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Last issue we looked at the goodness of God as evident in creation, providence, and redemption. In this issue we will continue our discussion, dealing with objections raised against the goodness of God and considering what our response to this great truth should be.

Unbelievers often challenge the goodness of God. They point to the many evils and calamities in the world and society or question how a truly good God could send men to such a place as hell. Many today respond by saying that God is not the author of evils and calamities and that He doesn't send anybody to hell—they go there of their own accord. But as we have pointed out in other issues, this response is not accurate. Sometimes the goodness of God is presented as if it were His only attribute, much like is often done with His love. Slogans like "God is a good God" are meant not so much to stress God’s goodness but to eliminate any idea of His judgment. As another popular charismatic leader added, "I believe God is 100% good." Of course, it is true that He is, but not in the manner suggested, which is that His goodness means that He can do absolutely no harm to anyone or anything. The truth is, God is a God of judgment as well as a God of goodness. The fact that He punishes evil, either directly or indirectly through various calamities, by no means diminishes His goodness.

Stephen Charnock, in his classic seventeenth century work The Existence and Attributes of God, discusses popular objections to the idea that God is good and demonstrates how His judgment is compatible with His goodness. Despite the fact that Charnock was, like most of his contemporaries, a thorough Calvinist, his work has such depth of thought and expression that even avid anti-Calvinists could benefit greatly from it; unless, unfortunately, they possess such a vigorous bias against Calvinism that they deprive themselves of great thought such as that found in Charnock’s work. The great majority of his book is compatible with any system of theology. As in our last issue, we want to look to his work, and, again, we have edited his comments to conserve space and to clarify many obsolete and difficult words and phrases. Among the objections raised against God’s goodness are the fact that He allowed sin and the fall and the devil to have dominion. Charnock dedicates quite a lot of space to this and other objections:

1. The goodness of God is not impaired by his allowing sin to enter into the world and man to fall. We may well ask, would it not have been against the wisdom of God to have made a rational creature with a free will and not permit him to act according to this nature he was endowed with and follow his own choice for a time? Would it have been wisdom to construct a free creature and then totally restrain him from following his liberty? Would it have been goodness to force the creature to be happy against his will? God’s goodness furnished Adam with the ability to stand; was it contrary to His goodness to allow Adam the free use of that power? Would it have been goodness in God, after He had made a reasonable creature, to govern him in the same way He does beasts—by necessary instinct? It was the goodness of God to the nature of men and angels to leave them in such a condition as to be able to give Him a voluntary obedience, which is a nobler offering than the whole creation could present Him with. And should this goodness be undervalued because man made an ill use of it and turned it into unrestrained sensuality? Besides all this, why should the permission of sin to enter the world be thought more of a blemish to His goodness than the providing of a way of redemption for destroying the works of sin and the devil be judged the glory of it, by which He uncovered a goodness of grace that surpassed the bounds of nature?

2. Nor is His goodness injured by not making all things equal subjects of it. He is good to all though not in the same degree. A good man is good to his cattle and to his servants; he makes provision for them all, but he does not bestow the floods of bounty upon them that he does his children. (pp. 231- 233)

3. The severe punishment of offenders and the afflictions He inflicts upon His servants are no violations of His goodness. Punishments themselves are not a moral evil in the person that inflicts them although they are a natural evil in the person that suffers them. In ordering punishment to the wicked, good is added to evil; in ordering impunity to the wicked, evil is added to evil. To punish wickedness is right, therefore good; to leave men uncontrolled in their wickedness is unrighteous, and therefore bad. But again, shall His justice in the relatively few judgments in the world impeach His goodness more than His wonderful patience to sinners is able to silence the slanders against Him? Is not his Hand fuller of charitable distributions than of dreadful thunderbolts? Does He not more often seem forgetful of His justice when He pours out upon the guilty the streams of His mercy than to be forgetful of His goodness when He sprinkles in the world a few drops of His wrath? God’s judgments in the world do not infringe upon His goodness, for,

