result of a purposeful Creator. Even given the dreadful rebellion of humankind against him, and all the disastrous consequences of our insurrection, God’s purpose nonetheless remains to bless his world.⁵³See Great Truths – Exodus 1-2:10. A Faithful God for Fearsome Times, Section 4; available at https://www.greattruthsglobal.org/exodus-1-1-2-10/ The following may assist our reflections:

‘Human history is the result of a personal God, who is its Creator. The Creator is perfectly good and created for good. Therefore: Human history is created for good.’⁵⁴Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness (HarperOne, 2015), 91; slightly amended.

‘When God creates, he creates for good. He comes to make something that is good, and because of that, he continues to have an interest in it, he continues to work with it, and he continues to care for it; that is a part of the structure of all creative action. So the first truth we want to try and make stand out as clearly as possible in this line of reasoning it that there is a good purpose to human history and the individual life therein: to develop and contribute to a glorious, triumphant community of unqualified love, understanding, and freedom. God has continuing interaction with his creation to see that good comes of it.’⁵⁵Willard, Allure of Gentleness, 90.

The Creator’s good plan is to dwell among his people and, as their God and Father in Jesus Christ, to establish and maintain deeply personal relationships and activities, with individuals and groups, forever. In this objective, as in all the ‘wondrous works’ of God (1 Chron 16:9, 12 etc.), a perfectly good outcome is inevitable. The original goodness of the beginning of creation is designed and destined for final ultimate goodness at the end, through recreation. There will be a superlatively good end, because the One behind all things has an entirely good intention reinforced by ‘the full force of Divine omnipotence.’⁵⁶Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Baker, 2019), 190. God’s entirely good overall purpose will be accomplished. The totally excellent eventual outcome is assured from the beginning, because the start and endpoint are in the hands of a fully competent and perfectly good God. God’s infinite goodness is the measure and guarantee of all that is real and lasting. Eternal Divine goodness, a goodness without measure, comes first and so, also, last.

But we know that the Bible calls us to believe in the goodness of God in the very difficult circumstances of our contemporary human experience which is marked from time to time by natural disasters and almost all the time by cruel and selfish hatred of each other. How then should God’s goodness and God’s good goals and objectives be more accurately understood? For orientation:

‘When we look at the Biblical concept of Divine goodness, one major idea stands out. It is that God is concerned about the well-being of his creatures and does things to promote it. Of course, God is interested in doing what is morally good and right, but Biblical writers capture that idea by referring to his righteousness and holiness. … [B]ecause [God] does what is righteous and holy in his dealings with all, the result is the promotion of their well-being.’⁵⁷John Feinberg, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God (Crossway, 2001), 366.

Because we have been created for mutual, loving fellowship with each other and God, our well-being depends on our behaviour being moral, just, fair. God from his own holiness and righteousness, which is his own goodness, has created us in his image, moral creatures.

Therefore, God in his goodness continues to sustain us by acting in the midst of our rebellion against him, and selfishness towards each other, by acting in holiness and righteousness, and love. He judges sin to remove it and bring about reconciliation between former enemies: us in our rejection of God’s gracious rule over us and our antagonism toward each other. That is the shape of God’s goodness towards us. And, as we know, this has come to its fulness in the life, death, resurrection, and presently heavenly rule of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. So, we read with joy the parable of the Prodigal Son, Luke 15:11-32.

Let us unpack this further. The Scriptures stress, all creatures are beneficiaries and objects of Divine goodness. Life and existence as a creature is the first good given by God (Genesis 1:31 etc.). And part and parcel of the life God has given us involves our ability as creatures to enjoy all the other goods God has made, all the natural world around us. Here is Augustine (5^th century North Africa):

‘There are some things which are to be enjoyed, some which are to be used, and some whose function is both to enjoy and use. Those which are to be enjoyed make us happy; those which are to be used assist us and give us a boost, so to speak, as we press on towards our happiness, so that we may reach and hold fast to the things which make us happy. And we, placed as we are among things of both kinds, both enjoy and use them.’⁵⁸The passage continues: ‘But if we choose to enjoy things that are to be used, our advance is impeded and sometimes even diverted, and we are held back, or even put off, from attaining those things which are to be enjoyed, because we are hamstrung by our love of lower things’ (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 1.7; trans. R. P. H. Green (Oxford University Press, 1997), 9).

Hear this trumpet call: ‘Everything created by God is good’ (1 Tim 4:4; cf. Gen 2:9; Exod 3:8; Prov 24:13). God’s goodness means that he wants to give; and not only to give something, but to give his creatures the best, highest, and richest blessings they are capable of receiving. God’s goodness meets material and spiritual and relational needs, and it encompasses material and spiritual and relational goods. We have already considered that, according to Biblical teaching, the goodness of the gospel involves the communication of God himself; and sharing in God’s goodness by being ‘granted … his precious and very great promises’ is no less than to partake ‘of the divine nature’ (2 Pet 1:4). Having God our Father is goodness itself, and the foundation of all other goodness we have been created to enjoy. Knowing him through Christ is fullness and depth and excellence and blessing.

Now, God’s purpose for blessing his people involves their long-term welfare – he plans to give us ‘a future and a hope’ (Jer 29:11). In the final analysis, our long-standing eternal good is what is ultimately meant by God being ‘concerned about the well-being of his creatures and [doing] things to promote it.’⁵⁹Feinberg, No One Like Him, 366.

