Only God Is Good

Only God Is Good.  It is a phrase we hear or say probably every day, “They are good people.” No doubt they are, horizontally, as compared to other people who are necessarily excluded from the good people category. Of those others we do not say, “They are bad people.” Politeness prohibits us from throwing light on the badness of other people, unless it is Hitler. Instead, we heap compliments upon the goodness of some people while ignoring the rest.

But an entirely different plane of goodness exists in the vertical sense toward God. Horizontal goodness (humans compared to humans) is relative whereas vertical goodness (God compared to humans) is absolute. On this difference between horizontal goodness and vertical goodness, Jesus interacts with the rich, young ruler. “And a ruler asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone’” (Luke 18:18-19). Jesus often teaches on two levels.

Jesus was not denying his absolute, vertical goodness but highlighting the limitations of the man’s greeting, “Why do you call me good?” In other words, Jesus was drawing the man out by drilling down on his definition of good. “No one is good except God alone,” is Jesus’ cloaked assertion of his own deity. Jesus is good because he is God. But the man grasped neither the depth of what he was saying nor the identity of him to whom he was speaking.

The vast gap between horizontal goodness and vertical goodness is closed, not by the Law, but by a faith-relationship with the Lord. The man asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (vs. 18), in terms of keeping the Ten Commandments: “All these I have kept from my youth” (vs. 21). But the Lord replied, touching upon the elusive Tenth Commandment, “You shall not covet” (Exo. 20:17). Effectively, Jesus pressed that nerve exposed by coveting, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (vs. 22).

With Jesus’ instruction, “One thing you still lack,” comes in a trio of commands all saying the same thing: “sell,” “distribute,” and “follow.” Thus, it is the following that the man lacks. A faith-relationship would have empowered and motivated this ruler to forsake his wealth, but not its inverse. Forsaking wealth does not inherit eternal life (vs. 18) but rather following Christ. “But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich” (vs. 23).