The Overarching Goodness of God Text: Psalm 145:8-9
Introduction: A Universe of Personal Benevolence
We live in a world that is desperate to have it both ways. On the one hand, our secular culture wants to talk about goodness, compassion, and kindness. They want to build a society on these concepts. But on the other hand, they have completely rejected the only possible foundation for them. They want a kind world, but they believe it all came from an impersonal, cosmic accident. They want compassion to be a universal value, but they believe we are nothing more than evolved protoplasm, the result of time and chance acting on matter.
This is to build a house on the sand, and the tide of consequence is coming in. You cannot get personality from the impersonal. You cannot get kindness from cosmic chaos. You cannot get a moral law from a universe that is, at bottom, just particles and energy. To speak of goodness without God is to speak nonsense. It is to use a word that you have stolen from the vocabulary of a worldview you claim to despise.
The book of Psalms, and these verses in particular, presents us with the only coherent alternative. The universe is not a cold, empty void. It is not governed by blind, pitiless indifference. Rather, it is the handiwork of a personal God, and that God has a character. He is not a distant, deistic watchmaker, and He is certainly not the capricious, lustful, and petulant deity of the pagans. The God of Scripture, Yahweh, has a nature, and David here, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gives us a magnificent summary of that nature. This is the bedrock of reality. This is why anything is good at all. All the little bits of kindness, mercy, and patience you see in the world are derivative. They are echoes, reflections, and streams that flow from this one great Fountainhead.
But we must also be careful. Our sentimental age wants to take these glorious truths and turn them into a sort of divine indulgence. They want a God who is gracious and compassionate in a way that makes Him tolerant of sin. They want a God who is slow to anger in a way that means He never actually gets angry. They want a God whose goodness to all means that, in the end, there is no ultimate distinction between the righteous and the wicked. But that is not the God of this Psalm. The same Psalm that declares His compassion is over all His works also declares that He "destroys all the wicked" (v. 20). Our task is to believe all of it, to hold it all together, and to worship the God who is, not the God we have edited into a more comfortable shape.
The Text
Yahweh is gracious and compassionate; Slow to anger and great in lovingkindness.
Yahweh is good to all, And His compassions are over all His works.
(Psalm 145:8-9 LSB)
The Four Pillars of Divine Mercy (v. 8)
We begin with verse 8, which is a portrait of God's covenant heart. This is not the first time this description appears in Scripture; it is a central part of God's self-revelation to Moses in Exodus 34:6-7.
"Yahweh is gracious and compassionate; Slow to anger and great in lovingkindness." (Psalm 145:8)
Let us take these four descriptions one by one. First, Yahweh is gracious. Grace is unmerited favor. It is God giving us what we do not deserve. It is not just that God sometimes does gracious things; it is His very nature to be gracious. He is the fountain of all grace. This is a direct assault on every religion of human merit. Every other religious system is about man doing things to earn the favor of the divine. Christianity is about God, out of His own gracious character, giving His favor to undeserving men. We are not saved by our performance; we are saved by His grace.
Second, He is compassionate. If grace is getting what we do not deserve, compassion, or mercy, is not getting what we do deserve. We deserve wrath. We deserve judgment. We deserve to be cast out of His presence forever. Compassion is God withholding the righteous sentence that we have earned. He sees our misery, our self-inflicted wounds, our pitiful state, and He is moved with pity. This is not a detached, sterile pity. The Hebrew word here speaks of a deep, visceral feeling, like a mother's love for the child of her womb. It is a profound, heartfelt care for the miserable.
Third, He is slow to anger. This does not mean He is never angry. Do not make that mistake. The Bible is filled with the wrath of God against sin and rebellion. A God who is not angry at evil is not a good God. But His anger is not like our anger. It is not a hair-trigger, irritable, selfish petulance. God is patient. He endures long. He gives space for repentance. Think of the patience He showed with Israel in the wilderness, or the patience He shows with our own nation today. His slowness to anger is what keeps the world from being consumed in a moment. But slow does not mean never. A long fuse is still attached to a great powder keg. His patience is a gift, an opportunity, and it must not be presumed upon.
