CHAPTER 2
The Ultimate Basis for Ethics:
The Moral Character of God
The Basis of the Bible’s Ethical Standards is the Moral Character of God
A. God’s Character Is Good.
When the Bible talks about God’s moral character, it talks about God as being “good.” For example:
You are good and do good; teach me your statutes. (Psalm 119:68 ESV)
The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness, and without iniquity, just and upright is he. (Deuteronomy 32:4 ESV)
Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you. (Revelation 15:3–4 ESV)
In these and many other passages, the Bible emphasizes that God’s moral character is good. He is a God who is good, and also loving, just, merciful, faithful, truthful, and holy. In addition, God approves of and actually delights in his own moral character. He is the One who is the “blessed” God, that is, the One who is supremely happy in himself (1 Timothy 1:11; 6:15). In fact, when his Word declares that he is “good,” it implies that he considers his own character to be worthy of approval.
B. God Approves of Creatures Who Conform to His Moral Character.
Many other passages in Scripture show that God desires and approves of moral creatures who conform to his moral character. Just as God is loving, just, merciful, faithful, truthful, holy, and so forth, so he also desires that we act in ways that are loving, just, merciful, faithful, truthful, holy, and so forth. These are the qualities that God approves of in himself, and therefore these are the moral qualities that he approves of in his creatures as well. Just as he delights to contemplate his own moral excellence, he delights to see his moral excellence reflected in the creatures he has made.
Here are some biblical passages showing that God delights to see his character reflected in our lives:
- But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. (1 Peter 1:15 ESV)
- Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:36 ESV)
- We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19 ESV)
- Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. (Ephesians 5:1 ESV)
- You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48 ESV)
- Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Colossians 3:9–10 ESV)
Paul’s idea is that our “new self” is becoming more like God, and therefore we should imitate God’s truthfulness.
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (1 John 3:2–3 ESV)
Putting this another way, we are to live in the same way that Jesus lived, to walk as he walked:
- Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. (1 Corinthians 11:1 ESV)
- And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. (Ephesians 5:2 ESV)Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. (1 John 2:6 ESV)
- For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. (1 Peter 2:21 ESV)
John Murray, professor of systematic theology at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia from 1930 to 1966, rightly observes:
In the last analysis, why must we behave in one way and not in another? . . . The ultimate standard of right is the character or nature of God. The basis of ethics is that God is what he is, and we must be conformed to what he is in holiness, righteousness, truth, goodness, and love. . . . God made man in his own image and after his likeness. Man must, therefore, be like God.
God Could Not Have Made Other Moral Standards
Because the moral standards that God gives us are grounded in his moral character, he could not have made other moral standards for us than the ones that he made. He could not have commanded us that it was right to hate people rather than to love them, to lie rather than to tell the truth, to murder rather than to protect life, to be unjust rather than just, and so forth.
However, one word of clarification is important here. When I speak of God’s moral standards, I do not mean to include the temporary regulations that God gave the people of Israel in the time of Moses, such as the regulations about clean and unclean foods or the requirements for various kinds of animal sacrifices. Rather, I am referring to the abiding moral standards that have been applicable to all people for all periods of history (for further discussion of the laws in the Mosaic covenant, see chap. 8).
God’s Abiding Moral Standards As Found in the Bible Apply to All People In All Cultures In All Periods of History
If God’s moral standards flow from his unchanging moral character, then it follows that these are the moral standards by which God will hold all people everywhere accountable. Several passages indicate that God will one day be the Judge of the entire earth:
Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just? (Genesis 18:25 ESV)
He comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness. (Psalm 96:13 ESV)
When Paul spoke to the pagan Greek philosophers on the Areopagus in Athens, he was speaking to an audience that had no knowledge of the moral standards of the God of Israel (even if some had a passing acquaintance with Jewish religion, Paul could not have assumed such knowledge on the part of any of his hearers). Even to this audience Paul proclaimed that the one true God, “the God who made the world and everything in it,” is the God who “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:24, 31 ESV). These pagan Greek philosophers, Paul said, would be judged by God according to his eternal, universal moral standards.