God alone is good by nature; Angels: Day 361

“Why  do you call me good?” Jesus asked the ruler of the synagogue. St. Cyril of Alexandria explains what Jesus meant: If you think I’m only a man, then you’re giving me a title that belongs to God alone. Even the angels are “good” only by their participation in God.

He flatters Jesus, and attempts to deceive him, pretending to be well- disposed toward him. And what does the Omniscient reply? He says, “Why do you call me good? None is good but God alone” (Luke 18:19).

You see how this ruler proved at once that he was neither wise nor learned, though he was the ruler of a synagogue of the Jews. For if, Jesus says, you did not believe that I am God, and the clothing of the flesh has led you astray, why did you call me by titles suitable to the supreme nature alone, while you still thought that I was a mere man like you, and not superior to the limits of human nature? In the nature that transcends all, in God alone, do we find the attribute of being by nature and unchangeably good: but the angels, and we upon earth, are good by resembling him, or rather by participating in him. He is what he is, and this is his Name, and his everlasting memorial for all generations (Exodus 3:14); but we exist and come into being by being made partakers of him who really exists. Thus he indeed is good, or is the good absolutely, but angels and human beings are good only by being made, as I said, partakers of the good God.

So being good must be set apart as the special property of God alone above all. It is an essential part of his nature, and is his own particular attribute.

But if I do not seem to you to be truly God, Jesus says, then you have ignorantly and foolishly applied to me the properties and virtues of the divine nature, at the very time when you think I am only a man, one who is never endowed with goodness, which is the property of the unchangeable nature, but only gains it by the assent of the divine will. –St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Luke, Sermon 122

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

What things do I commonly call “good”? Do I see how they resemble the qualities of the angels by participating in the goodness of God?

CLOSING PRAYER

Father, may my life be more and more like the lives of your angels in Heaven. May I rise above sin and draw closer to your glory.

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