The work of Jonathan Edwards helps amplify these issues.⁶⁰A Dissertation Concerning the End for which God Created the World, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2 Volumes (Banner of Truth Trust, 1974 [original, 1834]), 1:94-121. According to him, God’s overarching objective in all he does is simply the long-term welfare of his creatures. Appealing to dozens of Scriptural passages, Edwards taught that the great goal revealed in the gospel is the glorification of God in the eternal good of human beings. For Edwards, our endless true happiness is God’s chief aim. That is our non-stop advantage as his creation.  We have been created for mutual and loving relationships that ought to continue without pause or disadvantage. That is our true happiness.

There is no conflict between our non-stop advantage and God’s glory, for giving good to us and doing good for us glorifies God.⁶¹Charles Hodge (Systematic Theology (James Clarke, 1960), 1:433-34, 436) is an example of those strangely confused about this. God’s ‘own infinite fullness’ flows forth, and is ‘properly called God’s goodness, because the good that he communicates is something of himself; a communication of his own glory, and what he delights in as he delights in his own glory.’⁶²Jonathan Edwards, Concerning the End for Which God Created the World, Chapter 1, Section IV (Ethical Writings, WJE Online Vol. 8, 460). ‘God being all and alone, is absolutely self-moved. The exercises of his communicative disposition are absolutely from within himself … all that is good and worthy in the object, and the very being of the object, proceeding from the overflowing of his fullness’ (WJE 8:462). Promoting our highest good is therefore completely consistent with God’s promotion of his own glory. The same universe designed with the ambition of making God’s grandeur known and manifest is one constructed to produce human happiness.

‘According to the Scripture,’ Edwards wrote, ‘communicating good to … creatures is what is in itself pleasing to God.’ (1) Our good is what God wants in creation. ‘[T]he communication of good to the creature, was one thing which God had in view, as an ultimate end of the creation of the world.’⁶³The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 1:114. (2) Our good is also what God wants in salvation. ‘[In the Bible] communications of Divine goodness, particularly the forgiveness of sin, and salvation, are spoken of … as being for God’s goodness’ sake.’⁶⁴The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 1:115. (3) Furthermore, our good is what God wants in the gospel. For the good news of salvation from sin and its effects, accomplished through the atoning death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, proclaims our greatest good and happiness.

Moreover, the Christian message promotes true continuing human good and happiness because its focus is the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and our enduring good and happiness is precisely what God the Father brings about by Jesus’ Lordship of the cosmos:

‘That the government of the world in all its parts, is for the good of such as are to be the eternal subjects of God’s goodness, is implied in what Scripture teaches us of Christ being set at God’s right hand, made king of angels and men; set at the head of the universe, having all power given him in heaven and earth, to that end that he may promote their happiness; being made head over all things to the church, and having the government of the whole creation for their good. … God uses the whole creation, in his government of it, for the good of his people. … God’s goodness to them that are to be the eternal subjects of his goodness, is the end of creation; since the whole creation, in all its parts, is spoken of as THEIRS [in 1 Cor 3:22-23].’⁶⁵The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 1:115.

The New Living Translation of 1 Corinthians 3:22 captures the sense of the statement particularly well: ‘He [God] has given you the whole world … and life and even death are your servants. He has given you all of the present and all of the future. All are yours.’  In a passage of special beauty, Edwards elaborates further still:

‘By virtue of the believer’s union with Christ, he does really possess all things. … All the universe is his, only he has not the trouble of managing it; but Christ to whom it is no trouble to manage it, manages it for him a thousand times as much to his advantage as he could himself, if he had the managing of all the atoms in the universe. Every thing is managed by Christ so as to be of most advantage to the Christian. Every particle of air, or every ray of the sun, so that he in the other world, when he comes to see it, shall sit and enjoy all this vast inheritance with surprising, amazing joy.’⁶⁶Jonathan Edwards, ‘Miscellaneous Reflections on Heaven,’ in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2:617.

The substance of God’s goodness in promoting our welfare is then threefold: (1) by creationGod shares his own goodness with all who are not God, (2) by salvation God achieves our everlasting good through the dying and rising of Jesus Christ, and (3) by the good news of the gospel God communicates lasting good to sinful human beings (who are not morally or spiritually good) through Jesus’ Person and work. These are in summary then among the great good things God does to promote and secure our perpetual welfare: eternal life.

The LORD’s final goal, then, is to renew and restore the cosmos to a state of total goodness, faultless and flawless forever. He plans to upgrade this fragile and fleeting life. That being so, the gift of God’s goodness reaches a conclusive climax ‘in paradise’ (Luke 23:43; 2 Cor 12:3; Rev 2:7) – the environment of perfect goodness that is permanent, unchangeable, and impossible to spoil. ‘In the new world [palingenesia, regeneration]’ (Matt 19:28), Christ promised, things will be freshly made, recreated, renewed by the infinitely good God, who is determined to cleanse the cosmos of evil and then able to make all good things new (Rev 21:5). As we shall discuss again later, the good news tells us that greater good will come by God exposing sin and overcoming evil through Jesus Christ, rather than not allowing sin and evil at all. The new creation will be perfectly good forever, and because the promised ultimate end is going to be GOOD, ‘this present darkness’ (Eph 6:12) has to be viewed in light of it.