1. The justice of God is a part of the goodness of His nature. God Himself thought so when He told Moses He would "make all His goodness pass before him" (Exod.33:19). He does not leave out in the enumeration of the parts of it, His resolution to by no means clear the guilty but to visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children (Exod.34:7). It is a property of goodness to hate evil, and, therefore, a property of goodness to punish it. His goodness, therefore, shines in His justice, for without being just He could not be good. Sin is a moral disorder in the world. Every sin is injustice, and injustice breaks God’s order in the world; it is necessary therefore for justice to put the world in order. The goodness of all things which God so pronounced consisted in their order and beneficial helpfulness to one another. When this order is inverted, the goodness of the creature ceases. If it is a bad thing to spoil this order, is it not a part of Divine goodness to put them back in order that they may be restored in some measure to their goodness? Do we ever account a governor less good because he is exact in justice and punishes that which makes a disorder in his territory? And is it a lessening of the Divine goodness to punish that which makes a disorder in the world? Goodness without justice would be impotent indulgence and cast things into confusion. Is there not as great a necessity that goodness should have instruments of judgment as that there should be prisons, jails, and gallows in a good commonwealth? What prince would deserve the noble title of good if he did not restrain by punishment those evils which impair the public welfare? Is not a hatred of what is bad and unworthy as much a part of Divine goodness as a love to what is excellent and bears a resemblance to Himself? Could He possibly be accounted good that bore the same degree of affection to a monstrous vice as to a sublime virtue? Could you account Him good if He always with pleasure beheld evil and perpetually allowed the oppressions of the innocent under unpunished wickedness? How would we know the goodness of the Divine nature and His affection to the goodness of His creatures if He did not by some acts of severity witness His implacable dislike of sin and His care to preserve the good government of the world?

2. Is it not part of the goodness of God to make laws and attach threatenings; and should it be thought an impeachment of His goodness to stand by them? The purpose of laws and upholding the honor of those laws by the punishment of offenders is to promote goodness and restrain evil. Would it not be contrary to goodness to allow that which was designed for the purpose of goodness to be scorned and slighted? It would be neither wisdom nor goodness but folly and vice to let laws which were made to promote virtue be broken with impunity. "The law is holy, just, and good" (Rom.7:12) and so is every precept of it. The law is for no other end but to keep the creature in subjection to and dependent on God. This dependence could not be preserved without a law nor that law be kept in reputation without a penalty. Law loses the nature of a law without a penalty and the penalty loses its vigor without the infliction of it. How can those laws attain their end if the transgressions of them are not punished? Would not the wickedness of the men’s hearts be encouraged by such a kind of uncomely goodness? Hence it follows that not to punish evil would be a lack of goodness to Himself. Is it not a goodness to discourage men by judgments sometimes from a contempt and ill use of his bounty as well as sometimes patiently to bear with them and wait upon them for a reformation? Must God be bad to Himself to be kind to His enemies? And shall it be accounted an unkindness and a mark of evil in Him not to suffer Himself to be always outraged and defiled? The world is wronged by sin as well as God is injured by it. How could God be good to Himself if He did not right His own honor or be a good Governor of the world if He did not sometimes witness against the injuries it receives sometimes from the works of His hands? All His attributes, which are parts of His goodness, engage Him to punish sin. Without it His authority would be degraded, His purity stained, His power derided, His truth disgraced, His justice scorned, His wisdom slighted. He would be thought to have hid under false pretense in His laws and be judged according to the rules of reason to be void of true goodness.

