GOD IS GOOD | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 27, 1901

GOD IS GOOD.

HE is only good. His character is love. He therefore created or made only that which is good. He created man “upright.” His finished work of creation He, in His infinite knowledge, pronounced “very good.” There is no evil in Him or in His works.

Sin and evil are the perversions of good. In God righteousness is outflowing, fruit-bearing, blessing others, and flowing back of itself upon the giver thru unnumbered channels.

Sin is the perversion of God’s blessing to self, from without inward. Hatred is perverted love; it is so much love of self that the opposer of self is hated. Men hate those who are not in harmony with self.

In the beginning man’s flesh was good. Ruled by the Spirit, it would have borne good fruit. But sin perverted its every function. “The works of the flesh” are now evil, or perverted good. “Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness” are but manifestations of perverted or inordinate love. “Idolatry, witchcraft,” are perversions of true worship. “Hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife,” etc., are perversions of love to self, the transgressions of the commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Yet the power in all these workings is of God. Sin has no power in itself; it is wholly negative. “The strength of sin is the law.” 1 Cor. 15: 56. God’s power is in His law. It is in every precept and word of His law. The law was “ordained unto life.” Rom. 7: 10. Forever it would have ministered to life if it had not been perverted; but, perverted, love is hatred, righteousness is sin, and the perversion brings death.

Herein is the wisdom of God. There are no surprises in His government. He does not say arbitrarily that the transgressor against Him shall die because what he does displeases God; but in the very perversion of the power and life, in the transgressed law, is death.

No rebellion, therefore, can overthrow God’s government; for every rebellion against absolute goodness has within itself the seeds of death, the precursor of its sure end.

But God does not want man, the rebel, to die. He did not want Satan, he who was once Lucifer, to die. “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live.”

Were it not for God’s mercy, all who have chosen sin would long ago have perished. He spares them, nay, more, pours out His life upon them, that He may exhaust His love, if necessary, in endeavoring to win them back to love and life.

Yet, tho God does this continually, men pervert the life, and charge God with the evil. Could there be worse ingratitude? He showed how great His love by giving His only Son to die to win men back. That Son “gave Himself.” Yet men pervert even this, and charge God with cruelty. O soul, come to God as He is, and find in Him all that He wants to be to you, a God of infinite love, and only love!