God is Goodness Itself

We have begun to discuss the nature of God’s goodness towards us (1) in creation, (2) in Jesus Christ, and (3) in the gospel message of salvation through Jesus Christ that is good news. Yet all ‘[t]his is a stream that flows from a higher source.’⁶⁷Calvin, Comm, Galatians [5:1], trans. T. H. L. Parker, 92. So now we shall take a step back, to contemplate the condition and basis of God’s goodness, extended outward and shared with us.  That is, we must consider God’s own essential goodness. God is good in himself.

God’s Own Goodness

Only God is good, Jesus said: ‘No one is good except God alone’ (Luke 18:19). What does he mean? ‘Obviously, the Bible is full of positive descriptions of all sorts of human beings, but man’s goodness is dependent, secondary, and accidental (in the philosophical sense). Only God’s goodness is independent, original, and essential.’⁶⁸Kevin DeYoung, Daily Doctrine (Crossway, 2024), 45. The thing that is unique about the goodness of God is that it is totally self-generated. This is to say that God’s goodness is his own goodness. God is good ‘without any other good, without any other ground, without any other aim, without any other blessedness than what he has in himself.’⁶⁹Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (T & T Clark, 1957), 2.1:284. It is ‘[h]e whose goodness is his own nature and not some gift, [who] says, “I am the good shepherd.”’⁷⁰Gregory the Great, ‘Forty Gospel Homilies 15,’ in John 1-10, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. New Testament 4a (InterVarsity Press, 2006), 345; slightly amended. God’s goodness is his own goodness. That is, God is good in an absolute, total, and unique sense; he is the only one who can be said to be good without qualification. Not only is God good to the highest degree, but God is good in the sense that he is goodness itself. God is good not by achieving or attaining goodness but by being it.⁷¹Paul Helm, ‘Goodness,’ in Philip L. Quinn and Charles Taliaferro eds., A Companion to Philosophy of Religion (Blackwell, 1997/1999),245.

Infinite Personal Goodness

Alright, what is this goodness of God’s that is self-generated, ‘independent, original, and essential’? Far from being some abstract or impersonal absolute ideal good, the ‘highest good’ that God has (and is) is, firstly, his own infinite personal goodness. The goodness of God is not the goodness of something but the goodness of a someone.⁷²Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2.1:286. It is the goodness of the one and only eternal God, who lives, and loves, and knows, and wills, and acts.

Another way of expressing it is, secondly, to say that God’s own essential goodness, his goodness in himself is a ‘communicative, spreading goodness.’ Here is Richard Sibbes (early 17^th century England):

‘If God had not a communicative, spreading goodness, he would never have created the world. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were happy in themselves, and enjoyed one another before the world was. Apart from the fact that God delights to communicate and spread his goodness, there would never have been a creation or redemption.’⁷³Richard Sibbes, cited without reference in Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything. Second Edition (Crossway, 2017), 89; slightly amended and emphasis supplied.

The Overflowing Fountain of All Good

All good and all goodness is God’s. We see this in the logic of the Bible’s opening couple of chapters where, because the things God created are extremely good, their Creator must be supremely good. God’s gifts – various created goods and goodness – are all excellent, for example ‘pleasing to the eye and good for food’ (Gen 2:9). Heavens and earth, space, time, light, air, water, colour, shape, texture, plants, flowers, trees, birds, animals, fish, angels, and human beings – ‘everything created by God is good’ and ‘to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth’ (1 Tim 4:3-4). The created world is good because (and only because) it is a product of God’s own goodness.

The world’s Creator is the uncreated source (and standard) of all created goodness. God is that source (and standard) of all good because he is good in himself and, indeed, is goodness itself. God is ‘the overflowing fountain of all good,’⁷⁴The Belgic Confession, 1; Schaff ed., Creeds of Christendom, 3:384. ‘the supreme good of all creatures, the object of every creature’s desire.’⁷⁵Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged, 204. Augustine gave voice to this when he wrote that God is ‘the good of all goods, in terms of which we love whatever good things we do love. So, if we can see this good in which we love anything else that is good, and in which we live and move and are, we can see God.’⁷⁶Augustine, The Trinity, 8.2; trans. Hill, 243. And we note, Augustine is reminding us that we can only really see what is good in the things around us and in our personal experience when we see it the light of God himself.  For he is the source of all that is truly good.

God’s goodness to creatures includes both giving himself (the supreme good, who is uncreated), and all other benefits (derivative goods, which are created). God himself is the highest and best good. What God has made is good and very good, yet these creations are doubtless wonderful in themselves, but lesser goods by comparison with him. That is, created good images and reflects God and his goodness, is dependent on him, and points to him, but is not God. God himself is the original and ultimate good, the good that precedes and transcends all other goods. Therefore, ‘To have God is the supreme good, even if every other good is taken away.’⁷⁷Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology, 1:784. Here is Bavinck:

‘… [T]hat which is good in itself is also good for others. And God as the perfect and blessed One, is the supreme good for his creatures, “the supreme good all things strive for, the fount of all good things, the good of every good, the one necessary and all-sufficient good, the end of all goods” … He alone is the good to be enjoyed, while creatures are goods to be used. … In him alone is everything creatures seek and need. He is the supreme good for all creatures, though in varying degrees, depending on the extent to which each creature shares in the Divine goodness and is able to enjoy him. It is he toward whom all creatures, consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, strive, the object of every creature’s desire. A creature finds no rest except in God alone.’⁷⁸Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:212; citing Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 1.3.