Punishment is not the primary intention of God. The principle intention of God in His law was to encourage goodness that He might reward it; and when by the commission of evil God is provoked to punish and takes the sword into His hand, He does not act against the nature of His goodness but against the first intention of His goodness in His precepts, which was to reward. A good judge principally intends in the exercise of his office to protect good men from violence and maintain the honor of the laws, yet, consequently, to punish bad men, without which the protection of the good would not be secured nor the honor of the law be supported. And a good judge in the exercise of his office principally intends the encouragement of the good and wishes there were no wickedness that might occasion punishment; and when he sentences a criminal to be executed, he does not act against the goodness of his nature, but pursues the duty of his place and wishes he had no occasion for such severity. Thus God seems to speak of Himself (Isa.28:21); He calls the act of His wrath His "strange work, his strange act," a work, not against His nature as the Governor of the world, but against His first intention as Creator which was to manifest His goodness. Therefore He moves with a slow pace in those acts, brings out His judgments with relentings of heart, and seems to cast out His thunderbolts with a trembling hand: "He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men" (Lam.3:33); and therefore He "delights not in the death of a sinner" (Ezek.33:11). Besides, God does not send judgments without first giving warnings. He gives men time and sends them messengers to persuade them to another frame of mind that He may change His hand and exercise His liberality where He threatened His severity.

"Thy judgments are good," says the Psalmist (Ps.119:39). Can there be any thing more miserable than to live in a world full of wickedness and void of the marks of Divine goodness and justice to repress it? If there were not judgments in the world men would forget God, be insensible of His government of the world, and neglect the exercises of natural and Christian duties. Religion would be in its last gasp and expire among them, and men would pretend to break God’s precepts by God’s authority.

Punishments are God’s gracious warnings to others not to venture upon the crimes which they see are attended with such judgments. To sum up what has been said on this particular point; how could God be a friend to goodness, if He were not an enemy to evil? (pp.235-243)

The Biblical doctrine of eternal punishment has, in the minds of some, presented a problem for the doctrine of Divine goodness. How can the two be reconciled? How could an infinitely good God make man knowing that at least some would be eternally damned? It may be that the only alternative would have been not to create man at all, at least to create man as man. Some deny that God knew man would fall, but this does not seem to be either a Scriptural or rational alternative. The emphasis upon God’s love and goodness has led many in our day to opt for either universalism (everyone will ultimately be saved; hell is remedial) or annihilationism (the lost will be put out of existence in hell). Neither of these are consistent with Scripture.

Why should punishment for sin be endless torment? The answers traditionally given include 1) all sin against God, who is infinite in His being and holiness, is an infinite crime deserving infinite punishment; 2) we take sin a lot less seriously than an infinitely holy God does, making infinite punishment seem extreme to us; 3) sinners’ enmity against God is far greater than we imagine, so that our assumption that sinners would be repentant in hell is faulty. Finally, if God gave man a conscience to distinguish good and evil and a will free to choose either one, provides a way of salvation for all through the death His Son, and convicts all of sin by His Spirit, His goodness is not at all impuned by His judgment in sending to hell those who do not repent and believe the gospel.

What should be our response to this great attribute of God’s goodness? It is easy to see that most people abuse it rather than appreciate it and honor God because of it. Charnock lists some of the ways that men abuse God’s goodness:

God’s goodness is contemned or abused—

1. By a forgetfulness of his benefits. If we received blessings more sparingly we would remember Him more gratefully. If He had sent us a bit of bread in a distress by a miracle as He did Elijah by the ravens, it would have stuck longer in our memories. But the sense of daily favors, which are as great miracles as any in their own nature and the products of the same power, wears out of our minds sooner. The wonder they should beget in us is obscured by their frequency.

2. The goodness of God is scorned by an impatient murmuring. Most men are guilty of this.

3. By unbelief and impenitency. Since sending His Son was the greatest act of goodness that God could express, the refusal of Him must be the highest reproach of that liberality God had in giving to the world so priceless a gift. The ingratitude in this refusal must be as high in the rank of sins as the Person slighted is in the rank of Beings or rank of gifts. Christ is a gift (Rom.5:16), the most royal gift of all, an unparalleled gift, springing from inconceivable treasures of goodness (John 3:16). What is our turning our backs upon this gift but a low opinion of it, as though the richest jewel of heaven were not so valuable as a swinish pleasure on earth and deserved to be treated at no other rate than if mere rubbish had been presented to us? A lack of repentance is also an abuse of this goodness, either by presumption, as though God would entertain rebels that bid defiance against Him with the same respect that He does His prostrate and weeping petitioners; that He will have the same regard to the swine as to the children and lodge them in the same habitation; or it speaks of a suspicion of God as a deceitful Master, one of a pretended, not a real goodness, that makes promises to mock men, and invitations to delude them; that he is an implacable tyrant rather than a good Father, a rigid, not a kind Being, delightful only to mark our faults and overlook our services.

