Walking With Christ

Mark 10:18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.”(ESV)

I love this section of Mark. There is so much contained in these few verses. This particular verse is in the section about the rich young man who couldn’t give up his worldly possessions for eternal life. The guy called Jesus “good teacher” in verse 17. Jesus had been called teacher many times before and had never told anyone not to call Him that. Yet, here He deflects and takes the opportunity to teach a valuable lesson about the true nature of our Father.

1. Jesus didn’t deny that He was good. He rejected the use of the word ‘good’ because it was intended as flattery rather than recognition of His divinity. Jesus saw that this rich young man was trying to schmooze or bribe his way into eternal life. He viewed this as nothing more than another business transaction.
2. God the Father is the definition of the word good. Saying someone is a good person, good teacher, good parent, good friend, etc. is making a direct comparison between them and the one true standard for the qualifier being used (person, teacher, parent, etc.).
3. Because God is the definition of good and our nature has been tainted by sin, we are not capable of fully understanding the definition of good. We derive our definition from what we know of God but are still limited by human standards. Humans grade things on a curve while God does not.