Why do you call me good?

Often, we tend to overuse the word good. We associate the word good with how we're doing or how the weather is in April. But by definition, good is that which is morally right; righteousness. I have realized (after conversation with a friend) that to call someone a "good guy" apart from mentioning his worth and perfection through Christ (if he is saved) is incorrect. All of us are evil. "There is no one righteous, no not one." Christ is the one who gives us life. He is the one who makes us more like himself. 


In Luke 18, there is a conversation between Jesus and the rich young ruler that I find very interesting. "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.'"


At first glance, one might be caught off guard. Is Jesus saying by question that he is not good? Absolutely not. He's answering by question, as he so often does in the Scriptures. The rich young ruler is obviously mistaken. He thinks that Jesus is simply a teacher who can give him the steps to getting eternal life. Jesus corrects him by saying that he could not possibly be good if he were simply a teacher, because only God is good. Now, it was most likely quite obvious to the young man that Jesus was good and morally perfect. Therefore, the inference he had to make from this question was that Jesus is God. And if Jesus is God, he is the one you must follow "to inherit eternal life."  Question answered. 






"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." – C.S Lewis, Mere Christianity