4. The goodness of God is despised by a distrust of His providence. As all trust in Him supposes Him to be good, so all distrust of Him supposes Him to be evil—either without goodness to exert His power or without power to display His goodness.

5. We scorn or abuse His goodness by omissions of duty. When men will not lift up their eyes to heaven, and entreat nothing but the contrivance of their own brains and the cleverness of their own heads, they disown Divine goodness and approve themselves as their own gods and the spring of their own prosperity. Those that do not run to God in their need to crave His support, deny either the arm of His power or the disposition of His will to sustain and deliver them. They must have very low conceptions or none at all of this perfection, or think Him either too empty to fill them or too miserly to relieve them, that He is of a narrow and contracted disposition and that they may sooner expect to be made better and happier by anything else than by Him. And as we despise His goodness by a total omission of those duties which concern our own advantage and supply, as prayer; so we scorn Him as the chiefest good by an omission of the due manner of any act of worship which is designed purely for the acknowledgment of Him.

6. The goodness of God is abused when we give up our souls and affections to those benefits we have from God, when we make those things God’s rivals which were sent to woo us to Him and offer those affections to the gifts themselves which they were sent to solicit for the Master. This is done when we either place our trust in them or glue our choicest affections to them. And the love of ourselves and of creatures above God is very natural to us: "Lovers of themselves, and lovers of pleasure more than of God" (2 Tim.3:2,4). Self-love is the root and the love of pleasures the top branch that mounts its head highest against heaven. It is for the love of the world that the dangers of the sea are passed over, that men descend into the bowels of the earth, pass nights without sleep, undertake pursuits without intermission, wade through many inconveniences, risk losing their souls, and scorn God. In those things men glory and foolishly grow proud by them and think themselves safe and happy in them.

7. The Divine goodness is scorned in sinning more freely on account of that goodness and employing God’s benefits in the work of our lusts. This is a treachery to His goodness, to make His benefits serve for an end quite contrary to that for which He sent them. As if God had been plentiful in His blessings in order to hire them to be more fierce in their rebellions and fed them to no other purpose but that they might more strongly kick against Him. This is the fruit which corrupt nature produces. Men are guilty of this when they make plenty an occasion for ease, and, because they have abundance, spend their time in idleness and make no other use of Divine benefits than to trifle away their time and be utterly useless to the world. They also abuse the bounty of God by living in sensuality and luxury, misemploying the provisions God gives them in resolving to live like beasts when, by a good use of them, they might attain to the life of angels.

8. We scorn the goodness of God in ascribing our benefits to causes other than Divine goodness. We do this when we do not acknowledge Him as the Author of any success in our affairs but by an overweening conceit of our own intelligence, applaud and admire ourselves and overlook the Hand that guided us and brought our endeavors to a good outcome. We eclipse the glory of the Divine goodness by setting the crown that is due to it upon the head of our own diligence. This was the proud boast of the Assyrian conqueror for which God threatened to punish the fruit of his stout heart: "By the strength of my hand, I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent." And as it is unjust, so it is ridiculous to ascribe to ourselves or instruments the chief honor of any work, as ridiculous as if a soldier after a victory should erect an altar to the honor of his sword; or an inventor offer sacrifices to the tools by which he completed some excellent and useful invention. It is discarding any thoughts of the goodness of God when we imagine that we chiefly owe anything in this world to our own cleverness or wit, to friends or means, as though Divine goodness did not open its hand to interest itself in our affairs, support our ability, direct our counsels, and mingle itself with everything we do. God is the principle Author of any advantage that is added to us, of any wise resolution we fix upon, or any proper way we comprehend it. No man can be wise in opposition to God, or act wisely or well without Him. His goodness inspires men with generous and magnificent counsels and furnishes them with fit and proportionable means. When He withdraws His hand, men’s heads grow foolish and their hands feeble; folly and weakness drop upon them as darkness upon the world on the removal of the sun. It is an abuse of Divine goodness not to recognize it but erect an idol in its place.

