The Goodness of God

I recently attended an event where I heard a contemporary christian entertainment song that I have heard many times before. Here are some of the lyrics:

You are good, good, oh, You are good, good, oh, You are good, good, oh, You are good, good, oh
Let the King of my heart, Be the wind inside my sails, The anchor in the waves
Oh, He is my song
Let the King of my heart, Be the fire inside my veins, The echo of my days
Oh, He is my song
You are good, good, oh, You are good, good, oh, Yes, You are good, good, oh
You are good, good, oh
You’re never gonna let, never gonna let me down
You’re never gonna let, never gonna let me down
You’re never gonna let, never gonna let me down
You’re never gonna let, never gonna let me down
You are good, good, oh
You are good, good, oh
You are good, good, oh (when the night is holding onto me)
You are good, good, oh (You are holding on)
You are good, good, oh (when the night is holding onto me)
You are good, good, oh (You are holding on)
You are good, You’re good, oh
You are good, good, oh
When the night is holding onto me

I submit that these words are a deceptive half-truth.

Say what?

I believe that, indeed, God is good. Unquestionably, God is good, always good, depending on one’s perspective. And I understand from Scripture that God often delights in blessing His people with good things in life. As I write this, it is early May. A tree in our front yard is in bloom, with a beautiful fragrance that I very much enjoy, and beautiful blooms cover the tree. I go to the front door several times each day just to appreciate the tree. Any person with a sense of smell and any sighted person can appreciate the tree. The general goodness of God allows for this. The magnificence of the Creator is on display everywhere. But, is God still good when one loses the sense of smell, or the ability to see? Is God still good when one is hungry with no food, when one loses a relationship, when one becomes unemployed? Depending on one’s perspective, does God sometimes let me down? Or, is He just always the wind in my sails and my anchor and my inspiration who never lets me down?

The idea of never-ending triumph sets us up for failure. The contemporary church often tries to be attractive to society by presenting this overly positive triumphant happy attitude. God really, really loves and affirms and accepts you just like you are and wants you to add Jesus to your life and be happy and successful and so do we. This is not the message of the Bible. Further, in this life, Christians are not promised that they will never know difficulty. In fact, often our faith can cause difficulties, heartaches, and conflicts. God’s love is not a divine version of the love of a spouse or boyfriend or genie-in-a-bottle. Sometimes God allows conflict and difficulty, and this is according to His plan and purpose. When we don’t acknowledge this reality, we set up both ourselves and others for failure.

In Romans 2:4 (New King James Version) we read, “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” Mankind is not merely living in a broken world, and I don’t just make mistakes. Mankind is hopelessly lost in sin and rebellion against the Creator. Mankind is subject to the righteous wrath of God against sin. The very nature of God demands that sin be dealt with, atoned for. Jesus didn’t die on the cross because He spoke truth to power, because He made religious hypocrites and those in political power uncomfortable. He didn’t come primarily to bring a message of justice and love and affirmation. He came according to the divine plan and purpose of God in order that He might suffer and die on the cross as the only perfect and acceptable sacrifice for the sin of those who would repent and believe. That is offensive to many. How could a good God be involved with blood and sacrifice and suffering and death? Why would a good God allow people to go to eternal loss in Hell? Why wouldn’t a truly good God just overlook sin and declare everyone righteous by divine fiat? All that blood and sacrifice and eternal punishment stuff, many would say, doesn’t sound like love. In fact, it is repugnant to post-modern man. So too often the church no longer preaches and teaches and sings these truths.

The Bible tells me that I don’t merely make mistakes that He can just overlook; I am a born sinner who commits sins, acts of disobedience and rebellion against the eternal, holy, righteous, perfect God. While this sin of the created is a massive affront against the Creator, it is His goodness that allows for His forgiveness. It is His goodness that provided a way for my regeneration through faith and repentance. Incomprehensible divine love provided for the Savior to atone for my sin on the cross. His goodness doesn’t just accept and overlook sin, like a loving grandparent or a spouse or boyfriend or other offended human, but His goodness provided the avenue for my salvation from the consequences of sin. And that requires that I believe that the gospel is true, that I acknowledge my sin, and turn to Christ in faith. It isn’t enough to just acknowledge that God is good and is my inspiration and will never let me down. I must acknowledge my sin and true guilt and acknowledge Him as Lord and Savior. I cannot reform or perform religious rites or vow to become a better person to merit salvation; salvation is all of God’s grace. But salvation doesn’t just affirm me in my sin; it requires that I turn away from sin and willingly give myself to Him as Lord and Savior. This is the essence of the gospel, the central message of the church.

