Gospel Guidebook: Getting and Keeping It Right 
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Only God is Good
by Robert P. TerryUpdated January 25, 2025
In Mark 10:18, Jesus said, "No one is good except God alone." Taken at face value, Jesus is telling us that there is no inherent goodness outside of God. If only God is good, does this goodness obligate Him to do good to all? In one sense, God always does good because He is God, and by definition all His actions are good. However, we should not assume that the goodness of God corresponds to man's understanding of it. This is obvious from Jesus' rebuke of Peter, "for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's" (Matthew 16:23). In other words, what God considers to be good does not always align with man's natural expectations. God does good to all in the sense that all play a role in attaining the purpose for which God created the world. However, if we consider God's goodness from the perspective of individual human happiness, the realities of life should be enough to convince anyone that God is obviously under no such obligation to make everyone happy. In James 1:17 we read, "Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow." From this, we can see that God does not bestow good things indiscriminately. We can see examples of this in the miracles of Jesus. For instance, in John 5 we read of Jesus going into Jerusalem and coming to the pool of Bethesda. John tells us that in this area laid "a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered." However, among this multitude, Jesus only healed one person, a man who suffered with a sickness for 38 years. Jesus was under no obligation to heal anyone, but acted out of sheer mercy. And this coincides with what we read in James 1:18, "In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures." In verse 1:17, we read that every good thing is a gift from God, and now in verse 1:18, we see that the bestowal of good things, such as the new birth, is in accordance with the exercise of His will. Only God is good, but He is not obligated to bestow good things indiscriminately. Another example would be the preaching of the kingdom of God. It is the proclamation that God has brought His goodness near to man, and that through Jesus Christ it is accessible to man. The kingdom of God is that perfect world of goodness where, like God himself, "there is no variation, or shifting shadow." Wherever it is preached, it is preached indiscriminately to all people, and yet we find that people have "loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil." If it were not but for the exercise of His will to "bring some forth by the word of truth," then no one would ever enter into His kingdom. The goodness of God should never be taken for granted. Man has no entitlement to it. God is not a slave to man, but man is a slave to God. In light of this, how shall we not fear Him and walk humbly with Him, knowing that He guards His good things jealously and only bestows them on whom He wishes? And how shall we not seek Him, knowing that He is a rewarder of those who do so? Praise God in His holy place, for He dwells in a realm completely set apart from His creatures, and it is only as dependent slaves that we have the privilege to come, bow down, and worship this great God in expectation of enjoying His bounty with every creature so blessed to behold His beauty.