Goodness of God
Online etymology dictionary
explains the origin of the word, “good”: Old English “gōd” (with a long “o”) – “virtuous; desirable; valid; considerable,” probably
originally “having the right or desirable quality.”
The word gōd coincides with the word God in
spelling but I don’t know if these share the same origin.
God’s goodness, as exercised
towards His creatures, is often expressed in the Scriptures by the term love.
Love
is distinguished as benevolence,
beneficence, or complacence.
Benevolence is love in intention or disposition; beneficence is love in action,
or conferring its benefits; and complacence is the approval of good actions or
dispositions. Goodness, exercised toward the unworthy, is called grace;
toward the suffering, it is called pity, or mercy. The latter
term intimates that the suffering, or liability to suffer, arises from the just
displeasure of God.
Goodness implies a disposition to
produce happiness. We are conscious of pleasure and pain in ourselves, and we
know that we can, to some extent, cause pleasure or pain in others. Continued
pleasure is happiness; continued pain, misery. God is able to produce
happiness or misery, when, and to whatever extent He pleases. Which of these
is it the disposition of His infinite nature to produce?
The goodness of God is the
attribute of His infinite nature, which, above all others, draws forth the
affection of our hearts. We are filled with awe at His eternity,
omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence; but the goodness of God, while it
is awful and grand, is at the same time powerfully attractive. It is this, when
understood in its proper sense, not as the mere love of happiness, which
renders Jehovah God the proper centre of the moral universe. It is this that
attracts the hearts of all holy intelligences now in heaven, and that is
drawing to that high and holy place whatever on earth is most lovely and
excellent; and if the hearts of any repel this centre, and recede further from
it, they are “wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.”(Jude
1:13)
Much of the suffering in the world is
clearly the effect of sin, and is to be considered an infliction of Divine
justice. The justice of God claims scope for its exercise,
as well as His goodness. The goodness of God is infinite, if it confers
happiness as widely as is consistent with the other perfections of His nature.
It is a favorite theory with some, that God aims at
the greatest possible amount of happiness in the universe; and that He admits
evil, only because the admission of evil produces in the end a greater amount
of happiness than its exclusion would have done. According to this theory,
justice itself is a modification of benevolence; and the pain suffered by one
being, is inflicted from love to the whole. But whether justice is a
modification of benevolence, or a distinct attribute, its claims must be
regarded; and goodness does not cease to be goodness, because it does not
overthrow the government of God, or oppose His other perfections.
Moses had requested God to show Him His glory, and
God promised to proclaim or fully declare the name Jehovah. God Himself interprets His name in Exodus 34:6;
“And
the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed Yehovah (יהוה) the Lord God,
merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and
that will by no means clear the guilty.”
These words contain the proper interpretation of the
venerable and Glorious Name Jehovah.
The different names in this and the following verse
have been considered as so many attributes of the Divine nature.
1. יהוה
Jehovah.
2. אל
EL,
the strong or mighty God.
3. רחום
Rachum,
the merciful Being, Who is full of tenderness and compassion.
4. חנון
Channun,
the gracious One; He whose nature is goodness itself; the loving God.
5. ארך
אפים Erech Appayim,
long-suffering; the Being who, because of his goodness and tenderness, is not
easily irritated, but suffers long and is kind.
6. רב
Rab,
the great or mighty One.
7. חסד
Chesed,
the bountiful Being; He Who is exuberant in His beneficence.
8. אמת
Emeth,
the truth or true One; He alone Who can neither deceive nor be deceived, Who is
the fountain of truth, and from Whom all wisdom and knowledge must be derived.
9. נצר
חסד Notser Chesed, the
preserver of bountifulness; He whose beneficence never ends, keeping mercy for
thousands of generations, showing compassion and mercy while the world endures.
10. נשא
עון ופשע וחטאה
Nose
avon vaphesha vechattaah, He who bears away iniquity and transgression
and sin: properly, the Redeemer, the Pardoner, the Forgiver; the Being whose
prerogative alone it is to forgive sin and save the soul. ינקה(לו) נקה לא
Nakkeh
lo yenakkeh, the righteous Judge, Who distributes justice with an
impartial hand, with Whom no innocent person can ever be condemned.
11. פקד
עון Poked avon, etc.; He Who
visits iniquity, Who punishes transgressors, and from Whose justice no sinner
can escape. The God of retributive and vindictive justice.
These eleven attributes, as they have been termed,
are all included in the Great Name Jehovah,
and are, as we have before seen, the proper interpretation of it.
Above all, we read in, Mark 10:48 in Aramaic Bible in Plain English
“Yeshua(Jesus)
said to him, “Why do you call me good? There is no one good but The One God.”
Amen.