Nov 24, 20234 min read

"It's All Good?"

Mark 10:17-18 [CSB]

"As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before Him, and asked Him, 'Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' 'Why do you call Me good?' Jesus asked him. 'No one is good except God alone.'"

Psalm 107:1

"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! His faithful love endures forever."

John 10:30 [CSB]

"I and the Father are one.”

[NLT Version unless otherwise noted. Emphasis added.]

Earthly good doesn't necessarily equal God. Nice doesn't necessarily equal kind. Spiritual doesn't necessarily equal Christ follower. Good is defined as "To be desired or approved of. Having the qualities required for a particular role. The noun means actions and behavior, i.e. 'The charity does a lot of good'; the difference between good and evil. Goodness is the quality of being good." One of the core tenets of English grammar is distinguishing meanings and knowing categories. I often notice that people in general and Believers in particular often use certain words and/or phrases interchangeably in an attempt to convey the same meaning, like the BFFs Power and Authority we talked about awhile ago. One of the ways that the Enemy would deceive us is by having us think that something is good when it is actually sin or have us think that because it is good by wordly standards it is therefore God. Do we want to be good not evil and live uprightly, even in a broken sin cursed world? OF COURSE! But let us not think that equates to it automatically being God. Remember a previous example; giving to the church is good, but it is not God if the money you are giving is stolen.

In today's first [and often confounding for scholars] passage Jesus is NOT denying that He is God and therefore altogether truly good and perfect. He is NOT confirming that He is God either, because at that time outside of His twelve Disciples, He had been carefullfy guarding His Diety [though He confirms He is God in other places like John 10:30]. What can be said of the text is that Jesus is challenging the man [rich, young ruler] to do some inward examination and think carefully both about loosely applying the term good and who/what truly deserves to be called good. If the man is calling Jesus good because he is in effect calling Jesus God, then he must ask himself the question--> is he therefore prepared to listen to Jesus? As always, I encourage you to read the entire chapter, because we see by the man's ultimate response that sadly he is not prepared to listen to Jesus.

During those times a religious leader [Pharisee, rabbi, etc.] was looked to for guidance and it wasn't unusual that one would inquire of them the requirements for being good. Remember, they were operating under the works of the Law and added stringent man made traditions. Jesus was considered a Rabbi, a Teacher and very popular, so it is not outside the realm of possibilty that someone would ask this question of Him. But instead of giving the expected Jewish answer, Jesus does two things: [1] tosses a question right back at the man and [2] instructs the man back to Mosaic law without regard to the traditions of man. This will illuminate to the man that only God is good and the Law was given to teach the Jews how to be, but not make them, holy. It was a tactic to redirect the man's focus back to God's ultimate goodness and perfection.

The likely conclusion is that if in fact only God is good, then he [the man] can never be. But the saving grace is that the eternal life that he asks about is available from the One that is good! Hallelejuah that a Believer's sins are forgiven and God has removed them from us because of Jesus' sacrfice. He doesn't expect us to be perfect or good as He is, but He does expect us to be righteous. For me this verse is a reminder to stop trying to call people, places or things good to overcompenate for what they are lacking. Instead, to be in right standing with a good, good Father God we can only do as we have talked about before; accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, guard our heart and its' gates, fear God, be Holy Spirtit led and encourage those in our sphere of influence to do the same. We won't be perfectly good as defined by the Bible [sinless], but we will begin to look more and more like Christ as we are daily being perfected into His image. Don't focus on achieving wordly goodness and trusting in wordly things, but instead trust in seeking the Kingdom of God.

Takeaways for you to remember:

#1 Slapping the term good on something/someone doesn't make it God or Godly.

#2 Accepting Christ transforms us into a new creation that looks more and more like Him everyday.

#3 God is good!

Yours in Christ!

Dr. Quahana

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