Further, we must acknowledge the reality of God’s goodness in the context of His sovereignty and His divine plan for us. I don’t completely understand human suffering. I don’t understand why good things happen to seemingly bad people while bad things happen to seemingly good people. But I do rejoice in the fact that it is all for His ultimate glory and therefore for the best. Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” No, He never “lets me down,” but that is a matter of perspective. An eternal perspective. I think H. G. Spafford presented a more realistic tone a century ago when he wrote, after the tragic loss of his family in a shipwreck, “When peace like a river, attendeth my way, and sorrows like sea billows roll, Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well, with my soul.”

What Easter Is – And Isn’t

Perhaps more than at any other season, professing Christians throughout Christendom will attend a Good Friday or an Easter Sunday church service. They will hear any of a variety of perspectives. Easter might be presented in the context of thoughts about Spring, a time of new beginning after Winter. Jesus might be spoken of as a divine messenger from God, a fabulously inspired teacher, who offended the religious and political authorities of His day and so was silenced, but whose inspired teachings didn’t die but live on in the minds and hearts of His followers. Jesus on the cross might be presented as demonstrating the love and acceptance of God for all of humanity, who bore the sins of His people on the cross in the sense that His sacrifice served to inspire and motivate us to overcome our difficulties. Like a great cosmic boyfriend, He inspires us to reach our full potential and accepts us and affirms us just as we are because, after all, He really, really likes us! I once listened to an Easter sermon that was built on the premise that the moved tombstone at the empty grave of Jesus was a metaphor for obstacles we need to have removed in our life. The real point of the moved tombstone, however, and the point of the empty grave, is much more than a reminder about our personal obstacles; it is that Jesus was alive after being dead, and because of that there is eternal life in Christ.

The Bible teaches that humans are sinners in need of salvation, not merely salvation from bad things that happen to us in this life, but from the righteous anger of God against our sin and rebellion both individually and corporately as part of the human race. In 1 Thessalonians 1:10, the Bible reminds us “to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.” Jesus died to deliver us from the wrath of God, preaching and repeatedly warning of an impending judgment of the world, at which point God is going to pour out His wrath against the unredeemed, the ungodly, and the impenitent. The only hope of escape from that outpouring of divine wrath is to be covered by the atonement of Christ. Jesus’ work on the cross was to placate the wrath of God. He didn’t die by accident; it was the divine plan of God from the very beginning. He didn’t die because He took a risk of offending, He didn’t die merely as a martyr or an example, or as a general expression of love and acceptance toward all of humanity. He died as the perfect sacrifice, the One Saving Plan of God, to turn away God’s righteous anger and make possible a change of God’s disposition toward those who would repent and believe the Gospel. The idea of placating the wrath of God is not popular today. Some would say that it is beneath the dignity of God to think that we should have to do something to soothe Him or appease Him. But this is the very core of the biblical concept of salvation, not that we ourselves can do something to merit salvation, but that it has been done for us by God Himself in Christ. The only hope of escape from God’s wrath is to be covered by the atonement of Christ.

What Christ’s achieved on the cross is nothing less than the reality that He placated the wrath of God that is inherent in the nature and purpose of God and which condemns us if we not covered by the sacrifice of Christ. Further, the atonement at Calvary didn’t take away the sins of all of humanity and so leave us with a Gospel defined as merely a path to living a better life in this world since we’re all going to heaven anyway, about making one’s life better or to becoming part of a movement to “make the world a better place.” Many speak such ideas about “Jesus,” but they don’t acknowledge the real message of Jesus, which is the Gospel of the Holiness of God and His Law and the truth of our utter lostness in light of that. Without the real Gospel of salvation by God’s grace through faith and repentance, made possible by Jesus’ death and resurrection, human beings remain under the penalty of their sin. But there is no wrath for those whose sins have been paid. That is what salvation is all about. That is what The Cross – and the Resurrection – is all about.

The Bible says that everyone born in Adam is a sinner at birth and needs to repent of their own sin and look to Christ by Faith Alone. The apostle Paul in the letter to the Romans clearly explains this. All have sinned, and have fallen short of the glory of God, everyone born in Adam is an enemy of God and must be born from above as a supernatural work of God, a work that only the Holy Spirit can do by virtue of regeneration. A failure to do so will result in receiving the payment of their own sin–the wrath of God.

