Theology 1

Faithfulness

‘If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Himself’

- 2 Timothy 2:13

Perhaps one of God’s most comforting and assuring qualities is His faithfulness. The God of yesterday is also the God of tomorrow. He does not change or alter Himself, nor can any action or facet of His stray from or be at odds with any of other His qualities. His words always remain true, his promises firm. He is, at all times, many qualities and yet all qualities must, by nature of His faithfulness, always be present and equal. He cannot at one moment be just and holy without at the same time exercising love and mercy. He cannot exercise His infinite knowledge without being perfectly good or fully powerful. For God to be anything less than completely faithful would be for Him to deny Himself.

God’s faithfulness is something that men struggle to understand because we are by nature faithless beings. How many stories could be told of broken promises and ‘changed minds’. How often have people who have claimed to love each other broken their vows and parted in bitter enmity. We are fickle, erratic and inconsistent, holding to whatever ‘truth’ or feeling fits us best at the time and quickly discarding such belief when it ceases to benefit us.

How wonderful it is then, to hear the Apostle Paul’s words. The statement, ‘If we are faithless’ is an assured problem. Men will undoubtedly be faithless, especially in matters that pertain to God. However, even in the face of our weakness, God will always remain resolute. He will always be faithful, he will always stay God, and his words and promises will always be unassailable. Though man can betray God without a moment’s hesitation, God cannot betray Himself and cannot disown Himself.

The Apostle John wrote that ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.’ Here, God’s faithfulness is demonstrated in his forgiveness of the believers. When John says that God is faithful and just, he shows that God does not need to decide whether or not to pardon the repentant believer. God does not weigh this instance of sin and repentance against the believer’s prior history. He does not examine the depth of their relationship or wonder what benefit that believer has brought to him recently. He does not turn and forsake the repentant or cast him from his presence. No, instead, as He has promised, God immediately forgives and repairs and strengthens the fellowship with his beloved creation.

Goodness

‘That God is good…is a foundation stone for all sound thought about God and is necessary for moral sanity.’

- A.W. Tozer

To say that God is anything but good is to place our fate into the hands of an uncertain, or even malevolent, being. The absence of a good God not only destroys any hope we have of understanding who God is or why he acts in certain ways, but it also inhibits our ability to understand and utilize a moral standard.

‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.’ (Romans 8:28) Of course, such a thought is dependant upon God Himself being good. If there were questions regarding God’s goodness, how could we say that God is able to work for our good? The intentions and promises of a being which is anything less than perfectly good must always be cast into suspicion and regarded with at least a measure of skepticism. The apparent problem then, is that such suspicion and skepticism would destroy faith. How could we ever place our trust in the promises of a being which is not good? Without goodness, we could not properly approach the character of God, or understand his will, because such a study would be mired in suspicion and doubt. We could not believe God, nor find comfort in his promises. We could not begin to contemplate who God is, nor could we possibly reach even a marginal understanding of how to live under such a regime.

Furthermore, the lack of God’s goodness destroys any moral standard which we could possibly seek to utilize. We know that God is the only good being in existence. (Mark 10:18) Therefore, we also must admit that any good, and all good, must come from God himself (James 1:17). Therefore, our moral sanity is dependant upon God. Moreover, our moral sanity is dependant upon God’s goodness. If God were not good, then there would be no good. Without good, it is impossible to say that there is a right or a wrong, because such a standard would indicate a belief that there is something good.