Is Jesus Good?

[nursestephanie]

Jesus is God…the second person of the Trinity. Why does He say that He is not good, but only God? This is very confusing to me…
I would think that His goodness is equivalent to the Father’s goodness, why is it not?

Luke 18

18
An official asked him this question, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
19
Jesus answered him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.

 

[scottm]

Read the whole story. That same guy thought that he had perfectly kept the entire Law of Moses. Ya, right.

Jesus was a very insightful person. On several occassions in the gospels he cut right to the listener’s heart and spoke exactly what needed to be spoken to reach that person; e.g., his encounter with the woman at the well, and his response to the people who wanted to stone a woman for adultery. Right to the heart.

 

[teachccd]

Jesus also states that, “the Father and I are one” while stating that ,“the Father is greater than I”. Jesus is fully human and fully divine so both statements are sound when describing the Person of Jesus Christ.

 

[Zooey]

Jesus was, IMHO, inviting a profession of faith. He often asked questions that would lead people to rethink what they believed about Him.
Remember how it was with Peter? Jesus asked, “Who do men say that I am?”…Now was when Peter exclaimed, “You are the Christ! The Son of the living God!”.
This man had the same opportunity to speak up & proclaim that Jesus was the Messiah, as Peter did. Sadly, he waffled…but Jesus gave him the chance, you see…

HTH

 

[po18guy]

Jesus was, IMHO, inviting a profession of faith. He often asked questions that would lead people to rethink what they believed about Him.
Remember how it was with Peter? Jesus asked, “Who do men say that I am?”…Now was when Peter exclaimed, “You are the Christ! The Son of the living God!”.
This man had the same opportunity to speak up & proclaim that Jesus was the Messiah, as Peter did. Sadly, he waffled…but Jesus gave him the chance, you see…

HTH

Amen! My thoughts exactly.

 

[DanteAlighieri]

Jesus was, IMHO, inviting a profession of faith. He often asked questions that would lead people to rethink what they believed about Him.
Remember how it was with Peter? Jesus asked, “Who do men say that I am?”…Now was when Peter exclaimed, “You are the Christ! The Son of the living God!”.
This man had the same opportunity to speak up & proclaim that Jesus was the Messiah, as Peter did. Sadly, he waffled…but Jesus gave him the chance, you see…

HTH

Very interesting! It makes me wonder: what encouraging look might He have given this man to communicate, “Hey, there’s an appropriate response to what I just said…do you know what it is?”

When my students ask me questions in class that, based on what they already know, they ought to be able to answer, I turn the questions back on them and try to lead them to answer for themselves. When they figure it out and give the answer they sought, it’s quite gratifying, but when they just can’t pick up on the hints, it’s frustrating!

Peace,
Dante

 

[nursestephanie]

I’ve been thinking about this verse a lot…

I’m wondering if the man who asked this question to Jesus thought that Jesus was God. I would think He probably doesn’t since Jesus was not openly proclaiming to be God at that time and even if he believed Him to be the Messiah, did He fully understand what that meant?

Jesus knew the heart and mind of this man asking Him this question. If the man did not think Jesus was God and called Him “good teacher”, Jesus’ response wasn’t that He was not good, but that only God is good, so why do you call me good…

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

Jesus is making an indirect claim to being divine. He is saying to the guy you realise by calling me good you are saying that I am God because only God is good!

Basically, the guy did not realise the immication of his calling Jesus “good master”. Jesus was pointing out the immication that by calling Jesus good, he is calling Jesus God.