If God is infinitely good there can be no complaint against Him if men are punished for abusing His goodness. When men suffer, they suffer justly; they were not constrained by violence or forced by necessity nor provoked by any ill usage to turn their head against God, but broke the bands of the strongest obligations and most tender allurements. What man, what devil, can justly blame God for punishing them after they have been so intolerably bold as to fly in the face of that goodness that puts them in obligation to it by giving them beings of a higher elevation than to inferior creatures and furnishing them with sufficient strength to continue in their first estate? If God is good, it is our happiness to adhere to Him; if we depart from Him we depart from goodness. Why are men happy? Because they cleave to God. Why are men miserable? Because they draw back from God. It is then our own fault that we are miserable, since his goodness gave means to prevent it and afterwards added means to recover us from it, but all of this despised by us. The doctrine of Divine goodness justifies every stone laid in the foundation of hell and every spark in that burning furnace, since it is for the abuse of infinite goodness that it was kindled. (pp.316,317,319-327)

And so, may we not be guilty of any of these ways of despising or abusing the goodness of God. Instead, what should our response to His goodness be? First and foremost, it should make us love Him. Charnock continues:

1. The goodness of God renders Him lovable. His goodness renders him beautiful and his beauty renders him lovely; both are linked together (Zech.9:17): "How great is his goodness! and how great is his beauty!" This goodness therefore lays a strong obligation upon us. It is true He is lovely in regard of His absolute goodness or the goodness of His nature, but we should hardly be persuaded to return Him affection without His relative goodness, His benefits to His creatures; we are obliged by both to love Him. Goodness in creatures makes them estimable; how much more should the goodness of God render Him lovely to us. If we love a little spark of goodness in this or that creature, if a drop is so delicious to us, shall not the immense Sun of goodness, the ever-flowing Fountain of all, be much more delightful? The original excellency always outstrips what is derived from it; if so lowly and small an object as a little creature deserves estimation for a tiny bit communicated to it, so great and extended a goodness as is in the Creator much more merits it from us. He is good infinitely; a weak resemblance of this goodness is lovely. How much more lovable, then, must the incomprehensible original of that beauty be. We love creatures for what we think is good in them though it may be hurtful; and shall we not love God, who is a real and unblemished goodness and from whose hand are poured out all those blessings that are conveyed to us by second causes? The object that delights us and the capacity we have to delight in it are both from Him; our love, therefore, to Him should transcend the affection we bear to any instruments He moves for our welfare. Among the most pleasant creatures there is none like the Creator nor any goodness like unto His goodness. Shall we love the food that nourishes us and the medicine that cures us and the silver by which we furnish ourselves with useful conveniences? Shall we love a horse or dog for the benefits we have by them? And shall not the Spring of all these draw our souls after it and make us aspire to the honor of loving and embracing Him who has supplied every creature with that which may bring us pleasure? Let us give Him, then, that affection He deserves as well as demands and which cannot be withheld from Him without horrible sacrilege. There is nothing worthy of love besides Him; let no fire be kindled in our hearts but what may ascend directly to Him.

2. The goodness of God renders Him a fit object of trust and confidence. Since none is good but God, none can be a full and satisfactory ground or object of confidence but God. "Taste and see how good the Lord is." What is the consequence? "Blessed is the man that trusts in thee" (Ps.34:8). As the vials of His justice are to make us fear Him, so the streams of His goodness are to make us rely on Him. As His patience is designed to open and draw out our repentance, so His goodness is most proper to strengthen our assurance in Him. When we are frightened by the terrors of His justice, when we are dazzled by the arts of His wisdom and confounded by the splendor of His majesty, we may take refuge in the sanctuary of His goodness. This will encourage us as well as astonish us.