Fourth, He is great in lovingkindness. This is that great Hebrew word, hesed. It is one of the most important words in the Old Testament. It means covenant loyalty, steadfast love, unfailing kindness. This is not a generic, sentimental love. This is God's absolute commitment to be faithful to His promises and to His people. Grace is for the undeserving, mercy is for the miserable, and hesed is for His covenant family. It is the promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us, that His love for those in Christ is as fixed and unshakeable as His own throne.
The Universal Benevolence of the Creator (v. 9)
Verse 9 broadens the scope. It moves from God's specific covenant character to His general relationship with all of creation.
"Yahweh is good to all, And His compassions are over all His works." (Psalm 145:9 LSB)
This is a crucial doctrine, often called common grace. "Yahweh is good to all." This means every human being, regenerate or unregenerate, experiences the goodness of God. The sun shines on the evil and the good. The rain falls on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45). The atheist who gets up in the morning, breathes God's air, eats food that grew in God's soil, and uses a mind God gave him to deny God's existence is a walking, talking monument to the truth of this verse. Every good thing, every pleasure, every moment of beauty, every instance of justice or kindness in a pagan culture, is a gift from this good God.
This does not mean that all are saved. We must distinguish between God's common grace and His saving grace. His goodness to all is a real, tangible goodness, but it does not abrogate their rebellion or remove His coming wrath. It is, in fact, what makes their rebellion so heinous. They receive His kindness and use it to fuel their sin. As Paul says in Romans, God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4). For those who refuse, that same kindness will be a witness against them on the day of judgment.
And notice the magnificent scope: "His compassions are over all His works." This is an archway of mercy that stretches over the entire creation. From the greatest galaxy to the smallest insect, everything that exists is sustained and cared for by the tender mercies of God. The sparrow that falls to the ground does not do so outside of His compassionate notice. This is a direct refutation of the pagan worldview, where nature is a realm of chaos and brutal, impersonal forces. No, the Bible says that all of creation is God's handiwork, and His fatherly compassion is over it all.
This truth should shape our entire disposition. It should make us thankful. Every meal, every sunny day, every healthy child is a direct gift from this good God. It should also make us humble. We are not entitled to any of it. We are rebels, and the fact that we are not in hell at this very moment is a testament to the truth of these verses. And it should make us confident in our witness. We are not presenting a foreign god. We are telling people about the God they already know, the God whose goodness they experience every day, the God against whom they are sinning, and the God who offers them not just common grace, but saving grace in the person of His Son.
Living Under the Arch of Mercy
So what do we do with this? We must see that these two verses give us the rhythm of a sane and godly life. We live our lives under the great arch of His universal compassion. We acknowledge His goodness in everything, to everyone. We see the world not as a random collection of facts, but as a theater of God's goodness.
But within that universal goodness, we who are in Christ experience something far deeper and more profound. We experience His grace, His compassion, His patience, and His hesed in a saving, covenantal way. We have not just received the rain and the sun; we have received the Son. We have not just been given breath in our lungs; we have been given the breath of the Holy Spirit, raising us from spiritual death.
The character of God described here is the engine of our salvation. Because He is gracious, He sent His Son for us while we were yet sinners. Because He is compassionate, He forgives our sins when we cry out to Him. Because He is slow to anger, He bears with our stumbling and sanctifies us patiently over a lifetime. And because He is great in lovingkindness, He will hold us fast to the very end and bring us home.
Therefore, our response should be praise. This entire Psalm is an explosion of praise. When you see God for who He truly is, the only appropriate response is to extol Him, to bless His name forever and ever. We are to talk about this. We are to tell our children about it. We are to declare His mighty acts. We are to remember that sin is bad, all the time, but the goodness of God overarches and outranks everything else, including the wickedness that He is engaged in destroying. We live on His mercy seat. His tender mercies are the arch over our lives. Let us therefore live like it, with joy, with confidence, and with unending gratitude.