Sounds Good to Me

In the story of creation in Genesis, God saw His creation as good (Gen. 1:31).  What does that mean exactly?  The Hebrew word for "good" is "towb."  It's being used as an adjective here to translate to:  pleasant, agreeable, valuable in estimation, excellent of its kind, happy.  All things God had created were considered as "towb."  That means all of nature is good.  All of water and sky are good.  Every human is good.  Before the fall of man, humans were valuable in estimation to God. 

So how does the Hebrew meaning differ from the Greek meaning?  This is where is gets interesting.  Let's have a vocabulary lesson, shall we.

There are two Greek words for "good."  They are "agathos" and "kalos."

Agathos means "of good constitution or nature; useful, salutary; good, pleasant, agreeable, joyful, happy; excellent, distinguished; upright, honorable."  (This word is closely correlated with "towb.")

Whereas, kalos means "good, excellent in its nature and characteristics, and therefore well adapted to its ends; beautiful by reason of purity of heart and life, and hence praiseworthy; morally good."  (This word requires some sort of action of becoming good.)  

Romans 7:18 says, "I know that nothing good [Agathos] lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good [Kalos], but I cannot carry it out."

God originally created us as good, as perfect in nature to Him.  After the fall of man, nothing good no longer lives in us because we are prone to a sinful nature.  The latter part of this verse says that we have the desire to do good, to become like God in our nature and characteristics.  We can become beautiful by reason of purity and heart and life.  We can become like how He originally created us.  Reading down a few verses, we are offered hope.  "Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin" (Romans 7:25).  Therefore, we can make use of our desire to strive to be good (kalos) and become like God, for He is good (agathos).  It takes change on our part to fully know God.  There is no way we can become like how He first created us until we change.  God wants to reveal Himself to us, but we must first reveal ourselves to Him.  

"All beings were made good, but not being made perfectly good, are liable to corruption."