“No one is good except God alone.”

Dale,

I don’t have any commentaries on this text available, but here’s how it reads most naturally to me. I think it’s a matter of fitting it in with Jesus’ larger dialog, thought and interactions with people.

Jesus’ quick reaction to being called “good” confronted the rich young ruler’s whole approach to him. It set the whole conversation back on the ground where it belonged, rather than in the fantasy world the man was living in. The rich man approached Jesus the way many “good” and friendly people of status and rank approach others they want something out of…, namely, with polite flattery. Perhaps this man didn’t do this on purpose but more by way of cultural habit or upbringing. In any case, it was an approach that was outside of what Jesus found to be realistic. In approaching Jesus in this manner, he certainly wasn’t asking for the answer Jesus was going to give him. He wanted something that would fit in with his almost complete life, and would top it off, so to speak. So knowingly or not, he was imposing his worldview and perspective on the conversation in calling Jesus “good.” I have experienced this first hand with people of rank and wealth and it is difficult to stand up to. The easy path is to just take the compliment, give them what they want and move on. Jesus took the hard and noble path, refusing to be dazzled by what the man represented.

Jesus confronted his perspective straight off by his reply. Jesus wasn’t going to play the traditional status game in which everyone pretends that they are above the dirty masses and share no responsibility for them. Everyone in that world is “good.” By confronting his initial flattery head on with the reply that there is none good but God, Jesus was telling him where his loyalties were at, and confronting him with his own loyalties to God at the same time. Neither the Messiah nor anyone else has the right to make up the rules of life in their own self interested terms and then label it “good”, even if those rules are based in the law of Moses itself. Those who do so are always looking for a crowd of people to gather around them, who affirm their lifestyle as “good.” Perhaps for Jesus the “good” temptation would be to rule the world without dying for it? It seems that for the rich young ruler the “good” temptation had been to seek to be religious without accepting the responsibility that wealth and privilege had given him to fully assist others who were in need. In giving up privilege and wealth to follow this persecuted yet “good” Messiah, who had nowhere to lay his head, he would have truly acknowledged who Jesus stood for, the Father, who alone was good. When Jesus refused his flattery, ascribed goodness only to God, and then told him to follow him, he was asking the man to learn to truly follow the God whom Jesus served. The man was confronted directly and caught in his own words. The good teacher had told him the truth, a truth he was unable to bear. Unable to respond to the trap he had sprung on himself, and unwilling to repent, he walked away sad. He should have walked after Jesus instead.

Although the rich young ruler suspected something was missing in his life, and hence his question to Jesus, he was someone who could not come to terms with what it truly meant to follow God or to follow the Messiah. He was looking for a way of escape from the requirements Jesus would potentially give to him. He came armed with flattery, hoping to tempt Jesus out of telling him the truth. Jesus put his finger on why this man had blindness to see what was missing in his life. Keeping the commandments, whatever that meant, and flattering oneself and others for doing so, was not the honest path of God, who alone is good. Jesus refused the compliment, felt compassion for the man’s difficult inner battle between following God and following his status and wealth, and ultimately told him the truth about what he was really following. The man chose poorly and many of us do as well, over far smaller idols than the ones this man had. What’s worse is that we too continue to tempt Jesus. But we do so by pretending that he didn’t mean what he said. We call him “good” every Sunday whilst singing our praise songs to him and worshiping him as our GOD…, but the standard remains the same. Jesus was not God. Rather, he was the Messiah. And as the Messiah he was loyal to God, the only one we can truly call “good.” Why do you call me “Lord, Lord?” Why do you call me “good, good” and do not do what I say? Why do you call me, “God, God,” and do not do what I say? It all boils down to the same basic issues. We’d rather worship Jesus as God than to follow him as a man who represented God. Maybe someday when we meet him face to face, he’ll be less honest with us than he was with this young man. Maybe all that flattery will go to his head? It’s anybody’s gamble but I doubt it will work.

So I agree with what you’re saying about what “good” means in this context. Jesus is saying that only God is good. Even Jesus himself was deriving his goodness from following God with his whole being, and he challenged the rich young ruler and all of us to do the same.