Re: ASSIGNMENT 6

God’s Great Faithfulness
2 Timothy 2:13 tells us that we can rely on God to keep his promises even when we fail to keep ours. That’s because his faithfulness is not conditioned upon anything outside of him. This follows logically from God's other attributes: his self-sufficiency—while men exchange promises because they need or want something from each other, God does not need anything from us when he makes promises; his eternality and immutability—since God is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8), his faithfulness must be something about him that was, is, and always will be true; his omniscience and omnipotence—there can be no unforeseen or overwhelming circumstance that could ever force God to go back on his word; and also his perfect wisdom—he does not foolishly make commitments that he will later regret.

The forgiveness of sins demonstrates God’s great faithfulness toward believers. According to 1 John 1:9, God forgives us for our sins, not because we deserve it, but because he is faithful and just. He is simply keeping his word. God said that he would save us from our sins through Jesus (Mat. 1:21); that whoever believes in Jesus will not perish (Joh. 3:16); that we can ask him for forgiveness (Luk. 11:4); that he has the authority to forgive (Mar. 2:10); and that he will forgive, even though are sins “are many.” (Luk. 7:47). So when John said that God would forgive, he did not speak ignorantly or based on some vague sense of fairness (e.g. failing to realize that we don’t deserve God’s forgiveness). With confidence, John spoke in reliance on the belief that God keeps his promises because of what God has said about himself.

God’s Goodness

That God is good . . . . is a foundation stone for all sound thought about God and is necessary to moral sanity (Tozer).

Like God’s other attributes, his goodness is not something that exists in itself (e.g. it is not as simple as being nice and giving to the poor). It cannot be found anywhere outside of God because it is inseparable from God. This is why when God searches the hearts and minds of men, he finds no goodness in us (Psa. 14:3-4, Rev. 2:23)—not unless we have been filled with his goodness, by the Spirit, in Christ (Gal. 5:19-24). In other words, the word, “good,” is meaningless apart from God, regardless of how “good” we think we are (consider secular humanism and post-modernism). Likewise, it is meaningless to say that God may not always be good.

That God alone is good is revealed in the story (in Mat. 19:16-22) about the rich, young man who asked Jesus, “what good deed must I do to have eternal life?" Jesus responded, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good.” This demonstrates that goodness is found only in God. To make his point even clearer, Jesus pointed out that the young man could not even live up to what the world might mistakenly call an objective standard of goodness: giving to the poor. Jesus told the man to give up all of his possessions and follow the Lord, but “[w]hen the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” Now, we should not be so naïve as to think that the young man could have obtained God’s goodness by simply doing more good deeds. The takeaway is not, “sell what you possess and give to the poor (an idea that even Judas claimed to understand, Joh. 12:5).” It is “follow [the Lord],” the “only one who is good.”

Although believers have fuller access to God’s goodness (Joh. 16:22-24), it is important to realize that his goodness benefits the entire world. God made the world for the benefit of “all the peoples under the whole heaven” (Deu. 4:19); and every good thing in life, including life itself, comes from God because “all the earth is [his].” (Exo. 19:5). We must thank God even for the foundations of our systems of law and governmental authority (Rom. 13:1-3). As R.C. Sproul wrote in The Holiness of God (p. 198), “All good finds its root in Him and in His character.” Thus, if we take God out of the picture, so goes all moral sanity.