Why do you call me good?

Question: God is good and Jesus, as the Son of God, is therefore also good. So why did Jesus distance Himself from goodness when He asked a young man, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but One—God.” (See Mark 10:17-22.)

I think Jesus is doing a couple of things when He asks, “Why do you call me good?”

First, this is another way of asking the question that He put to the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus probes, prompting those who come to Him to think about Him and to reach a conclusion.

In this case, Jesus is saying, “God alone is good. If you call me good, are you ready to confess me as God?’’ Notice the young man’s answer in verse 20; he drops the word “good”. He is willing to call Jesus “teacher”, but nothing more. Just like so many today.

Jesus also is getting the young ruler to examine his own goodness and its merits. The man asserted that he had kept the laws Jesus cited, but he conceded by asking for eternal life that his best was not good enough.

Jesus reiterates here what He taught in the Sermon on the Mount: “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). The young man claimed he was as blameless in the law as the Pharisees and Jesus replied, “Not good enough!”

Consider how differently this played out with Paul. He was a Pharisee and made the same claim about blamelessness as the rich young ruler. But when Jesus confronted him, Paul cast his goodness aside; the young man clung to his.

Paul explained his action. “That I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith” (Philippians 3:8-9).

Paul met Jesus and rejoiced. The young man left Jesus, gloomy. He could not bring himself to regard Jesus as good. Paul saw Jesus as nothing but good—the very image of God, who alone is good.

The contrast of Paul and the young ruler shows the importance of our answer to Jesus’s question, “Why do you call me good?”

Could Jesus have sinned?

Question: We know that Jesus was without sin. Jesus claimed this about Himself and even Pilate, at the worst time of Jesus’ life, admitted he could find no fault in Jesus. But could Jesus have failed? Could He have sinned?

Once upon a time I would have answered, “Yes.” After all, if Jesus were impervious to doubt, discouragement,  temptation, and foibles like mine, how could He know life as I know it? How could He help me? I thought Jesus, like any one of us, could have sinned, but unlike us He didn’t.

I no longer think this. Here are three reasons.

Jesus is not like any one of us. So unique is Jesus that the translators of the King James Bible had to define a new word: Atonement. Jesus is the at-one-ment where God and man find common ground. He is both God and man united in one body. Israel in the Old Testament had the tabernacle, or Tent of Meeting. We have Jesus.

Jesus talked a lot about this at-one-ment. “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me” (John 14:10-11). “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). “I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say” (John 12:49).

The apostles picked up on this. Paul writes that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15) in whom “dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9).

This at-one-ment assures us Jesus could not fail. As the Son of God, Jesus could not sin because the Father does not sin. Otherwise, Jesus misrepresented His relationship to the Father and He is not, indeed, “very God” as the creeds teach.

As the Son of Man, Jesus could not sin because man cannot corrupt God. God is pure and does not change. He is incorruptible (see Acts 2:27-32).

God does not lie. God deceived us if Jesus could sin. He promised the Messiah “will not fail nor be discouraged” (Isaiah 42:4) but this is misleading if Jesus could sin.

You may object that God was just saying what He foreknew and declared the certain outcome. But even when you’re certain how things will turn out, doubt lingers when failure is possible. Truth demands God to be honest with us and say, “I know my Son and He won’t fail but, He just might surprise me.”

God is not deceptive and did not have to dilute promises about the Messiah with contingencies. He was bold and certain because “God is not a man, that he should lie” (Numbers 23:19).

The great work of salvation required one who would not sin because he could not sin. God looked for a savior but “saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; and His own righteousness, it sustained Him” (Isaiah 59:16-17, emphasis mine). God found no one in creation — angel or man — capable or worthy to purge sin because all had proven sin could master them. Jesus did what we could not do for ourselves — encounter sin and overcome it.

If Jesus could fail during His 33 years in this life then He can fail anytime because He is the same all the time. Once a possible failure, always a possible failure. And there ends any hope or confidence that the new earth won’t end in ruins like this one.

As for concluding Jesus cannot help unless He could sin, on the contrary. We are by nature children of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2). It is the at-one-ment of Christ—the union of God who does not sin and a man who cannot sin—that transforms us into “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

The practical result of this is that how we live changes radically. This answers Paul’s question, “Should we go on sinning?” (Romans 6:1, 15). Some respond, “Yes, we must because that’s our sinful nature.”  Paul insists, “sin will not have mastery over you” (Romans 6:14).

Peter says that Jesus makes it possible for one to “stop sinning, so that he can live the rest of his mortal life guided, not by human desires, but by the will of God” (1Peter 4:2).

John concludes, “No one who remains in union with [Jesus] keeps on sinning” (1 John 3:6).

Do I sin? Yes, and therefore 1 John 1:9 remains a necessary promise and comfort. Must I sin? Of course not, because of Jesus. He could not sin and brings to life in us a whole new power expressed in the testimony of John, “In this world we are like Him” (1 John 4:17).

The hymn writer has it right.

Jesus never fails
Jesus never fails,
Heaven and earth may pass away
But Jesus never fails.