Why Does Jesus Say No One Is Good but God Alone?

“But Jesus himself says he is not God!” In Mark 10 and Luke 18, he says, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.'”

This is one of the more common arguments from the Bible that Muslims will try to use to disprove the divinity of Jesus. Not too long ago, a Muslim commenter on this blog said this very thing. If you spend any time at all doing evangelism with Muslims you are bound to hear this claim. So, how should a Christian respond?

I actually like it when my Muslim friends bring up this passage. This is because instead of Jesus denying his divinity here, I think there’s a case to be made that this passage is an example of the direct opposite – of Jesus in fact claiming to be God.

First, the context. Jesus is here responding to the rich young ruler who asks him what he must do to inherit eternal life. But this young man has begun his question by addressing Jesus as, “Good Teacher.” So, Jesus’ response to him is in two parts. First, he calls into question the way in which he addressed him. Then, he goes on to answer what is required for this man to inherit eternal life. Those of us familiar with this passage know that the young man goes on to claim that he’s kept all of the commandments that Jesus draws out of him. But then, when Jesus tells him to sell everything that he has, to give the funds to the poor, and to follow him, the young man goes away sad because he cannot bring himself to part with his wealth. You can read the passage for yourself here and here.

When I’m talking with my Central Asian friends about this, I will often respond first by saying. “Well, what’s going on here is that Jesus is a good teacher, and you of all people should know that the best teachers teach not only direct lessons, but also indirect lessons.”

Usually, this response is met with some level of furrowed brows. So, I’ll go on to explain.

“Here, in Central Asia, you use indirect communication all the time. In little things like saying yes to an offer of tea, you actually don’t say ‘Yes.’ Instead, you say, ‘No,’ then, ‘Don’t trouble yourself.’ Even more, you greatly value the ability of indirect communication to teach profound lessons. So, you should be able to appreciate when Jesus is using indirect communication to make a point – and not all of a sudden become like Westerners who insist something be communicated simply and directly in order to be understood.”

Here, I might remind them of a folk story of their people where a father has seven sons who are always fighting. Fed up, one day he lines his sons up and hands six of them a single stick. Then, one by one, he commands them to break the stick. Each of the six sons breaks his stick easily. But on the seventh son, the father hands him the bundle of broken sticks and commands him to break them. The seventh son cannot break the sticks, even though he tries with all his might. “Do you understand?” The father asks. Eventually, one son speaks up. “Yes, father. When we are divided and fighting amongst ourselves we will always be weak, easily broken. But if we will only be united, together, then no one will ever be able to break us.”

None of my Central Asian friends balk at this father’s indirect object lesson. Instead, if anything, they find the lesson to be even more profound given the subtlety and the indirect buildup. The point is to remind them that they have a category already for indirect teaching, they really respect it, and therefore it doesn’t follow that they should deny Jesus the right to teach in this way also.

Indeed, when it comes to Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler, this is exactly the kind of teaching method Jesus is employing in both parts of his responses. He is being an excellent Middle Eastern teacher, leveraging the subtlety, the double meanings, and the buildup for the lesson to have its maximum payoff.

First, he asks the young man why he calls him good, since “no one is good but God alone.” Notice here especially what Jesus does not say. Jesus does not say that he is not God. He simply asks the young man why he called him good. Then, he makes a theological statement. Only God is good. The direct, simplistic way to understand what Jesus is saying here would be that this young man made a mistake by calling him “Good Teacher.” But Jesus does not say that. He leaves it open – open to another possible meaning. That meaning is this – that Jesus in fact is good and, therefore, that he is God. The logic at play here goes like this: 1) Only God is good, 2) Jesus is clearly good, 3) Jesus is God.

In this way, Jesus is here once again teaching wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove in the midst of wolves. For those who don’t have ears to hear, he is merely saying what every 1st-century Jewish person believed – that only God is good. For those with ears to hear, he is affirming that he is good and therefore he is God. And for those who would accuse him of blasphemy before his time has come, Jesus has subtly claimed divinity in a way that does not yet give them something solid to grab hold of.

The rest of Jesus’ response to the rich young ruler continues to be a masterclass in indirect teaching. Even though Jesus knows that no one can be saved by keeping the commandments, Jesus tells the young man to list out the commandments and then tells him to keep them. When the young man affirms that he has indeed kept them all his life, then Jesus gives him a final command, one that exposes his idolatry. Tragically, money is his god, more important to him than YHWH and more important than following YHWH’s messiah. In this way, Jesus indirectly demonstrates that the young man had not in fact been keeping the commandments at all. He was an idolater. He was not good, because no one is good but God alone.

The subtle and indirect nature of this second part of the response strengthens the case that the first part of the response – Jesus’ question – should be understood in the same way. When Jesus says, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone,” he is really saying that he is indeed good, and therefore he is God. The rich young ruler, merely intending to be respectful, was speaking more truly than he knew. His standard of goodness was woefully insufficient, as proved by his assessment of his own life. But God allowed him to address Jesus in a way that was utterly and ironically spot on. Jesus is a good teacher; in fact, the only good teacher.

Our Muslim friends need to understand that the case for Jesus’ divinity is built by dozens and dozens of indirect logic passages just like this one. No one forgives sin except God, Jesus forgives sin, Jesus is God. No one is good except God, Jesus is good, Jesus is God. The examples go on and on. We need to help our friends understand the type of logic and the type of lessons used by Jesus and his Apostles to establish Jesus’ divinity. And yes, they even have an advantage over us in understanding these lessons and logic, which are, after all, very Middle Eastern and Central Asian in their character.

Jesus is an incredible teacher, the very best. And good teachers don’t just teach directly. They teach indirectly also. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

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