We understand the love of God only in this context. He doesn’t merely love us as His created beings. He doesn’t merely love us and accept us and affirm us and forgive us just as we are. He loves us far more than that. He loves us enough that “He became sin for us, Who knew no sin.” Christ the God-man became the sacrifice for those of the ages who simply by God’s grace through faith would believe the Gospel. God suffered and died on the cross for us! He loves us enough to forgive our rebellion – creature against Creator – by providing Himself as the only acceptable atonement for our sin. He loves us and forgives us on that basis. The Resurrection and empty tomb demonstrate that He has conquered sin and death for us and has given us eternal life. Good Friday is “good” because of the good news that if you accept Jesus as Lord and Savior you get eternal life with Him. It is “good” because He died on a Roman cross willingly as a substitute for you. He conquered death for you. On the cross the Father turned His back on Jesus as all of the sins of the world were placed on Him. Jesus bore our sin, guilt, and shame. And now you just need to trust Him.

The empty tomb guarantees the end of the dominion of death over those who believe the Gospel. In John 14:19, speaking to His disciples shortly before His arrest, Jesus told them, “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.”

“Because I live, you will live also.” That is the real meaning of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday.

Climate Change

Human-caused climate change is real. But I don’t think that it is based on carbon emissions.

I recently picked up an old paperback world history book in my library. This book was first published in the 1940’s, and I don’t agree with the the authors evolutionary presuppositions and philosophy. I noted that in the early chapters of the book, the author wrote of the advance and retreat of glaciation during prehistoric ages and the associated effects on the early development of civilization, which is the accepted position of most historians. Such climate change would precede any possible involvement by humans.

In recorded history, we know of many climate cycles. Causes and effects can be debated. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, roughly ninth to twelfth centuries AD, preceded the industrial era of human development, and it was followed by the Little Ice Age from about the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries AD. Seemingly, there has been a sustained period of slight, measurable warming since, with slight cooling periods included in that trend.

I recall as an elementary school student a publication used in school called “The Weekly Reader,” and I recall one memorable edition on the subject of global cooling and the possibility of a coming ice age. A search of records of “The National Geographic” and other publications from that era would reveal similar concerns, in light of the slight cooling period that began roughly mid-1940’s. In 1975, “Newsweek” published an article predicting a coming ice age. This concern was replaced a few years later, however, by concerns over global warming, as a slight warming trend began perhaps early 1970’s and continues to the present. The movie “An Inconvenient Truth” was produced in 2006, predicting all sorts of negative effects of global warming, and this helped advance the almost non-stop talk of global warming and anthropogenic climate change – climate change caused by human environmental pollution and production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses.

A number of years ago, several municipalities in the Colorado mountains considered a lawsuit against big oil companies, contending that fossil fuels produced by these companies was going to ruin the ski industry. Since then, there have been a couple of dry winters, especially in the southern part of the state, and several winters with normal and even above average snowfall. The ski industry is expanding, the mountain towns are flourishing, and their biggest problems center on transporting skiers and snow boarders from and back to Denver, and finding enough workers to accommodate their crowds. Over the last couple of decades, many Colorado forested areas have seen areas of dying pine trees caused by beetles, leading to large forest fires; the thought is that it hasn’t been cold enough for long enough during the winters to kill the beetle larvae due to climate change. As I write this, the US mid-west and eastern areas have just emerged from record cold weather due to a “polar vortex” phenomenon blamed on polar region warming. (Too bad the “climate gods” didn’t steer that cold further west to take out some beetles.) Unusual record snowfall has this winter hit Seattle and areas in the US northwest, likely, of course, because of climate change. Immigration issues have been blamed on global warming and climate change, as the effects of climate change prompt people to migrate. Every extreme weather event, every flood or famine, even wars, are blamed on anthropogenic climate change. Elements of the progressive Left have proposed their “Green New Deal,” a socialist fantasy to radically alter the American economy, fundamentally alter our way of life, and thus save the planet. The plan includes ending air travel, stopping American fossil fuel energy use, and even banning meat consumption.

Last summer, I visited the Pawnee National Grasslands in northeastern Colorado, basically in the middle of nowhere. The countryside near this pristine area was filled with giant wind power generation towers. A later trip through prairie and farmland in eastern Colorado and western Kansas featured mile after mile of views spoiled by these giant supposedly environmentally-friendly windmills. Photovoltaic solar panels are becoming commonplace on residential rooftops and in large solar power “farms.” More and more electric vehicles are on the roads. Somewhere down the road, the fact of toxic metals in the solar panels and in batteries will become an issue, but enough investment in such supposed environmentally friendly technology will save the planet; at least that is the thought.

