Truly God is good (Psalm 73:1). God orients all things to Himself for the goal of representing the overflowing bounty of His own nature.
Eternal life is a gift that overflows from God’s own abundance of goodness, not from any obligation of right. This gift does not result from the dignity of our works, but from the magnificent bounty of the divine nature. We can obtain it solely through the steadfastness of God’s promise: the work of our creature services is profitless in eternal life.
From the book “Boundlessly Good”
It is the disease of corrupted human nature to hope and strive for eternal life through the covenant of works….. Men set too high a value on their performances. Sinful creatures (men) would rather have God in their debt and so purchase righteousness and eternal joy. They do not want it simply given to them by God’s sovereign bounty; instead, they hope to attain it by an obligation … (by God) for the “value” of their works.
From the book “Boundlessly Good”
A creature’s (man’s) duty and God’s gift of eternal life are not tied together like a bargain and sale. God gives to the creature and the creature cannot repay God – if a creature could repay God, it suggests that the creature could offer something of equal value and worth.
When God crowns angels and men, He bestows on them purely what is His own and not what is theirs by merit or natural obligation. Indeed, what God gives is given by His gracious obligation to a prior promise which He has made.
From the book “Boundlessly Good”
Eternal life cannot be expected from integrity of human nature, but only from the goodness of God…….God owes nothing to even the holiest creature. What He gives is a present from His bounty, not the reward of that creature’s merit.
From the book “Boundlessly Good”
Divine goodness communicates itself to a vast number of creatures in various degrees— to angels, glorified spirits, men on earth, to every creature— and when it has communicated all the goodness that the present world is capable of holding, God’s goodness still would not be emptied. All possible living creatures are not capable of exhausting the wealth and the treasures that fill divine bounty.
From the book “Boundlessly Good”
Prologue
Encountering the Goodness of God
And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.” (Mark 10: 18)
Our Savior replied this way to a petition concerning eternal life. While Christ was teaching throughout the area of Judea, a young man came running to Him, eagerly entreating Him to say what he should do to inherit everlasting life.
Luke described the young man by his dignity, calling him “a ruler,” or a person who held some authority among the Jews (Luke 18: 18). The young ruler asked Christ a legal question, “What must I do?” or, as Matthew wrote, “What good deed must I do to have eternal life?” (Matthew 19: 16). The young man imagined that everlasting joy was available for purchase through the works of the law. He did not carry the smallest seeds of faith. Christ’s answer implies that unless they were perfect and able to fulfill every divine precept, works of the law gave no hope of happiness in another world.
Yet Christ loved the young ruler (Mark 10: 21), who did not address Him with falseness or hypocrisy and who did not intend to test or provoke Christ, only to be instructed by Him. The young ruler came with an ardent desire, asking to be satisfied. He offered Christ a solemn act of respect by kneeling to Him and prostrating himself on the ground. Christ, with the knowledge He had of the hearts and thoughts of men and the abhorrence He had of hypocrites, would have known if the young ruler had been false in his question. The young ruler’s question was sincere, but the first reply Christ makes to him concerns the title that the young ruler gave Him: “Good Master.”
Some think that Christ intended to draw him into an acknowledgment of Christ’s own Godhood: You acknowledge Me “good,” but why do you salute Me with so great a title— one that you do not even give to your greatest doctors? You must believe Me to be God since you believe Me to be “good,” which is an attribute only rightly due to the Supreme Being. If you take Me for a common man, how can you salute Me in a manner proper to God? No man is “good,” no, not one, but the heart of man is evil continually.
From the book “Boundlessly Good”
“O taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34: 8). God doesn’t say “look to see,” or “listen to see,” or “touch to see,” or “smell to see.” He uses the most personal, internal sense to describe the risk in finding out just how good God really is. Taste. The Lord is good. Read more
Boundlessly Good 