God is Perfectly Good

God’s goodness means that he has no deficiency. Morally, spiritually, relationally, as well as metaphysically, he is good perfectly, unconditionally, and without exception. Every ingredient of God’s identity – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit – is good. Every element and aspect of God’s nature – say, justice, wisdom, and might – is perfectly good and so fully realised. Every action God takes, and every word God speaks, is an overall perfect example of its kind. God’s goodness is a quality and a perfection rendering excellence and value to all of God’s nature, to all of God’s identity, to all of God’s characteristics, as well as to all of God’s words and his works.

This is why we must love God with all of our heart and all our soul and all of our mind and all of our strength; for he is not merely a good but ‘good itself.’ God is not ‘good with some other good, but the good of every good.’⁷⁹Augustine, The Trinity, 8.2.4, trans. Hill, 244. Similar expressions of God’s essential goodness appear in Augustine, The Trinity, 13.3.10, Hill ed., 350; and Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a.5 and 1a.6.1. This sheer surpassing excellence of God is grounds for placing value on him above all else. His out-and-out complete, consummate, and infinite personal goodness is sole adequate reason to prize and honour and serve and enjoy him above and beyond every other finite good. For ‘God is good, and created goodness participates in the infinite goodness that is God.’⁸⁰Matthew Levering, The Theology of Augustine (Baker, 2013), 167. And remember – Augustine concluded (citing Paul at Athens) – ‘this good is not situated far from anyone of us; for in it we live and move and are’ (Acts 17:27).⁸¹Augustine, The Trinity, 8.2.4, trans. Hill, 245.

The perfect goodness of God is closer than we think. In fact, as Christian believers we may immediately and personally talk directly to him right now, like this: ‘For you, O LORD, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you’ (Psa 86:5). Or, perhaps, like this: ‘You are life and light and wisdom and blessedness and eternity and many such good things; and yet you are nothing save the one and supreme good, you who are completely sufficient unto yourself, needing nothing, but rather he whom all things need in order that they may have being and well-being.’⁸²Anselm, Proslogion, 22; ed. Davies, 100. Sections 22-25 contain Anslem’s reflections on the goodness of God.

The goodness of God is equivalent to his perfection. God’s perfect goodness underscores his blessedness and sufficiency. ‘God is the Blessed One because he is at rest in the plenitude of his perfections. … he is blessed in himself as the sum of all goodness, of all perfection.’⁸³Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged, 204. The goodness of God is God himself, plus God in relation to us. The goodness of God combines God’s identity, nature, and character in all respects: the utter uncreated magnificence of other-person-centered loving fellowship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, together with super-abundant generosity, unconditional commitment, resourcefulness, expertise, and boundless benevolence toward creatures.

‘God is not … the Good first, and then the One who loves, because he does not keep this Good to himself but communicates it to others. God is the One who loves, and as such the Good and the sum of all good things. God is good in the fact that he is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that as such he is our Creator, Mediator and Redeemer, and that as such he takes us into his fellowship, i.e., the fellowship which he has in himself, and beyond which as such there is no greater Good which has still to be communicated to us through his fellowship with us. Loving us, God does not give us something but himself; and giving us himself, giving us his only Son, he gives us everything. The [goodness and] love of God has only to be his [goodness and] love to be everything for us.’⁸⁴Barth, Church Dogmatics,2.1, 276.

Dimensions of God’s Perfect Goodness

Goodness expresses comprehensive excellence, across the board.‘God’s goodness consists in being just as good as a perfect being can be.’⁸⁵Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 122; emphasis supplied. Now, there are different kinds of goodness: essential and metaphysical goodness, relational-spiritual goodness, moral goodness, and material goodness. What are these, and how are they related?

Essential and metaphysical goodness indicates that God is perfect in his very being and nature, and consequently, all that he does is good. This means that God’s creatures and creation reflect that goodness (Gen 1:26-31, Psa 19:1-6). God’s goodness in its essential and metaphysical sense ‘indicates the fullness and completeness of his being, his self-sufficiency and freedom from want of any kind.’⁸⁶Helm, ‘Goodness,’ 243. As we shall soon consider, the fullest and deepest sense of God’s essential goodness is his self-existent perfection – God’s ‘life in himself’ (John 5:26) – as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.⁸⁷See the first section of Great Truths – The Creation of the Universe, available at https://www.greattruthsglobal.com/the-creation-of-the-universe/

So, relational-spiritual goodness is not something extra or alongside God’s essential goodness, but is bound into it. Relational-spiritual goodness is God’s goodness itself. It denotes the excellency of his Divine personal identity, relationships, character, motives, intentions, desires, goals, objectives. The goodness of God is therefore ‘seen in the creation of a universe in which exist individuals made in the image of God, and so capable of receiving and reciprocating that goodness.’⁸⁸Helm, ‘Goodness,’ 245; slightly amended. In this way, God’s goodness as Creator is related to human goodness as creatures. Creation and creatures are good to the extent that they participate in God’s goodness. ‘There is an interconnectedness in Divine and human relationships … It is in this complex structure of relationships that we can see most clearly what the goodness of God means for us.’⁸⁹Gerald Bray, God is Love (Crossway, 2012), 157.

