Goodness is the eternal principle of God’s nature out of which He communicates of His own blessedness and excellence to all those He has made.
“The Lord is good to all” (Ps 145:9).
Because God is only good, we know that He is good to all His creatures. God is always good in all His ways with all men.
We see His gracious ways with men who do not acknowledge Him from the earliest history. He did not withhold natural abilities from Cain’s descendants, after Cain went out from the presence of the Lord (Gen 4:16). By His enabling, Cain’s descendants established animal husbandry, the arts, and metallurgy (4:20-22).
So it has been to this day in every field of human endeavor and accomplishment. God is the Source and Enabler of all the good (whether great and transforming or momentary and insignificant) that any of His creatures endeavor, achieve, practice, and experience.
a. God’s love achieves its total satisfaction in being governed by His commitment to always only desire, think, will, and act in keeping with what is good — what is worthy of His approval.
God's nature is love (1 John 4:8). It is God's nature to act in such a way as to give freely and generously of His goodness for the blessing of His creatures.
b. His goodness to those in misery or distress is God's mercy.
“His tender mercies are over all His works” (Ps 145:9).
“His mercy (lovingkindness) endures forever” (Ps 136).
“The Lord sustains all who fall,
And raises up all who are bowed down” (Ps 145:14).
c. His goodness toward those who don't deserve it is God's grace.
This same self-giving nature is constantly being expressed in every human life, even though men are, by nature, His enemies. In His determination to be good toward those who actually deserve His punishment, God chooses that which is most worthy of approval and determines to take our punishment on Himself in His Son.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
“But God demonstrates His Own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:23-24).
We receive the opposite of what we deserve.
“He Who did not spare His Own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (Rom 8:32).
(Spotlight 3, Lesson 9 in Doctrine 101: Learning about God)