“God, You’re So Good” (Part Two)

In a previous post, I wrote about the goodness of God’s character, the goodness of God to his creation, and the goodness of God’s Word. These are the truths we sing about in the simple hymn, “God, You’re So Good.” These are the truths we find in Psalm 119:68, “You are good and do good; teach my your statutes.”

In this post, I want to help you see that the people of God have always been tempted to question the goodness of God’s Word. Additionally, based on Psalm 119:68, it seems to me that this temptation has always been coupled with the temptation to question the goodness of God’s character and God’s ways, as these three issues are clearly connected in Psalm 119:68.

In the beginning, Adam and Eve were placed in the garden of Eden. The Lord gave them every tree save one – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When the serpent approached the woman, the temptation centered around the goodness of God and his ways and his Word. The serpent began by questioning God’s Word and ended by contradicting God’s Word. Would Adam and Eve believe that the Creator was good, that his ways were good, and that his Word was good? Or, would they view God’s plan for their lives as restrictive and limiting? Would they pursue human flourishing apart from God’s goodness and God’s Word?When the Lord called the aged patriarch Abraham to offer his son – his only son, the son he loved, Isaac – as a burnt offering on Mt Moriah, Abraham faced the same temptation Adam and Eve faced in the garden. Of course their immediate circumstances and environment were different, but fundamentally the temptation was the same. Having spent the latter years of his life learning to trust God’s character and depend on God’s Word, would Abraham accept God’s call as “good?” Or, would Abraham question the goodness of the Lord and reject the goodness of his Word?When the Lord brought Israel ought of slavery in Egypt, he brought them to the foot of Mt Sinai. Having been saved from Egypt by the Lord, the people of Israel now faced an important question. Would they order their lives according to the ten words given to Moses? Would they stop worshiping all other gods and all idols? Would they change how they used God’s name, and would they alter their Saturday plans in perpetuity? Would they stop hating, lusting, taking, lying, and coveting? Or, would they live like everyone else? These questions all centered on the goodness of God and of his Word.Some four decades later, Moses was dead and Joshua was bringing a new generation into the Promised Land. Having just lost the only leader they had ever known, the people of Israel now looked to Joshua for guidance. Standing on the banks of the Jordan with Jericho on the horizon, Joshua begged the people to build their lives on God’s Word. He reminded them that God had kept his good Word to his people, and he urged the people of Israel to accept God’s Word as good, true, right, and authoritative. Would this new generation believe in the goodness of God and of his Word?Centuries later, the weeping prophet wrote a letter to the Hebrew exiles who had been marched out of Jerusalem and marched into Babylon. Jeremiah sent this letter to the exiles to assure them that God was a good God who had a good plan to prosper his people. Jeremiah begged the exiles to listen to God’s Word and to believe that God intended to prosper them – even in exile, even under God’s hand of discipline. These exiles faced a familiar temptation. They were tempted to question the goodness of God and the goodness of his Word. They were tempted to blend in with Babylonian culture. When Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah brought back waves of exiles to the Promised Land, these returning Jews faced the very same temptation their ancestors had faced. In an incredibly moving scene, Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform and read the Law of God to the people of God. This rag-tag bunch of exiles faced an important question as they listened to Ezra read from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Would they rebuild their nation on God’s Word, or would they simply rely on the security of Nehemiah’s wall and the wisdom they had picked up in Babylon? Would they rest in the goodness of God’s Word, even when God’s Word rebuked them for marrying Gentiles and violating the Sabbath? Or would they listen to a different wisdom that affirmed them as they were?The New Testament church in Jerusalem had to face this very same question. They started off strong, committing themselves to the apostles’ teaching, which was rooted in the Old Testament. Soon, however, people were being arrested, interrogated, and threatened by the very same men who had orchestrated the murder of Jesus. These Jewish authorities insisted that the first Christians stop talking about Jesus, or else. The temptation was simple – would the church build their lives on the truth about Jesus, the fulfillment of the Old Testament scriptures? Or, would they abandon God’s good Word in the name of safety, security, and comfort?

It seems to me that the American church has been and is now facing the very same temptation that the people of God have always faced. This temptation runs all the way back to Eden, and it sounds like a simple, innocent question, “Did God really say?” This question is often followed by the calm, confident assertion that abandoning God’s Word will actually lead to life and flourishing and happiness rather than to death.

In the United States, we’ve tragically reduced Christian faith to a payer and a spiritual head-nod to Jesus. In exchange for this spiritual tip-of-the-cap, we offer people the hope of heaven and a get-out-of-hell-free card. We’ve tried to make it easy for people to trust in Jesus, but our efforts have changed the very offer of the gospel and ignored the calls to Christian discipleship that first issued forth from God in the garden and from Jesus in his teaching.

Conversion to Christianity involves more than a spiritual head-nod in Jesus’ direction. Conversion to Christianity involves a total, complete, wholesale worldview adjustment. That adjustment begins with the acceptance of the Bible as the very Word of God. A Christian is a person who believes that the very words of the Old and New Testaments are breathed out by God, true in every respect, sufficient for faith and practice, authoritative in all ways, and fundamentally good. The person who starts by accepting the goodness of God’s Word then has to reckon with the following questions.

Will we base our doctrine, theology, and beliefs on the good Word of God, or will we listen to culture, rely on our intuition, and accept the wisdom of the world?Will we base our worship on the good Word of God, or will we pursue coolness, relevance, edginess, performance, entertainment, and professionalism?Will we structure our marriages, families, and sexuality according to God’s good Word, or will we float along in the river of postmodern sexuality?Will we allow God’s good Word to shape our identity, or will we follow the lead of the critical theorists and play the dangerous, divisive game of intersectionality?

Simply put, will we believe in the fundamental goodness of God and his goodness to his people and the goodness of his Word? Or will we simply rely on the wisdom of this age and the whims of our culture? Do we believe that God’s Word really is good, or do we believe that Americans in the the twenty-first century have discovered a better way of ordering our lives and living in this world?

The psalmist would simply remind us that God is good, God does good, and God’s Word is good (Psalm 119:68).