{"id":5940,"date":"2021-02-28T23:52:10","date_gmt":"2021-02-28T23:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=5940"},"modified":"2021-02-28T23:52:10","modified_gmt":"2021-02-28T23:52:10","slug":"the-goodness-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=5940","title":{"rendered":"The Goodness of God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Goodness of God <\/strong>\u2013 A W Pink<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe goodness of God endures continually\u201d (Psalm 52:1<\/a>). The goodness of God refers to the perfection of His nature: \u201cGod is light, and in Him is no darkness at all\u201d (1 John 1:5<\/a>). There is such an absolute perfection in God\u2019s nature and being that nothing is lacking to it or defective in it, and nothing can be added to it to make it better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGod is originally good, good of Himself, which nothing else is; for all creatures are good only by participation and communication from God.
He is essentially good; not only good, but goodness itself: the creature\u2019s good is a superadded quality, in God it is His essence.
He is infinitely good; the creature\u2019s good is but a drop, but in God there in an infinite ocean or gathering together of good.
He is eternally and immutably good, for He cannot be less good than He is; as there can be no addition made to Him, so no subtraction can be made from Him\u201d (Thomas Manton).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God is summum bonum\u2014<\/em>the highest <\/em>good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original Saxon meaning of our English word God <\/em>is \u201cThe Good.\u201d God is not only the greatest <\/em>of all beings, but the best<\/em>. All the goodness there is in any creature, has been imparted from the Creator; but God\u2019s goodness is underived, for it is the essence of His eternal nature. As God is infinite in power from all eternity, before there was any display thereof, or any act of omnipotence put forth\u2014so He was eternally good before there was any communication of His bounty, or any creature to whom it might be imparted. Thus, the first manifestation of this divine perfection was in giving being to all things. \u201cYou are <\/em>good, and do <\/em>good\u201d (Psalm 119:68<\/a>). God has in Himself an infinite and inexhaustible treasure of all blessedness, enough to fill all things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goodness of God is seen in that when man transgressed the law of His Creator, a dispensation of unmixed wrath did not at once commence. Well might God have deprived His fallen creatures of every blessing, every comfort, every pleasure. Instead, He ushered in a regime of a mixed nature\u2014of mercy and judgment. This is very wonderful if it is duly considered, and the more thoroughly that regime is expanded the more will it appear that \u201cmercy rejoices over judgment\u201d (James 2:13<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goodness of God appeared most illustriously when He sent forth His Son \u201cmade of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons\u201d (Galatians 4:4<\/a>,5<\/a>). Then it was that a multitude of the heavenly angels praised their Maker and said, \u201cGlory to God in the highest Heaven, and peace on earth to all whom God favors\u201d (Luke 2:14<\/a>). Yes, in the Gospel the \u201cgrace <\/em>[which word in Greek conveys the idea if benevolence or goodness] of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men\u201d (Titus 2:11<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Goodness of God \u2013 A W Pink \u201cThe goodness of God endures continually\u201d (Psalm 52:1). The goodness of God refers to the perfection of His nature: \u201cGod is light, and in Him is no darkness at all\u201d (1 John 1:5). There is such an absolute perfection in God\u2019s nature and being that nothing is lacking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,35,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-arthur-pink","category-gods-attributes","category-gods-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5941,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5940\/revisions\/5941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}