The Character of God is a subject of great importance to man. God is
the Supreme Personal Spirit, yet to know only this is to leave out a
very vital part in our estimation or knowledge of God. We desire to
know and feel that God is not only the greatest, but the best being in
the universe. Hence God is shown to us in the Bible to be inwardly
perfect and outwardly consistent with this perfection. The Old
Testament shows a struggle between God and man; God seeking to bring
man to the thinking of right thoughts and doing of right actions and
man resisting Him. The history of Israel is a story of a nation whom
God would make a righteous people; all the laws given to it, civil,
sanitary and ceremonial, were with the end in view to make it "a holy
nation"; all its prophets and teachers proclaim the righteous and just
character of God (Exodus 19:6; Leviticus 11:45; 19:2; 20:7, 8; Numbers
15:40; Deuteronomy 14:2,21; Joshua 24:19; Psalm 22:3; 99:3; 111:9;
Isaiah 6:3; 57:15). In Jesus Christ and His life upon earth we see the
goodness of God in its largeness. "In His gospel holiness is the
ideal, the substance of Christian character and the end in view in
Christian experience." He says, in the Sermon on the Mount, "Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect"
(Matthew 5:48).
In Christ we have the one perfect ideal of moral excellence. In Him we
can see what goodness in God means (John 14:9).
The standard for the conduct of man is that of God's goodness,
righteousness and truth; this is not a double one--the Old and the New
Testament--but a single one and applicable to all men of all races and
climes.
"If sin exists holiness in God must absolutely and forever oppose
it. From the holiness in God's character we can understand His
righteousness and justice. The man who does evil sets his will
against God's will and against the principle upon which He conducts
the universe. Such a man has placed himself where he must either turn
back and forsake his sin or take the inevitable consequences of
resisting the purpose which God is fulfilling."
God's love for man is bound up with His goodness. God, foreseeing the
fearful consequences of man's sinning, seeks in every way to warn and
turn him back from the evil way. He knows the great worth of the soul
and desires to save it to everlasting joy (John 3:17; Luke 9:56; John
14:1-3).