If Jesus was God, why did He say No one is good but God alone?
When the rich young ruler came to Jesus and addressed Him as "Good Master," the Lord's reply — "Why callest thou Me good? There is none good but one, that is, God" (Mark 10:18) — was not a denial of His own deity. It was the very opposite: a challenge designed to press the young man toward recognizing who he was really speaking to.
The young man saw Jesus merely as a human rabbi — an admirable teacher, but a man like himself. He had no sense of Christ's divine glory.
William Kelly explains the Lord's dealing in his lectures on Mark's Gospel:
William KellyHe owned Him to be a good Master, and he wanted to glean what he could from Him as a good disciple. He put himself, therefore, so far on a level with Jesus, assuming his competency to carry out the words and ways of Jesus. It is evident, therefore, that sin was unjudged, and that God Himself was unknown in the heart of this young man.
The Lord's point was razor-sharp: if goodness belongs to God alone, and you call Me good, then either you are using the word carelessly — or you are confessing, whether you know it or not, that I am God. Kelly draws this out even more directly in his exposition of Luke:
Had he really known how good God is he would have soon seen God in Jesus. He saw nothing of the sort. He knew neither God nor good. He looked upon the Lord merely as good after a human fashion. If He was but a man there was no goodness in Him; it is only in God: God alone is good. If Jesus were not God, He was not good. The young ruler had no right, no just title to say, "Good Master", unless that master were God.
J. N. Darby makes the same point in his Synopsis on Mark 10:
J. N. DarbyThe Lord, taking up the whole import of his word, replies, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is God." ... God alone is good. Man, if intelligent, will not make himself out good before God, nor dream of human goodness. This young man had at least the hope of becoming good by the law, and he believed that Jesus was so as a man.
And in The Christian's Friend (1897), Darby puts it with unmistakable clarity:
The Lord will not admit that man is good; not one righteous man can be found amongst men — no, not one. He says, "Why callest thou Me good? No one is good except One: that is God." Certainly Christ was good, but He was God, although He made Himself man in His perfect love. He was always God, and God became man without ceasing to be, or being able to cease being, God; only He had hidden His divinity in human nature in order to come nigh unto us.
Commenting on Psalm 16, Darby makes the same point from a different angle:
When the young man in the gospel went to Him, saying, "Good Master" — coming to Him as man — He said, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but God." Goodness was not to be looked for in man, not even in Him if He had been only man.
Hamilton Smith brings the two truths together in his notes on Mark:
Hamilton SmithNature, however excellent, cannot discern God in Christ. ... The Lord, taking the young man up on his own ground, will not admit that man is good, "There is none good but one, that is, God." Christ, indeed, was good, but He was God. He was always God, and God became man without ceasing to be, or being able to cease being, God.
Frank Hole, commenting on Matthew 19, presses the logic home most directly of all:
Frank HoleThe Lord would not accept the epithet "good," unless it were given Him as the fruit of acknowledging His Deity. "There is none good but one — God," so that if Jesus was not God He was not good. If the young man had recognized the Deity of the One who said to him, "Follow Me," his "great possessions" would have been as nothing to him, and he would gladly have followed Jesus.
C. E. Stuart records the same understanding in his notes on Mark, with an editorial footnote that draws the thread tight:
C. E. StuartNo child of Adam is really "good" since the Fall (Rom. 3:10-12). Our Lord was putting the young ruler to the test as to His own person, as He did the disciples in chap. 8:27-29.
Finally, J. A. C. S. Giles, expounding Psalm 16, brings the theological threads together:
J. A. C. S. Giles"Goodness" is a quality in God alone. The Lord replied to the ruler who came to Him, but who only regarded Him as a good man — a teacher in whom he had some confidence, "Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God." ... The Lord Jesus being a divine Person brought into manhood moral traits and characteristics which could not have been produced by mere creature power. Here was One who is God, yet a real Man.
So the answer is this: Jesus was not disclaiming goodness or denying that He was God. He was doing the exact opposite — testing whether the young man understood who stood before him. The logic of His words runs like this: "You call Me good. But goodness belongs to God alone. So either withdraw the word — or recognise who I am." The young man did neither. He treated Jesus as a gifted rabbi, not as God manifest in the flesh, and walked away clinging to his possessions, blind both to his own sinfulness and to the divine glory standing before him.
Christ was good — supremely, perfectly good — precisely because He was God. His statement was not a disclaimer but a test: Do you know who you are talking to? The tragedy of the rich young ruler is that, faced with that question, he turned away without answering it.