In Part 1, "God's ‘Love’ Revealed," we explored Genesis 1:4 and learned how God 'saw' and this act of "seeing" conveys a deep relationship with and ‘love’ for His creation. Now, in this second installment, we continue our journey by examining God's declarations of 'good'-ness and their implications for understanding God as the divine 'judge' and His purpose for all things.
The term 'judge' might seem like a deviation from our previous discussion about God's 'seeing' and falling in love. However, 'judge' is another aspect of Jesus revealed by 'see' and 'good.' The Hebrew word translated as God in Genesis 1, Elohim, represents the aspect of God we would call 'judge' or judgment. To 'judge' here doesn't primarily mean to condemn; rather, it speaks to God discerning the true nature of His creation with intimate care and purpose.
Jesus follows this pattern, as seen in Matthew 9:35-36, we witness his compassionate judgment upon the desperate needs of the people.
Here Comes the Judge
Imagine the scene: first God 'saw.' What He ‘saw’ He ‘judged;’ In His judgment, beholding the goodness before Him, it was 'good.'
We can see this pattern in Jesus, who, like His Father, ‘saw’ and ‘judged.’ In Matthew 9:35-36, we can envision how when Jesus saw the crowds, whose needs were desperate, we read, "seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, ..."
It was an act of divine insight beyond mere optics. He saw them — He perceived their need. Inspecting them with regard, He knew them intimately, understood their need and regarded them in such a way that He had compassion for them and addressed both their physical and spiritual needs. In other words, Jesus 'judged’ them: His discernment revealed they needed something only He could give, and He gave it to them.
Good or Perfect?
Now let's turn our attention to the second word of interest in verse 4: ‘good.’ What constitutes ‘good’ in the Creator’s eyes? The Hebrew for ‘good’ is Tovah. Tovah, ‘good,’ does not mean perfect. God does not declare night and day or for that matter any of creation, as perfect but as ‘good.’ Hebrew has several words that depict the concept of perfection. Tovah is not one of them. When it wants to, the Old Testament can describe things as perfect. For instance, it does this when demanding that every sacrifice offered must be perfect (Lev 22:21); or it declares the law of the Lord to be perfect (Ps 19:7). The word behind these instances of perfection is Tamim or some variation on it – complete, whole, sound, … perfect. "
Tovah is 'Good'
Tovah (‘good’) doesn't imply perfection but rather it speaks to purpose. God chooses to focus on creation's goodness rather than its perfection. The pattern is this: God ’saw’ the formless void and spoke into this formlessness and emptiness, structure, and purpose. He judged that it now conformed to the pattern of the words He had spoken into it. In other words, it has ceased to be formless and, by responding to (obeying) His spoken words, it has become 'good' — what He intended it to be. Perfection was not the goal, but ‘good’-ness.
Divine Alignment
Completeness is what is in mind here. When compared to not good, used later (Genesis 2:18 a), we can imply that it was incomplete. That all creation was 'very good' (Genesis 1:31) tells us that all was complete and fully aligned. This is born out in the Greek of James’s words – Be perfect as …. nothing lacking (James 1:4), perfect might be better translated as mature or complete. Now that the female human had been created, what was 'good' became very 'good.'
Immediately, God did something very surprising. He took, night & day, sun moon and stars, and all of creation, all of which he declared 'good', and gave them to the man created in His image (Genesis 1:27-30; 2:18). Once more He surveyed His creation and 'saw' this creation and the humans to whom He had delegated it and judged it and them to be very ‘good’. (Ge 1:31)
Tovah (‘good’) is, in some translations, translated as beautiful. We see this to be so in the description of baby Moses where, in some translations, Tovah is translated as beautiful (Heb 11:23; Ex 2:2). We know Moses was not perfect. However, he is described as Tovah (‘good’).
Purpose
What we are to understand is not that Moses was not an extraordinarily featured baby so much so that God found him irresistibly cute. We are to understand that he was 'good' in that he was aligned with and suited for the purpose for which he was created. This is how God lets us know that He is inserting himself into Israel’s story by this baby He has created. Like creation, Moses was 'good.' Both Moses and creation, upon God's inspection, were a marvel to behold. They were found to comply with God's instructions to them.
Another way tovah can be translated is as useful or proper. From this aspect, we can see that the creation was useful. For what? For God's purpose. That it was ‘good’ and useful means it is aligned with God's purpose. Creation has a purpose. What is that purpose? To declare God and reveal His character. But, to whom?
'Good'-ness Lost
Rebellion by its very nature declares that whoever is being rebelled against is neither ‘good’ nor proper. Could it be that God wanted to display Himself, first by creation, then by delegation to His creation, and ultimately by restoration through redemption?
'Good' is not a lowered standard to which God settled as He created. It is the standard at which He aimed. He later rants against those who call 'good' evil and call evil 'good' (Isa 5:20; Ge 1:26-28; Ro 1:18-20).
Isn't that the first accusation we see in the garden? When the serpent calls into question God's motives and trustworthiness He is calling God (who is 'good') evil. The serpent's accusation, and Adam and Eve’s subsequent rebellion, declared that God was not 'good 'nor was He able to create anything of lasting 'good'-ness or beauty.
Summary: God's Judgments and Humanity's Potential
We've explored how God's judgments discern the purpose and 'good'-ness of His creation. Despite the impact of sin, humanity, bearing God's image, retains the potential for 'good'-ness. Our struggles with purpose and perfection find grace in Jesus, through whom we are newly created and again declared ‘good.’
More to Come...
As we conclude Part 2, these insights set the stage for our exploration in Part 3, where we will delve into the revelation of grace right from creation's origins. If Genesis 1 contains the first prophecy of the Gospel, what might this mean for us? The God who lovingly ‘judges’ ‘good’-ness ex nihilo is the same God reshaping us into His handiwork today. The God of the beginning will be God of the end.
