Why is Good So Good?

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| Modern Idolatry series |

• Can Society Be An Idol?
• Have We Idolized Reason?
• Why is Good So Good?
• Why is Faith the Answer to Sin?

More Than Righteousness

There are some verses in the Bible that challenge our use of the word “good”. I think we often get confused, thinking that “good” is the same as “righteous”. There are so many verses in the Bible that show us that there’s so much more to the story than rules and “righteousness”:

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.

Romans 5:7

Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time?

Ecclesiastes 7:16-17

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

Colossians 2:20-23

Throughout the story of creation, God repeatedly declares that things are good without mentioning anything about rules. There is so much more to “good” than rules. God intentionally used a word that should get us interested/excited (“good”) not a word that feels weighty and difficult (“rules”). Whereas our idea of “righteousness” emphasizes following the rules as the goal, “good” instead is meant to emphasize our benefit as the goal.

What Happens When We Get Good Wrong?

We saw last time that God alone defines good and evil. Anytime we decide for ourselves what’s good and what’s evil, we repeat the sin of Adam and Eve when they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Whenever we try to take on God’s role and decide good and evil we will inevitably miss the mark. This is what God warns about in Isaiah 5:20:

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

Isaiah 5:20

He starts by telling us that we often take something evil and call it good. As He describes it further though, we can begin to understand why this is a problem.

Darkness for Light

What is God describing when He talks about putting “darkness for light”? Consider these other verses where light emphasizes being able to see clearly, knowing what’s what, knowing what’s true:

The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble.

Proverbs 4:19

But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.

John 11:10

Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.

Matthew 15:14

As one example of this, in our culture, oftentimes faith in God is considered foolishness. There’s this notion that if you believe in God it’s like you’re living in the dark ages, holding us back from understanding the way the world actually functions. But, as we discussed in our post God and Reason, faith in God actually serves to make sense of the scientific evidence we have. In other words, the light of faith in God that actually explains how things came to be is called darkness in our culture. On the other hand, rejecting the idea of God literally leaves us in the dark for how everything came to exist. And what do we call that darkness? We call it being “enlightened”.

Fundamentally, when we take something evil and call it good (or take something good and call it evil), God is telling us that we are rejecting the light and choosing to live in darkness. Rather than being able to know the truth, we’re forced to live in a world where we aren’t even sure if truth exists.

What’s more, these verses show us that living in the dark has consequences, causing us to stumble and fall into a pit. Let’s explore this further through the other phrase in Isaiah 5: “bitter for sweet”.

Bitter for Sweet

What is this verse in Isaiah is telling us? When we take something evil and pretend that it’s good, we are taking something that’s actually bitter and imagine that it’s sweet. Let’s think about that imagery. This is saying that things that are good for us are actually sweet: enjoyable, pleasurable, beneficial. By contrast, things that are evil are actually bitter: unpleasant, painful, hurtful.

When God is teaching us what’s good, He’s not doing so to limit our joy, but so that our joy may be full (see our post Satisfying Our Desire for Pleasure). You see, God made all of life’s good and pleasurable things (like sex). Moreover, He also made us; He made our ability to enjoy these good things. In giving us the commands (like don’t commit adultery or don’t watch pornography), He was giving us the instruction manual for life, showing us how to get the most out of life’s good things.

We are His children; He doesn’t want us to get hurt. That’s why He calls anything harmful to us evil. He loves us; He wants us to fully experience joy. That’s why He calls anything beneficial good. This is why we should look to Him to define good and evil for us, because He is trying to teach us what’s good for us and what will do damage. God asks us to trust Him rather than look to anything else to define good and evil so that we might live life to the fullest.

So, as we see where we’re leaning on another definition of good and evil, let’s get excited! We haven’t found another rule we need to follow; we’ve found what is holding us back from joy!