Being created by a perfectly good God grants all creatures goodness as an essential cemented-in property. Purely ‘in virtue of being created. … everything that exists contingently owes its existence to the Creator, [and] anything, to the degree that it exists, participates in the goodness of its Creator.’⁹⁰Helm, ‘Goodness,’ 243. Our existence in a perfectly good God’s world is not something we acquire, but is an inherent good, even though it has been damaged, distorted, by our rebellion against God. The image of God in us has not been erased (1 Cor 15:49). Therefore, ‘it is better, though not necessarily morally better, to be than not to be; existence is an intrinsic good, even though the individual in question may be morally wicked.’⁹¹Helm, ‘Goodness,’ 243. ‘There are degrees of being, and so degrees of goodness. For example, the goodness of a material body, liable to decay, corruption, and death, is less good than the goodness of a spirit which, though existing contingently, has no such natural liability.’ Our essential or structural goodness as human beings made in God’s image means  that we were created with the capacity for relational, moral, and spiritual goodness.

Moral goodness flows from metaphysical or essential goodness. Because we have been made in the image of God, essentially, we like our Creator are relational beings.  It is Adam and Eve together who are declared by God to be in his image, and very good (Gen 1:26-27, 31). Morality has to do with behaviour, how we treat each other, and God.  It is the ability to distinguish between right and wrong in relationships with each other, and act accordingly.

To remind ourselves as we think about the nature of human moral goodness: God’s goodness is the origin and measure of human goodness, and of all other goodness. He is the source of our moral nature. Our moral character has been created in his likeness. In that way he has communicated his own moral character to us in creation, and then re-communicated it to us in his work of salvation. Moral goodness refers to the superb quality of what God does and does not do as he acts in the world to punish sin and uphold righteousness, and so also to what God then wants us to do, and not to do. The opposite of moral good is moral evil; and the goodness of God may be known by comparison with its opposite. All inroads of sin and Satan are evil, and therefore the opposite of good. It is in part ‘[b]y learning to recognize that and reject it, we come to understand what goodness really is.’⁹²Bray, God is Love, 158. To put it another way, we learn to recognise that something is evil and reject it because we are working out from the possession in ourselves of the good that God has created us to be, even though it is marred by our sin.

There is value in reflecting further on the truth that God’s goodness is the origin and measure of human goodness, and of all other goodness. ‘God’s goodness is that he is the perfect sum, source, and standard (for himself and his creatures) of that which is wholesome (conducive to well-being), virtuous, beneficial, and beautiful.’⁹³John MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine (Crossway, 2017), 181. God’s goodness is the origin and absolute standard of all moral value, the measure and rule against which ‘the knowledge of good and evil’ is judged (Gen 2:9, 17; 3:5, 22). ‘It is fitting to describe God in terms of moral goodness. He does always and necessarily do the right thing.’⁹⁴Rogers, Perfect Being, 121. Therefore, of foundational consequence, we must say: ‘God is absolutely trustworthy because given his character and disposition doing evil is totally repugnant to him. It is unthinkable that he do evil.’⁹⁵Rogers, Perfect Being, 123. God is good, good all the time.

While the righteousness of God determines the objectivity of morality – that is, it has real existence, and we can discern it – it is the goodness of God that secures the worth and health of moral order, values, duties, accountability, and behaviour. Whilst God’s righteousness secures the validity of (say) generosity, self-sacrifice, kindness, and justice, it is God’s goodness that guarantees their  good or useful quality, their virtue and excellence. All senses of God’s goodness – goodness in being and goodness in revelation and action – are combined in the Psalmist’s declaration, ‘You are good and do good’ (Psa 119:68), as well as in Jesus’ statement: ‘No-one is good except God alone’ (Mark 10:18).

To renew the impression: all goodness that people experience and enjoy – material, mental, personal, and relational – all excellence, blessing, worth, pleasure, endeavour, and satisfaction comes from God’s goodness.

The life-sustaining fabric of the natural world is used by Christ and the Apostles as a pointer to the excellence of God: ‘your Father … makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust’ (Matt 5:45). These words of Jesus are linked with the perfection – absolute goodness – of God the Father (Matt 5:48). When Paul spoke to pagan audiences, he appealed to their awareness of the earth’s material goodness. The physical and structural excellence of the natural world displays God’s beneficence.  ‘He did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness’ (Acts 14:17). ‘For everything created by God is good’ (1 Tim 4:4). The point is that the cause of everything contributing to our good – in time and for all eternity – is ‘nothing other than the bountiful goodness of God himself.’⁹⁶Augustine, Enchiridion, 8.23; Outler ed., 353.

Good and Evil are Defined by God, for our Good

‘No one is good except God alone’ (Luke 18:19). It is, however, the essence of sin is to doubt or deny and displace God’s goodness. Both the original satanic revolt and the initial human rebellion involved, in place of God, substituting their own judgment in determining good and evil (Gen 3:4-7).⁹⁷Refer to Great Truths – Sin and Death, section 2.2 ‘Diabolical Sin’; available at https://www.greattruthsglobal.org/sin-and-death/ And it has sometimes been claimed, in one form another, that human beings have no alternative than to create their own values.⁹⁸Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R. J. Hollingdale with an Introduction by Michael Tanner (Penguin, 2003 [orig. 1886]); Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape (Black Swan, 2012); idem, Making Sense (Penguin, 2021). Then see Alasdair MacIntrye, After Virtue (Bloomsbury, 2013 [orig. 1981]); and Maudemarie Clark, Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1991); Roy Jackson, Nietzsche: A Complete Introduction (Teach Yourself, 2014); Gordon Kaufman, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. Fourth Edition (Princeton University Press, 2013); Robert Pippin ed., Introductions to Nietzsche (Cambridge University Press, 2012); Richard Schacht, Nietzsche: The Arguments of the Philosophers (Routledge, 2012); Tom Stern ed., The New Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche (Cambridge University Press, 2019); Michael Tanner, Nietzsche: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2000).

