by Dennis Gladden, By Green Pastures, ©2024
(Dec. 4, 2024) — Question: The Bible says God is good, which Christians believe means Jesus, being the Son of God, is also good. Yet, Jesus asked, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but One—God.” Doesn’t the question contradict the claim that Jesus is God? (See Mark 10:17-22.)
Not at all. If anything, the conversation that raised the question establishes the truth about Jesus’s deity.
Jesus would have been obliged to correct the man if his greeting was wrong. After all, Jesus was not only the truth, but also a truth-teller—”If it were not so, I would have told you”.1 Accordingly, He would have made a declarative statement, perhaps like, “Don’t call me ‘Good teacher’. No one is good but One—God.”
But Jesus neither scolded the man nor denied his claim. He cut through any flattery and made him think about his words.
“Why do you call me good? No one is good but One—God. Is that who you think I am?“
His next remark reveals his answer. He drops the “good” and settles for “Teacher”.2 He went only as far as many do today. “Sure, Jesus said and did good things. Maybe He was even a prophet. But God? That’s a stretch.”
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Jesus’s question had the same effect as when He asked His disciples: Who do you say I am? Jesus does not engage us without forcing us to evaluate Him.
And ourselves.
Contemplating the question and what he had said, the young ruler revised his estimation of Jesus but also had to reevaluate himself.
Jesus cited several commandments to obey and the young man boasted, “I have kept them all since I was young.” In other words, “I’ve been good my whole life.”
This wasn’t true, and he knew it. He wouldn’t be asking how to have eternal life if he were good enough.
He came to Jesus with a full purse and full of himself, confident he had a good heart, just the kind God automatically admits into heaven.
But if you won’t call Jesus good, will you still claim you are?
Jesus didn’t put it in so many words, but His question recalled a teaching from the Sermon on the Mount:
Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.3
The man came to Jesus with his own righteousness and left with it, disappointed.
On the other hand, the Apostle Paul had a similar encounter with Jesus. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul asserted the “blamelessness” of his Jewish pedigree and his zeal as a Pharisee for keeping the law. But when Jesus confronted him, Paul cast all that aside.
What things were gain to me, I have counted loss for Christ, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.4
What a contrast.
Paul, like the young man, was blameless but scratched it in light of the excellence of Christ.
The young man, having reassessed Jesus, walked away, as though disobedience was nothing. Jesus had said, “Sell whatever you have and give to the poor.” He didn’t. Jesus said, “Come, follow me.” He didn’t. Jesus said, “Make the tree good and its fruit good.”5 He didn’t.
As the comparison of the apostle and the young ruler shows, there were different opinions then about Jesus. And there are now, too.
But we can rest assured Jesus did not disavow His goodness when He asked, “Why do you call me good?”
He wanted us to think.
And He said, plainly, “I AM the Good Shepherd.”
1 John 14:2
2 Mark 10:20
3 Matthew 5:20
4 Philippians 3:8-9
5 Matthew 12:33