3.The goodness of God renders Him worthy to be obeyed and honored. The bounty of God has laid upon us the strongest obligations. The more excellent the favors are which are conferred upon any person, the more right the benefactor has to claim an observance from the person bettered by Him. God therefore enhances the rebellion of the Jews by pointing out the care He took in the bringing them up (Isa.2:2) and miraculously delivering them from Egypt (Jer.11:7,8), implying that those benefits were strong obligations to a generous service of Him. Oh, how we should endeavor after the enjoyment of God as good! How earnestly we should desire Him! As there is no other goodness worthy of our supreme love, so there is no other goodness worthy our most passionate thirst. Since good is the object of a rational appetite, the purest, best, and most universal good, such as God is, ought to be most sought after. Since only good is the object of a rational appetite, all the motions of our souls should be carried to the first and best good. Only a perfect good can give us contentment; the best goodness in the creature is but slender and imperfect. God can answer all our wants; He has a universal fullness to surpass our universal emptiness. He contains in Himself the sweetness of all other goods and holds in His bosom plentifully what creatures have in their natures sparingly. Creatures are uncertain goods—as they have a beginning, so they may cease to be. They may be gone with a breath; they will certainly wither away if God blows upon them (Isa.40:24). All earthly things are like the gourd plant that shaded Jonah, refreshing us one moment with their presence and the next agitating us with their absence like fading flowers, strutting today and drooping tomorrow (Isa.40:6). But God is as permanent a good as He is a real one. He has wings to fly to them that seek Him, but no wings to fly from them forever and leave them.

God is a universal good. That which is good to one may be evil to another, but God being a universal, unstained good is useful for all, suitable to the natures of all except those who continue in enmity against Him. There is nothing in God that can displease a soul that desires to please Him. When we are in darkness, He is a light to scatter it; when we are in want, He has riches to relieve us; when we are in spiritual death, He is a Prince of life to deliver us; when we are defiled, He is holiness to purify us. It is in vain to fix our hearts anywhere but on Him, in the desire of whom there is a delight and in the enjoyment of whom there is an inconceivable pleasure.

4. A sense of the Divine goodness would make us thankful. The absolute goodness of God, as it is the excellency of His nature, is the object of praise; the relative goodness of God, as He is our benefactor, is the object of thankfulness. Gratitude to God is the duty of every creature that has a sense of itself.

5. And, lastly, we should imitate this goodness of God. As holiness is a resemblance of God’s purity, so charity is a resemblance of God’s goodness. Imitate the goodness of God in two things:

(1.) In relieving and assisting others in distress. Why has God increased the gracious gifts of His treasures to some more than others? Was it merely for themselves or rather that they might have a basis to attain the honor of imitating Him? Shall we embezzle His goods to our own use as if we were the absolute owners of them and not stewards entrusted with them for others? Should it be difficult for us to part with something to give to others out of that abundance that He has bestowed upon any of us? Did not his goodness strip his Son of the glory of heaven for a time to enrich us? And shall we shrink from parting with a little to please Him? It is not very becoming for any to be backward in supplying the necessities of others with a few morsels who have had the happiness to have had their greatest needs supplied with his Son’s blood. He does not demand that we should strip ourselves of everything for others, but of a pittance, something out of our excess, which will turn more to our account than what is vainly and unprofitably consumed on our backs and bellies. If He has given much to any of us it is rather that we may lay aside part of the income for His service; otherwise, we would monopolize Divine goodness to ourselves and seem to distrust under our present experiments His future kindness, as though the last thing He gave us was attended with this language, "Hoard this up greedily and feed your ambition," which would be against the whole scope of Divine goodness.

2.) Imitate God in his goodness in kindness to our worst enemies. How kind God is to those that blaspheme Him and gives them the same sun and the same showers that He does to the best men in the world! Is it not more our glory to imitate God in "doing good to those that hate us" than to imitate the men of the world in repaying evil by a return of a sevenfold mischief? (pp. 330,332,334,335,339,344-346,352-354)

Let us all determine to love, trust, obey and honor God, be thankful to Him, and praise Him for His infinite goodness, and imitate it by being charitable and kind to others.

Leon Stump, Pastor of Victory Christian Center

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