But creatures – human beings or angels – cannot define good and evil, nor reach beyond them, for the same reason that it is impossible for creatures to escape or get beyond their Creator. According to Scripture, it is God, who is perfectly good, that governs what is good and what it not. Good and goodness is what God sees and says it is, as the Bible’s first chapter repeatedly indicates, ‘God saw that it was good’ (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). ‘When God made the world, he saw that it was very good, meaning that it perfectly realized what he intended. That kind of goodness is inherent in all created things, and we may suppose it reflects something in the character of God, because he is the perfect being.’⁹⁹Bray, God is Love, 156. The objective, God-given, moral structure of creation is seen in two ways in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. First, discerned in Genesis 1’s repetition of creation’s goodness.

Second, detailed in Genesis 2’s various trees: (a) those ‘pleasant to the sight and good for food’ that the LORD God made spring up out the ground, which surround (b) ‘the tree of life … in the midst of the garden, and (c) the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ (Gen 2:9, 16-17). And explicit ethical order is plainly ‘commanded’ by the Creator (Gen 2:16; 3:11, 17; 6:22; 7:5 etc.). The Creator was pleased with the good he has created, and goodness (in distinction from its opposite) is determined by God for us to live by and conform to, for our good.

This means that real human freedom has limits and bounds. Choice, and consequent character, is defined for us from outside of us, and our ethos must align with it.

‘Man’s intellectual and moral capacity combined with his power of self-determination, choice, and willing, render him responsible to God for what he does. Persons as creatures are under absolute obligation to God to do what God regards to be good and right and to not do what God reckons bad and wrong. It must immediately be said that true good, the greatest good, the good of all goods, is fellowship with God.’¹⁰⁰From Great Truths – Sin and Death, section 4:2, ‘Guilt and Punishment’; available at https://www.greattruthsglobal.org/sin-and-death/

The earliest events following the entrance of evil, show that God’s curse is not mean-spiritedness (Gen 3:14-19; 4:10-12).  It is to judge sin for what it is, give its due punishment, and thus say ‘no’ to it, and ultimately remove it.  So, those acts of judgments against the Satan and us in our following of Satan’s directions are immediately qualified by God’s promise and covenant (Gen 3:15; 4:15; 8:20-9:17; 11:1-12:3). God was not reduced to mean-spiritedness because of our misery. God did not become evil because we did. Our badness does not – cannot – reduce his goodness. Evil creatures do not – cannot – diminish his desire to establish our well-being. God’s own goodness is infinitely stronger than evil. ‘Precisely because God does not depend on the world, his goodness is never threatened. God is good to all he has made, even his enemies (Psa 145:9, 15-16; Matt 5:45). He can afford to be, because he is God with or without them.’¹⁰¹Michael Horton, ‘God,’ in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. Second Edition (Baker, 2017), 346.

Having said this, although he is not made to move by us, he can move himself. God is stirred by the fact that there is within his being perfect goodness, goodness that is all-powerful, and totally free goodness. Because he is originally good in himself, God is able, willing, and determined to good. That is his inclination. As Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God’s being, life, and heart are altogether good. ‘Everything that God is and does is determined and characterized by the fact that there is rooted in him, that he himself is,’ absolutely good.¹⁰²Echoing Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2.1:370; guided by John Webster, God Without Measure: Working Papers in Christian Theology (T&T Clark, 2016),2:56. ‘God takes delight in what he does not need but nevertheless desires.’¹⁰³Horton, ‘God,’ 347.

But then comes a question and, actually, a serious problem for sinners:

Can we remove from our thought ‘air’ and ‘house,’ and simply see unrestricted ‘good’? Without this unchangeable good, no finite changeable good could exist. We love all the good things around us. Can we move from cleaving in love to these good things, to cleaving in love to goodness itself, in which the finite things participate? Our goodness comes from the Divine Creator. … In order to be truly good, our soul needs to love the creative source above the creatures.¹⁰⁴Levering, Theology of Augustine, 167-68.

The answer comes in the good news. The gospel of Jesus is how we come to recognize and to love the goodness of God in his acts of salvation above all the material good things we see around us. The gospel message about Jesus our Lord proclaims a message of God’s ultimate goodness and goodwill in his Son, and the goodness of the gospel is a concentration of God’s saving goodness, forgiveness, reconciliation with our Creator and each other, as well as transformation forever, born of kindness, care, open-handed provision, largesse, and blessing extending in real measure to all people everywhere: ‘The Lord is good to all’ (Psa 145:9).