Humans do have a responsibility to be good stewards of our planet and our environment. I’m glad that Denver’s winter time air pollution “brown cloud” is less of an issue than in the past. I’m glad that people can play in the South Platte river in central Denver, unthinkable fifty years ago due to pollution. I bemoan the urban sprawl along the Colorado front range. Efforts to protect clean air and water, to protect sensitive environmental areas, to use technology to decrease pollution and advance the quality of life, are to be lauded and encouraged.

There is validity to the concept that sometimes small actions can cause big results in the future. Call me a skeptic, but I don’t believe that what vehicle I drive or how many miles I drive it or how much meat I consume will have the slightest impact on the future temperature of any point on earth. Nevertheless, I do believe in human-caused climate change.

Psalm 2:4 tells us, “He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision.” This isn’t a reference to a divine sense of humor. God holds the vain imaginings and futile efforts of sinful humanity in derision.

In the opening section of the book of Genesis, we are told of God’s creation of our universe. We find the first created humans in Eden, an idyllic environment, in a world unspoiled by any pollution or imperfection, living in perfect harmony with their environment, themselves, and with God. And then, they rebelled against God; sin came, disaster happened. They lost their previous relationship with God, and were removed from Eden. Their posterity would be born with the effects of sin as part of their nature. But it wasn’t just human nature that was changed. Their relationship with nature changed, as the effects of sin came to be reflected in the world created for man’s home. Climate change came, caused not by carbon gas emissions, but because of man’s sin and rebellion against God.

Time passed, and human sin continued. God acted against the excesses of man’s sin by sending, in effect, a catastrophic climate event to destroy debauched human society. It seems evident in reading the Genesis account that the climate before the Flood was different than the climate after the Flood.

Everywhere we look, we see the magnificence of God in creation. Biology, chemistry, astronomy, meteorology, all sciences demonstrate the perfect creation of God. The nature of water and the associated hydrology cycle involving evaporation, atmospheric circulation, condensation, and precipitation regulates climate and weather (water vapor has far more “greenhouse gas” effect than carbon dioxide). The cycle of oxygen and carbon dioxide in perfect balance sustains plant and animal life. God’s grand design is everywhere evident. And yet everywhere we look, we also see the effects of the Fall, certainly in human affairs, but even in nature. Floods, droughts, wind storms, earthquakes, all express not the original intent of the Creator for man, but rather the effects of man’s sin and rebellion against God.

Again, we have a responsibility to be good stewards of our planet and our environment. Technology and human genius can and should be used to advance the condition of all people on the planet. But ultimately, we need to recognize that the future of the world is in God’s hands, not the vain imaginings of atheistic humanity.

Both the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament writers speak of cataclysmic events, including climate events, at the end of the current age that will precede the coming of Christ. Events that are not merely caused by greenhouse gas pollution but rather by the outpouring of God’s judgement against man’s sin. And these writers speak of a coming age when by God’s grace the redeemed of the ages will live in a perfect environment to eternally know, love, and serve Him.

On Faith and Repentance

In Luke 13, Jesus said, “There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”

I once heard the speaker at a local attractional megachurch reference this passage. He noted that the world is imperfect, and we should stop asking why and recognize that in this imperfect world, mistakes happen. Builders make mistakes; the tower fell; and bad things continue to happen in a broken world. He explained that to repent means to stop and rethink the way you think about God and suffering. We should align our life toward God, recognize that suffering is not God’s will, and He is not just waiting for you to screw up so He can punish you. God’s desire is to leverage our suffering, and so we should rethink our thinking about God. A well-know hypercharismatic personality has said that repentance means to go back to God’s perspective on reality, since “re” means to go back, and “pent” is like the penthouse, the top floor of a building, and so repent means to go back to God’s perspective on reality.

While change of mind toward God is certainly involved in repentance, it strikes me that these are inadequate expressions of the idea of repentance we find presented in Scripture, and further it strikes me that failure to understand true repentance undermines the doctrine of salvation and the very nature of the gospel. Repentance is an essential part of salvation. It is essential for a sinner who has offended God to turn from that sin. The repeated message of the Old Testament prophets centered on the need for repentance. The first recorded words Jesus preached, in Matthew 4:17, were “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” True repentance comes from the awareness that by nature we are fallen and we have done wrong, and repentance produces a desire and commitment to turn from our sin. The requirement for entrance into the kingdom of God is to repent and believe in the atoning work of Christ; repentance accompanies regeneration.

