We must believe in the power of goodness, or we will lack faith in the constancy of the goodness of God. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21) is an underlying premise and theological anchor of the scriptures. We love to say, “God is good…all the time,” but if we don’t believe this, we gradually assume God has it in for us.
In our world of life and death, it is hard for us to imagine a character that is firmer than the mountains. The day of evil will come. All stumble. All fall. But then we are introduced to this man, the Chosen King of God, the Saving One. The man Jesus, whose rightness is of titanium permanence. The question his life challenges us with is, “Can good overcome evil?” Of course, this is more than a question: Jesus is the hinging point of God’s answer to evil. All history swings off his peg either to fall gradually into chilling, dark evil or to move towards a euphoric blaze of goodness.
“But where sin [and evil] increase, grace increases all the more” (Romans 5:20). Wherever evil exists, goodness will emerge stronger and grace will grow greater.
By nature, evil erodes and subtracts. In contrast to this, goodness strengthens and expands. Both are building techniques that at first glance may appear only subtly different, but their underpinning philosophies are completely antithetical. When evil builds, it pursues strength. Its action is akin to digging new tunnels in an already existing structure to carve out functionality that ultimately weakens the whole, including itself. Goodness is the opposite: it values the weak in its “creationary” process of producing or improving functionality that ultimately strengthens the whole. Evil is locked into the time-space continuum. The brush strokes of goodness are unbounded by time.
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good,” says two things:
1. Stand and do not be overwhelmed by evil but hold your ground.
2. Win using good to overpower evil and take new territory.
Charles Hodge once said, “Nothing is so powerful as goodness.” Even though at first glance it seems nearly impossible to use acts of kindness to turn the gritty, dark and evil places into strikingly beautiful, good places, it nonetheless remains the message of the cross. Jesus forgave mankind from the cross in their darkest moment of sin and so erased sin’s death sentence over the entire human race. One seemingly weak act of goodness triumphed over all powers and principalities.
Our natural tendency is to focus on holding turf instead of taking new territory in the power of goodness. Scripture passages like 1 John 5:4 are clear that we should wear the name “overcomers.” Without taking the offensive action of overcoming evil, the church’s stand to hold ground gradually crumbles over the decades. The best way to hold our current ground is to move forward on the offensive, aggressively taking God’s kingdom of goodness wherever evil exists.
During such offensives, the most important targets are not the possible places but the impossible. If we fight a war we can win, it proves to be nothing fresh or life-giving to our spirits or to the world, but if we choose to fight evil in the very darkest recesses of our globe and win our battles there, we have proved the power of goodness and laid hold of a faith that is full of life.
So, can I prove that goodness is more powerful than evil by simple logic? I’ve chosen to believe I can prove it by following Jesus. I’m employing my faith in the power of God’s goodness at work in me by facilitating rescue and care for child soldiers in remote and aggressively violent regions of the planet. From my actions as a peacemaker will come a demonstration of Jesus’ magnificent goodness that is so virally potent, it wins beyond suffering and the grave.
There is plenty of assurance from daily life and the scriptures that we will face negative events, but we are a new creation of goodness. This is God’s promise to all who believe: “You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
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