—

• 1
  Peter Jensen, At the Heart of the Universe: What Christians Believe (IVP, 1991).
• 2
  Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 166. ‘We want to understand, as profoundly as we are able, the nature of the Good that stands behind all proximal goods … We want to identify, likewise the Villain who stands behind all acts of villainy – the nature of the spirit who wishes to produce all the suffering of the world for the sake of nothing but that suffering. We want to understand Good so that we can be good and understand Evil so that we can avoid being evil’ (Jordan Peterson, We Who Wrestle with God: Perceptions of the Divine (Allen Lane, 2024), xxx).
• 3
  John Frame, The Doctrine of God (P&R Publishing, 2002), 403.
• 4
  Frame, Doctrine of God, 410.
• 5
  New Bible Dictionary. Third Edition (IVP, 1996), 143.
• 6
  Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1:754; New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 1:212.
• 7
  New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 1:207; emphasis supplied.
• 8
  J. V. Fesko, The Giver of Life: The Biblical Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Lexham Academic, 2024), 40.
• 9
  Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1:754.
• 10
  See further, Pss 25:8; 33:5; 34:8; 52:1; 73:1; 100:5; all of 103 and 104; 106:1, 44-46; all of 107; 118:1, 29; 135:3; 145:7-9, 13-16.
• 11
  Frame, Doctrine of God, 410.
• 12
  Bruce K. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology (Zondervan, 2007), 506.
• 13
  R. E. Clements, God’s Chosen People: A Theological Interpretation of the Book of Deuteronomy (Judson Press, 1969), 69, cited in Waltke, Old Testament Theology, 506-7; slightly amended.
• 14
  Katherin A. Rogers, Perfect Being Theology (Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 126.
• 15
  See the discussion of ‘Other First-Century Miracle-Workers,’ in David Seccombe, The King of God’s Kingdom (Paternoster, 2002), 284-289.
• 16
  Seccombe, The King of God’s Kingdom, 291.
• 17
  For summary details of the range and number of Jesus’ miracles in the Gospels, see Paul Barnett, Gospel Truth: Answering New Atheist Attacks on the Gospels (IVP, 2012), 117-119. Barnett’s broader discussion (109-127) is most valuable.
• 18
  Seccombe, The King of God’s Kingdom, 292.
• 19
  ‘Miracles and Miracle Stories,’ in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Second Edition, 603.
• 20
  Seccombe, The King of God’s Kingdom, 293.
• 21
  Seccombe, The King of God’s Kingdom, 311.
• 22
  John Calvin, Comm, Acts 1-13 [5:12], trans. Fraser and McDonald, 138.
• 23
  Barnett, Gospel Truth, 121.
• 24
  Richard Bauckham, Jesus: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011), 40.
• 25
  Bauckham, Jesus: A Very Short Introduction, 40.
• 26
  Bauckham, Jesus: A Very Short Introduction, 41.
• 27
  Seccombe, The King of God’s Kingdom, 313; slightly amended.
• 28
  Peter Jensen, The Future of Jesus (Matthias Media, 2008), 49.
• 29
  Bauckham, Jesus: A Very Short Introduction, 47-54.
• 30
  Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians (Eerdmans, no date), 31.
• 31
  Darrell L. Bock, Ephesians [TNTC] (IVP Academic, 2019), 32.
• 32
  Peter Jensen, At the Heart of the Universe: What Christians Believe (IVP, 1991).
• 33
  See David Peter Seccombe, The Poor and Their Possessions: Possessions and the Poor in Luke-Acts (Wipf & Stock, 2022).
• 34
  Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology (Thomas Nelson, 1998), 199.
• 35
  Sinclair B. Ferguson, Children of the Living God (Banner of Truth Trust, 1989), 119; slightly amended.
• 36
  There is ‘no lack, deficit, or neediness on his part. … The Triune God, though absolutely one, is not personally solitary. We can see that this most obviously by considering the eternal fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in which there is no empty space for loneliness or isolation. To put it as positively as possible, God is blessed eternally sufficient to himself, delighting in the love and light that make his Divine life. … God desires to dwell in the midst of his people, not out of need or greed but freely, truly, and deeply’ (Fred Sanders, The Holy Spirit: An Introduction (Crossway, 2023), 70).
• 37
  John Owen, Communion with God, eds. Kelly M. Kapic and Justin Taylor (Crossway, 2007), 112; emphasis supplied.
• 38
  Owen, Communion with God, 107.
• 39
  B. B. Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings (P&R Publishing, 1973), 2:647-48.
• 40
  Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings, 2:648.
• 41
  Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings, 2:649-50.
• 42
  Ferguson, Children of the Living God, 33.
• 43
  John Owen, A Discourse of the Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer. Works of John Owen. Volume 4. ed. Thomas Russell (Richard Baynes, 1826), 82; cited in Sanders, The Holy Spirit, 79.
• 44
  Leon Morris, New Testament Theology (Academie/Zondervan, 1986), 250.
• 45
  Sanders, The Holy Spirit, 81.
• 46
  Ferguson, Children of the Living God, 53.
• 47
  Ferguson, Children of the Living God, 120.
• 48
  Sanders, The Holy Spirit, 68.
• 49
  Sanders, The Holy Spirit, 72. ‘The outpoured Spirit mediates the presence of the incarnate one [Jesus Christ] during the time between his ascension and his return’ (73).
• 50
  John Calvin, Comm, Galatians [4:6], trans. T. H. L. Parker, 75.
• 51
  Garry J. Williams, His Love Endures Forever (Crossway, 2016), 79-97.
• 52
  Cyprian, Treatise 8, On Works and Alms, in Ante-Nicene Fathers [ANF], ed. Schaff, 5:476; slightly amended.
• 53
  See Great Truths – Exodus 1-2:10. A Faithful God for Fearsome Times, Section 4; available at https://www.greattruthsglobal.org/exodus-1-1-2-10/
• 54
  Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness (HarperOne, 2015), 91; slightly amended.
• 55
  Willard, Allure of Gentleness, 90.
• 56
  Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Baker, 2019), 190.
• 57
