Seeking Him with all our hearts we will find Him to be GOOD all the Time.
c. The Goodness of God.
Introduction.
We have looked at the Knowledge of God and the fact that he knows everything real and possible about everyone and everything in this Universe. Then we looked at His wisdom. His virtue by which He knows the right thing to do at the right time. Now we are going to contemplate His Goodness.
The Goodness of God.
God is good meaning holy all the time. This is not the sense that we are looking at here.
Psa 100:5 For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
We are looking at God’s Goodness in the sense that it reveals itself in doing well to others.
It is that Perfection which prompts Him to always deal kindly and bountifully with all His creatures.
Notes these verses:
Psa 145:8 The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy.
Psa 145:9 The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
Psa 145:10 All thy works shall praise thee, O LORD; and thy saints shall bless thee.
The LORD is GOOD to all.
To all his creatures. That is, he is kind and compassionate toward them; he is disposed and ready to do them good. There is not one of them whom he is not ready and willing to bless; not one whose happiness would not be agreeable to him, or whose welfare he is not ready to promote. Compare Psa_100:5. above.
The first of these is his “benevolence:” “The Lord is good.” As such, assuredly, God is worthy of praise and honor. A being of “mere” power we could not love or praise; a being whose power was united with malignity or malevolence, could only be the object of hatred and terror; but a being whose power is united with goodness or benevolence ought to he loved. Barnes.
Goodness the perfect, eternal opposition to all badness and evil, is essential to God. Mercy and compassion are modifications of his goodness; and as his nature is eternal, so his mercy, springing from his goodness, must be everlasting. And as Truth is an essential characteristic of an infinitely intelligent and perfect nature; therefore God’s truth must endure from generation to generation. Whatsoever he has promised must be fulfilled, through all the successive generations of men, as long as sun and moon shall last. A.Clark.
Mat 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
Mat 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
That ye may be the children of your Father - Instead of ὑιοι children, some MSS., the latter Persic version, and several of the primitive fathers, read ὃμοιοι, that ye may be like to, or resemble, your Father who is in heaven. This is certainly our Lord’s meaning. As a man’s child is called his, because a partaker of his own nature, so a holy person is said to be a child of God, because he is a partaker of the Divine nature.
He maketh his sun to rise on the evil - “There is nothing greater than to imitate God in doing good to our enemies. All the creatures of God pronounce the sentence of condemnation on the revengeful: and this sentence is written by the rays of the sun, and with the drops of rain, and indeed by all the natural good things, the use of which God freely gives to his enemies.” If God had not loved us while we were his enemies, we could never have become his children: and we shall cease to be such, as soon as we cease to imitate him. A.Clark
What a challenge this is to us. To love our enemies like our Heavenly Father.
Act 14:17 And yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, giving to you rains from heaven and fruitbearing seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness."
He left not himself without witness - He gave demonstration of his existence and of his moral character.
In that he did good - By doing good. The manner in which he did it, Paul immediately specifies. Idols did not do good; they conferred no favours, and were, therefore, unworthy of confidence.
And gave us rain from heaven - Rain from above - from the clouds, Mar_8:11; Luk_9:54; Luk_17:29; Luk_21:11; Joh_6:31-32. Rain is one of the evidences of the goodness of God. Man could not cause it; and without it, regulated at proper intervals of time and in proper quantities, the earth would soon be one wide scene of desolation. There is scarcely anything which more certainly indicates unceasing care and wisdom than the needful and refreshing showers of rain. The sun and stars move by fixed laws, whose operation we can see and anticipate. The falling of rain is regulated by laws which We cannot trace, and it seems, therefore, to be poured, as it were, directly from God’s hollow hand, Psa_147:8, “Who covereth the heaven with clouds; who prepareth rain for the earth.”Barnes
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