God's Love is Good

This morning, we pick back up in our study of “The Love of the Triune God”. Last week, we began to work through the nature of God’s love by understanding that his love is affectionate. God does not love you because you have made yourself worthy or attractive to him. He does not fall in love with you. He is not forced to do it by some uncontrollable impulse. God loves because it is his nature to do so, and he delights to do it. Today, we move to another aspect of God’s love - the goodness of his love. Like his love, his goodness is well-known by the world, but poorly understood. Even people outside the church know the words to the hymn, “God is so Good.” But, what do we mean when we say that God is good? What do we mean when we say that anything is good? Like the word “love”, we use the word “good” to describe any number of experiences. We might say that our lunch was good. When speaking of a person of high character, we might say that he is a “good man”. We might say that we had a “good” Christmas because we were showered with gifts. When we say that God is good, are we saying similar things? Are we saying that he is good because he makes us happy and gives us good gifts? Certainly, these can be the benefits of God’s goodness, but they are not what the Bible means when it says that God is good.

Our call to worship this morning, from Psalm 106 said, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” God’s love and goodness are inseparable. God loves because he is good, and he is good because he loves. To understand what the Bible means by goodness, let’s read Psalm 19. When speaking of the goodness of God, it’s helpful to use the classical Christian understanding of God’s nature, and these will be our points for this sermon: God is the perfection of The Good, The Beautiful, and the True. 

First, see that God is the perfection of the good. Let’s circle back to my earlier question. What does it mean to be good? The ancient philosophers debated this question. Socrates concluded that the good was that which was most useful. Plato saw the good as that which maximizes happiness. The utilitarians, picking up on this theme, taught that the good could be judged by utility or usefulness - that which brought the most happiness and human flourishing. The existentialists viewed the good as that which is most self-satisfying, and that is certainly what our modern age believes about goodness. Whatever makes me happy, whatever satisfies my desires, whatever builds my self-esteem; that is good. From these poor definitions of “the good”, you can see why people find fault with God. Some, when facing the loss of a loved one might turn from the faith because “God is not good.” Others see suffering in the world and conclude that God is not good because he is not maximizing happiness. But these are not the way the Bible defines “the good.”

The first time we find the word “good” in the Bible is in Gen. 1:4: “And God saw that the light was good…” The Hebrew word for “good” here is tob, and it is used throughout the OT to speak of God’s goodness. But, it is also used in other ways, and these help us to grasp what it fully means to be good. In Gen 6:2, it says that the sons of God found the daughters of men to be “attractive”, but this is also the Hebrew word tob. In Exodus 2:2, it says that Moses’ mother and father found him to be a “fine” child, and again, tob is used here. So, tob can be used to speak of attractiveness and beauty, as much as it can be used to speak of something’s purpose. From this, we can form a definition of goodness. Goodness is being rightly ordered or fit to a purpose. Think of how it is used in the creation story. Throughout Genesis 1, we find this pattern - God makes something and then declares it to be good. Why? Because it fits the purpose for which he made it. It is rightly ordered. It looks like what he imagined. So, in Genesis 2, when God finds something that is not good, it is because it is not fit or in order. He looks at the man he has created and says, “It is not good that man should be alone.” All of the other animals have a mate, but man does not. Man is not fit to the purpose for which he was made, which was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. So, God rectifies that situation by making a woman, and then all is very good.

We see this, too, in our text from Psalm 19. In verse 1, we find that all things are made for a purpose - to declare the glory of God. And, night and day they do that. They don’t have a voice, and yet they still speak of his glory. We also see it in the order with which God made the heavens. Even the sun is well-ordered. It follows the path that God has established for it. And, God’s law is perfect and establishes goodness because it brings order to our lives.

God’s love is good because he has established an ordered, purposeful world and has given us his law to guide us in that order. Yet, when we look at the world, it does not seem good. This is because sin has corrupted the order of God’s creation. From the beginning, evil was defined as a disordering of God’s good creation. The serpent spoke, distorting God’s word and the order of the family by speaking to Eve and not Adam. Adam brought sin by listening to his wife and the serpent and seeking wisdom apart from God. That sin brought the disorder and destruction of the family, as Cain killed his brother, Abel, and Lamech married two women instead of cleaving to one. And, even the angels were brought into this disorder, as the fallen angels before the flood took the daughters of men, who gave birth to giants. This chaos of disorder continues today as our society calls good evil and evil good, and then we blame God for our dissatisfaction and disaster.

This disorder reminds me of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. That peculiar tower is a major tourist attraction. Every year, thousands of visitors attempt to get the perfect picture that would create the allusion that they are holding it up. Yet, that is not the purpose for which it was made. Constructed in the year 1173, it was originally intended to be the bell tower for the basilica next to it. But, it was built in a swamp, and so the foundation settled, causing it to tilt by four degrees. While its bells still ring today, it is not fit to its original purpose. The bells cannot ring freely as they were intended but have to be rung by mechanical strikes. And, constant work must be done to the tower to keep it upright. So it is with the disorder that sin brought into this world. God created this world as a reflection of his goodness, and much of that is still reflected today. But, like the leaning tower, something is a little off, and that distortion means that we are not fit for our original purpose.

