No One is Good But God

How then could he be moved in the right direction? What could deflect him from his preoccupation with merit? The response of Jesus could do that, if the young man would rightly hear it.

That response, however, must have sounded initially as if it had no connection whatever with the rich man's inquiry. No doubt he was even taken aback when Jesus replied:

But nothing could have been more to the point. It was precisely the issue on which this man needed to focus.

He had addressed Jesus as "Good Teacher." No doubt it was glibly said no matter how respectfully it was intended. But was He really good? In the definitive sense of that word, He could not be "good" if He was a mere mortal man. The Old Testament bore witness to that fact (and Paul appealed to it!) when it affirmed, "There is none who does good, no, not one" (Ps. 14:3; cf. Rom. 3:12).

Only God was good and that could mean only one thing. Jesus could not be good unless He was also God. The young man perceived Him to be a teacher, and such He was. But He was very much more than that! And until the rich young ruler could hear His voice as the voice of the Son of God, eternal life -whether here or hereafter- lay beyond his reach.

But there was more. The young man himself was not good. Only God was good. But this perception also had not truly dawned on him, as his response to the Savior's next statement painfully shows.

His concept of "good" was therefore precisely his problem. That concept clouded his perception of Jesus, and it clouded his perception of himself. Until these perceptions were corrected, he was very far from God's Kingdom indeed.

Go on to You Know the Law

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