“In the God of Scripture we find a Lord who is all-powerful and supremely good! This is good news for us, because a God who is great but not good is an all-powerful monster. A God who is good but not great cannot save us. Sadly, many people think they have to choose either/or, but that does not have to be the case.”

God isn’t the “Big Man Upstairs.”

We tend to imagine God as the “Big Man Upstairs.” He is someone like us, only bigger, smarter, and more powerful. Yet, God is in a class all by himself. In the God of Scripture we find a Lord who is all-powerful and supremely good! This is good news for us, because a God who is great but not good is an all-powerful monster. A God who is good but not great cannot save us. Sadly, many people think they have to choose either/or, but that does not have to be the case.

God’s goodness is the very foundation of his greatness. His power is not arbitrary or capable of evil. As C. S. Lewis reminds us, his goodness is his power to create us for himself:

God has no needs. Human love… is caused by a real or supposed goal in its beloved which the lover needs and desires. But God’s love, far from being caused by goodness in the object, causes all the goodness which the object has, loving it first into existence, and then into real, though derivative, lovability. God is Goodness. He can give good, but cannot need or get it. In that sense, his love is, as it were, bottomlessly selfless by very definition; it has everything to give, and nothing to receive (The Problem of Pain [HarperOne, 1996], 43).

In the eternal love of the Trinity, God has existed in perfect harmony, peace, love, and faithfulness. His greatness is seen specifically in the fact that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). This is also his goodness. In his independent, unchanging nature, he has decided to share that love with us. He brings the whole world into a relationship with himself according to his eternal purpose and wisdom.

God created the world in real freedom and love, giving humans the power to choose good and evil. Even though we have chosen evil for ourselves, God does not change. Mysteriously, God’s eternal plan governs all things, including our free actions.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The link (URL) to the original article is unavailable and has been removed.]