  John Feinberg, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God (Crossway, 2001), 366.
• 58
  The passage continues: ‘But if we choose to enjoy things that are to be used, our advance is impeded and sometimes even diverted, and we are held back, or even put off, from attaining those things which are to be enjoyed, because we are hamstrung by our love of lower things’ (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 1.7; trans. R. P. H. Green (Oxford University Press, 1997), 9).
• 59
  Feinberg, No One Like Him, 366.
• 60
  A Dissertation Concerning the End for which God Created the World, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2 Volumes (Banner of Truth Trust, 1974 [original, 1834]), 1:94-121.
• 61
  Charles Hodge (Systematic Theology (James Clarke, 1960), 1:433-34, 436) is an example of those strangely confused about this.
• 62
  Jonathan Edwards, Concerning the End for Which God Created the World, Chapter 1, Section IV (Ethical Writings, WJE Online Vol. 8, 460). ‘God being all and alone, is absolutely self-moved. The exercises of his communicative disposition are absolutely from within himself … all that is good and worthy in the object, and the very being of the object, proceeding from the overflowing of his fullness’ (WJE 8:462).
• 63
  The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 1:114.
• 64
  The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 1:115.
• 65
  The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 1:115.
• 66
  Jonathan Edwards, ‘Miscellaneous Reflections on Heaven,’ in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2:617.
• 67
  Calvin, Comm, Galatians [5:1], trans. T. H. L. Parker, 92.
• 68
  Kevin DeYoung, Daily Doctrine (Crossway, 2024), 45.
• 69
  Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (T & T Clark, 1957), 2.1:284.
• 70
  Gregory the Great, ‘Forty Gospel Homilies 15,’ in John 1-10, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. New Testament 4a (InterVarsity Press, 2006), 345; slightly amended.
• 71
  Paul Helm, ‘Goodness,’ in Philip L. Quinn and Charles Taliaferro eds., A Companion to Philosophy of Religion (Blackwell, 1997/1999),245.
• 72
  Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2.1:286.
• 73
  Richard Sibbes, cited without reference in Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything. Second Edition (Crossway, 2017), 89; slightly amended and emphasis supplied.
• 74
  The Belgic Confession, 1; Schaff ed., Creeds of Christendom, 3:384.
• 75
  Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged, 204.
• 76
  Augustine, The Trinity, 8.2; trans. Hill, 243.
• 77
  Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology, 1:784.
• 78
  Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:212; citing Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 1.3.
• 79
  Augustine, The Trinity, 8.2.4, trans. Hill, 244. Similar expressions of God’s essential goodness appear in Augustine, The Trinity, 13.3.10, Hill ed., 350; and Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a.5 and 1a.6.1.
• 80
  Matthew Levering, The Theology of Augustine (Baker, 2013), 167.
• 81
  Augustine, The Trinity, 8.2.4, trans. Hill, 245.
• 82
  Anselm, Proslogion, 22; ed. Davies, 100. Sections 22-25 contain Anslem’s reflections on the goodness of God.
• 83
  Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged, 204.
• 84
  Barth, Church Dogmatics,2.1, 276.
• 85
  Rogers, Perfect Being Theology, 122; emphasis supplied.
• 86
  Helm, ‘Goodness,’ 243.
• 87
  See the first section of Great Truths – The Creation of the Universe, available at https://www.greattruthsglobal.com/the-creation-of-the-universe/
• 88
  Helm, ‘Goodness,’ 245; slightly amended.
• 89
  Gerald Bray, God is Love (Crossway, 2012), 157.
• 90
  Helm, ‘Goodness,’ 243.
• 91
  Helm, ‘Goodness,’ 243. ‘There are degrees of being, and so degrees of goodness. For example, the goodness of a material body, liable to decay, corruption, and death, is less good than the goodness of a spirit which, though existing contingently, has no such natural liability.’
• 92
  Bray, God is Love, 158.
• 93
  John MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine (Crossway, 2017), 181.
• 94
  Rogers, Perfect Being, 121.
• 95
  Rogers, Perfect Being, 123.
• 96
  Augustine, Enchiridion, 8.23; Outler ed., 353.
• 97
  Refer to Great Truths – Sin and Death, section 2.2 ‘Diabolical Sin’; available at https://www.greattruthsglobal.org/sin-and-death/
• 98
  Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R. J. Hollingdale with an Introduction by Michael Tanner (Penguin, 2003 [orig. 1886]); Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape (Black Swan, 2012); idem, Making Sense (Penguin, 2021). Then see Alasdair MacIntrye, After Virtue (Bloomsbury, 2013 [orig. 1981]); and Maudemarie Clark, Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1991); Roy Jackson, Nietzsche: A Complete Introduction (Teach Yourself, 2014); Gordon Kaufman, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. Fourth Edition (Princeton University Press, 2013); Robert Pippin ed., Introductions to Nietzsche (Cambridge University Press, 2012); Richard Schacht, Nietzsche: The Arguments of the Philosophers (Routledge, 2012); Tom Stern ed., The New Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche (Cambridge University Press, 2019); Michael Tanner, Nietzsche: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2000).
• 99
  Bray, God is Love, 156.
• 100
  From Great Truths – Sin and Death, section 4:2, ‘Guilt and Punishment’; available at https://www.greattruthsglobal.org/sin-and-death/
• 101
  Michael Horton, ‘God,’ in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. Second Edition (Baker, 2017), 346.
• 102
  Echoing Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2.1:370; guided by John Webster, God Without Measure: Working Papers in Christian Theology (T&T Clark, 2016),2:56.
• 103
  Horton, ‘God,’ 347.
• 104
  Levering, Theology of Augustine, 167-68.