“And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.”
Exodus 34:36-37
The Most High is a good God and all the work of His hands are good. As a matter of fact, after creating the whole universe God observed everything He has made to be in a very good state. Genesis 1:34;
“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good…”
Everything that was made by God was good and was without anything that defiles. This then implies that the Lord God placed in the hands of mortal man a good and beautiful universe. Interestingly, man was himself an entity of the universe and was also created good.
However man’s gullibility in the Garden of Eden to the deceit of Lucifer (the banished and fallen arc angel from the presence of the Most High) brought chaos and disharmony into the universe. Irrespective of the craftiness of the adversary, man’s obedience to the voice of Lucifer in eating out of the forbidden fruit led to his disobedience to the instruction of abstinence given to him by God to stay away from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The point here is that, chaos and disharmony was brought into this world by man’s disobedience in not honoring the “goodness” of the Lord. It was as a result of “His goodness” that the Lord God instructed man not to touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. One may ask why? A simple answer to that is that the tree was not meant for man. It suffices to point out here that the garden of Eden was strictly meant for God. The truth of the aforementioned can be crystallized using the Holy Scriptures. The Most High said the following to Lucifer as found in the book of Ezekiel 28:13;
“Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God…”
An extraction of the phrase “…Eden the garden of God…” from the scripture above readily present God as the sole owner of the Garden. It was God’s garden and as such man’s safety in it should be strictly guided by the Instructions given to him by the owner. But because of “His goodness” he placed mortal man in the garden and warned him to desist away from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil simply because it was not meant for him.
The instruction of abstinence away from the tree of knowledge was good and perfect. In fact in order to make known to man how deadly the tree was, the Lord God had to place a curse of death upon it. God’s warning to Adam could be rephrased in the following sense “Hey man the day you eat out of this tree I’ll kill you”. See Genesis 2:17;
“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
The aftermath of eating out of the forbidden tree made man to become conscious of evil, he could no longer do anything good which can be pleasing to his maker. In other words, that which is defined “good” by man is before God “evil”. The art of practicing evil and wickedness became a major attribute of man. This attribute is obvious in every generation of man that has been. See Genesis 6:5;
“And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
It should be noted that all human generations were in the loins of the first man (Adam) when he fell for the deceit of Lucifer into eating out of the forbidden tree. Apparently, the knowledge of evil was passed on to everyone from one generation to the other. No wonder the Psalmist exclaimed the following as seen in Psalm 51:5;
“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
Apostle Paul also noted that the scriptures have concluded everyone under sin because we all came through the first man (Adam) who was in a fallen state. Galatians 3:22;
“But the scripture hath concluded all under sin…”
There are no exemptions to this rule. Irrespective of the background or religion, all has been concluded under sin. It is a spiritual principle which should be noted. The Patriarch David noted in one his Psalms the state of man as seen by the Most high. Psalm 14:1-3;
1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.
3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
The phrase “… there is none that doeth good, no, not one…” in verse 3 of the scriptures shown above clearly shows us the degenerate state of man. He is simply not good before God, he has been condemned by God and in need of a great help from God. Apostle Paul was bold and repeated the words of the Psalmist as seen in Romans 3:10-11;
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
It was all these revelations that made Apostle Paul to boldly declare that the scriptures have concluded all to be under sin. The first man (Adam) was a seed that was meant to bring all into the goodness of God through righteousness. However he (Adam) failed in this regard. This readily clarifies and justifies the state of man. Evil is present with him (man), he cannot do good and need to be delivered from the power of sin. See the words of Apostle Paul again as found in Romans 7:18-21;
18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
It is crystal from the scriptures above that although the natural man have the knowledge of good in him he does not however have the power to execute that which can be consider good and pleasing before God. Let us examine verse 7 of the scriptures above with an interlinear which reads thus;
For I am aware that good is not making its home in me (that is, in my flesh), for to will is lying beside me, yet to be effecting the ideal is not.
The words spoken by Apostle Paul portrays a genuine pathos of the degenerate state of the natural man “… for to will is lying beside me, yet to effecting the ideal is not”. It is as if the power which was meant to effect that which is good in man has been imploded by that which is evil. The implication of the aforementioned then is that man cannot be both good and evil otherwise God would have given him both knowledge at creation. At creation man was created with the knowledge of good and was warned to desist away from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because he cannot have both knowledge in him otherwise evil will rule over him. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was placed in the garden as an insignia meant to signify God as the one and only eternal Judge. It portrays God as been infinite in knowledge. Consequently man needs to be delivered from the power of evil which has taken over him.
SO WHAT’S THE WAY OUT?
The one and only way out is to accept and honor “His Goodness”. The Mercies of the Most High is born out of His Goodness. There cannot be “Mercy” without “Goodness”. In other words the product of “His Goodness” is simply “Mercy”. It appears from the foregoing that goodness and mercy are associative. Interestingly, grace is birthed out from His mercy. The same is true about His love which is the product of His grace. There couldn’t have been about God’s love without “His Goodness”. Thus we may say that wherever or whenever “God’s Goodness” is lacking or absent then the God kind of love (Zoe) which is a direct product of grace is also absent. The point we are trying to establish here is that the end product of Grace is simply the love of God. With respect to the aforementioned, the following order is established:
GOODNESS ⇒ MERCY ⇒ GRACE ⇒ LOVE
As a matter of fact what leads a man to repenting from his wicked ways is simply “His Goodness”. No wonder Apostle Paul warned that the goodness of God should not be despised or lightly esteemed. See Romans 2:4;
Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
“His Goodness” has been extended to man as an end product of “His Love”. This action was demonstrated by God in giving His Son as the only source of propitiation for the “sin” of the world. See John 3:16;
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Accepting and believing in the Son is the only means by which the power of good can be activated in man. It then follows that anyone who accepts the Son is cleansed and delivered from the power of evil and its sins. The action of accepting and believing the Son then triggers in the delivered man the freedom to do that which is good. This is possible because of “His Goodness”. Glory to God.