The Puritan writer Thomas Brooks wrote, “One of the devices of Satan is to persuade the soul that repentance is an easy work. . . . But repentance is a mighty work, a difficult work, a work beyond our power. . . . Repentance is a turning from darkness to light. It affects the sinner’s whole heart and life. It changes the heart from the power of sin unto God. Every sin strikes at the honor of God, the being of God, the glory of God, the heart of Christ, the joy of the Spirit, and the peace of a man’s conscience. A truly penitent soul strikes at all sin, hates all, and will labor to crucify all.” Second Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Another Puritan, John Owen, reflecting on this passage, wrote that “Regeneration does not consist in a mere moral reformation of life. It requires the infusion of a new, real, spiritual principle into the soul and its faculties. It brings spiritual life, light, holiness, righteousness, and the expulsion of the contrary, inbred, habitual principle of sin and enmity against God. This alone enables true acts of holy obedience. The principle of true regeneration always, certainly, and infallibly produces the reformation of the life intended. . . . Regeneration and reformation are inseparable.”

In Luke 18:13, a repentant tax-gatherer pleaded, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.” Pastor and author John MacArthur (“The Gospel According to Jesus,” page 32) reflecting on this passage wrote that “Repentance as Jesus characterized it in this incident involves a recognition of one’s utter sinfulness and a turning from self and sin to God (cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:9). Far from being a human work, it is the inevitable result of God’s work in a human heart. And it always represents the end of any human attempt to earn God’s favor. It is much more than a mere change of mind – it involves a complete change of heart, attitude, interest, and direction. It is a conversion in every sense of the word.” Further, “The Bible does not recognize faith that lacks this active element of active repentance. True faith is never seen as passive – it is always obedient.” In a sermon in 2000, MacArthur noted “What the sinner needs to do is not accept Jesus Christ or make a decision for Christ, but to repent and cry out and ask Jesus Christ to accept him in spite of his sin.

Failure to understand the necessity of repentance and the nature of the gospel of repentant faith has brought all sorts of problems. Many have been deceived into thinking they have been saved when really they have not. In recent decades, emotional manipulation was often used to invoke a response from people who really did not understand the gospel but responded to maudlin invitation hymns after being warned of the danger of Hell. It is relatively easy to “make a decision” to walk an aisle, sign a card, or repeat a repeat-after-me prayer after being handed a tract; it is another thing to acknowledge one’s sin and inability and call out to a Holy God in repentant faith. While some who responded to such appeals fell away, thankfully many did indeed understand and believe, and many later came to acknowledge the truth of the gospel and were truly born again.

But perhaps of much more danger is the total disregard of the idea of repentance we see today. Part of the issue is doctrinal; doctrine is seldom taught. Belief in original sin and the sin nature of humans is not an often-considered topic in the American church today and seems to be doubted by an increasing number of evangelicals. The holiness and just wrath of God is as likely to be downplayed or ridiculed as it is to be taught from the Bible. Positive thinking preachers are not likely to call people to repent and believe; they are more inclined to remind people of how much God loves them just as they are and try to motivate them to reach their full potential and be happy and not worry about much beyond that. Prosperity theology also centers more on human worthiness than on human sinfulness. The seeker-friendly and attractional church movement are loath to mention sin and judgement; that might offend and won’t help attract a target audience. People need to be attracted and have fun and be comfortably entertained so they keep coming. Maybe they’ll be inspired to make a decision and live a better life.

But Jesus came to seek us and save us from our sin. He did not come merely to save us from the consequences of the bad actions of others. He did not die on the cross just to aid us in overcoming our problems or circumstances. He did not die on the cross to make us happy, successful, or wealthy. He came as the One True Saving Plan of God. He came to die on the cross to atone for the sin, and the sins, of any and all who would repent and believe. He came to call us to stop loving sin and start loving God. He came to call us to both a changed mind and a changed life.

Thus, a repentant sinner should manifest brokenness and remorse over sin, and not just the consequences of sin. Repentance and renunciation of every sin should become an attitude and a way of life. Repentance calls us to turn from sin and embrace God. And when we do that, we will know the life of purpose, joy, and fulfillment God intends for us, both eternally and in the present.