Now, consider the second aspect of God’s goodness - his beauty. As I mentioned earlier, tob is often translated as beauty because beauty and goodness are related. When something is fit for its purpose, it is beautiful. At a natural level, this is why we find certain people to be attractive - their facial features are proportional and balanced, without blemish. They are fit to the ideal. We find beauty when something approaches the perfection of order and purpose. The vibrant colors of a mountain sunset highlight the wonders of creation. The precision of a Rembrandt painting is beautiful because it faithfully portrays the wonders of its subject. A well-constructed poem or song is beautiful because it is full of irony and depth. We see beauty in this world because it was made by a beautiful God, and because, by his love, we were made in the image of that beautiful God. 

There are three ways that we see the goodness of God in beauty. First, God is beautiful in himself. Psalm 27:4 says, “One thing I ask… that I may gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.” God is the perfection of beauty. 

Second, God made the world to reflect his beauty. Psalm 19 begins by saying that the heavens declare the glory of God. So, we see God’s glory and beauty on display in the wonders of the heavens. 

Third, God made us to bear his image by making his creation beautiful. We cannot help but make beautiful things because we were made to do it. In our creation of beauty, we are most like God. And, God has commanded that we should do it. In Exodus 28, God commands the people of Israel to make the garments used by the priests with beauty and glory. The only layman in the OT to be filled with the Holy Spirit was Bezalel, and the Spirit gifted him with artistry to make the tabernacle. The temple was considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world because of all the gold used to make it. Unfortunately, modern American Christians have lost a sense of the importance of beauty. The churches of Europe reflect an earlier time, many centuries ago, when Christians took beauty seriously and made magnificent churches. They did this for two reasons: to reflect the glory of God and to evangelize through its beauty. The Basilica of St. Mark in Venice took 400 years to build, has three different architectural styles, and has stood for 900 years. Think of that! Ten generations of architects, carpenters, masons, and smiths worked on that church. It is called the “Church of Gold” because the inside is covered in it. Today, we would throw up a metal building and call it a day. We now prioritize the practical and the cost-effective over the beautiful. Granted, a church can only do what it can afford, but I have a general rule about the efforts a church should put towards the house of God: if I wouldn’t have it for my house, I shouldn’t have it in the house of God. Think of how much effort and money we spend on building and renovating our homes. We will change the furniture and paint every decade, get new countertops, new flooring, and landscape continuously, and this says nothing of the way we decorate and adorn our houses. Yet, when it comes to the house of God, “good enough” is often the governing rule. But, beauty is a witness in itself. Doing good and beautiful work with our hands, using our talents for the glory of the Lord, whether that is in the church or out in the world, is a reflection of the image of a beautiful God. The creation of beauty is one of the primary ways we express love. When we love someone, we write a song or a poem. We build furniture or paint a picture for our family and friends. And think of how those gifts are received compared to ones we buy. There is no comparison. In the same way, God gives us his love through his beauty, and he calls us to love in the same way.

Finally, let’s see the third aspect of God’s goodness - his truth. Most of Psalm 19 concerns itself with the law of God, and there we find a connection between the goodness of God and his truth. Verses 7-11extol the law of God with eight adjectives. It is perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, true, desirable, and sweet. Here we find the entirety of God’s goodness in his law. It is perfect, sure, right, and pure, which relate to its order and purpose. It is clean and true. And, it is desirable and sweet, which relate to its beauty. God’s law communicates his goodness to us. And, because it is good, it is beneficial. So, for each of these adjectives, there is a benefit. Because the Word is perfect, it revives our souls. Because it is sure, it makes us wise. Because it is right, it brings joy. Because it is pure, it enlightens. Because it is true and beautiful, it rewards those who obey it. Oh, how we need to grasp this in our day. The modern American tends to think of God’s law as restrictive and arbitrary, as if God just established these random tests to see if we would be obedient. This couldn’t be further from the truth. God’s law is good, and so it is meant for our good. It reveals the right order of things. It reveals God’s purpose for his people. It directs us to God, where we find our salvation. God reveals truth to us because he loves us. If he did not love us, he would not speak. But, as John Calvin said, God is like a father, standing over a crib, babbling to us in words we can understand. As a loving father speaks to his children, so God reveals his truth to us through his Word.

God is good because he is the perfection of order, beauty, and truth. That goodness overflowed into an ordered and beautiful world because of his love. He shares his goodness with us because he loves us. And, he calls us to that same goodness as we live ordered lives that create beauty and abide in his word.

Bibliography

Bavinck, Herman. The Doctrine of God. Carlisle: Banner of Truth Trust, 2003.

1  (Bavinck 2003)