Made In His Image, part 5

The Goodness of God

Does this make God an ogre or less than completely good? Not at all. Because His very nature is good. Let me remind you what the Bible teaches about God’s goodness.

Good and upright is the Lord;
Therefore He teaches sinners in the way. (Psalm 25:8, NKJV)

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good;
Blessed is the man who trusts in Him! (Psalm 34:8, NKJV)

The Lord is good to all,
And His tender mercies areover all His works. (Psalm 145:9, NKJV)

So He [Jesus] said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. . . .”(Matthew 19:17, NKJV)

There’s a mantra in Christendom that goes like this: God is good, all the time. Many times, Christians toss out that phrase, when for example, they were in a car accident and survived without any bodily harm. I am safe, they say, God is good. And yet, wouldn’t God still be good if the opposite were the outcome? If they had been badly hurt or even died? God would still be good.

We tend to talk about God’s goodness when things are going “good” for us—good as we define it. But He is good all the time. And whatever He does is good. This shouldn’t be a phrase that we just use when things are going our way or according to what we define as “good.” This should be ingrained in our hearts and minds so that we really do see God as good all the time.

Randy Alcorn, in his book If God Is Good, writes:

“To say that God is good is not to say that God will always appear to be good, or that when he is good we will always like him for it.” (p. 166)

He makes an additional point about God’s goodness.

“We define our good in terms of what brings us health and happiness now; God defines it in terms of what makes us more like Jesus.” (p. 289)

So, to return to the question I mentioned before: “This is a problem I have wondered about—how physically imperfect newborns can be admired as "the handiwork of God," because it casts such doubt on God.”

If physically imperfect newborns are notthe handiwork of God, then we are denying they are human. We need to allow God to be God—and God to be a sovereign and good God—all the time and in all situations. And to operate as He chooses within this cursed, fallen world that we’ve brought on ourselves. Including when He fearfully and wonderfully creates a baby that we consider “less than perfect.”
 
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11