About Lk 18 : 18-19

18 And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

19 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.

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Unless i'm mistaking,
Jesus tells he is not good himself.
Please, how do you understand that ?

Indeed,
Unless i'm mistaking,
i'd say Jesus calling good the Father means it's He that provides with the growth of every being.
Yes, may be, but i fail to understand why (from Jn 1, 29)

(...) the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

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is not good Himself, He that gives his own flesh

A New Dawn said:

I understand it to mean that Jesus is talking to someone who does not believe He is God but yet is calling Jesus “good”. Jesus is pointing out the irony to him.

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Thank you, a New Dawn.
Sorry, i hardly believe so, for the ruler, who is a wealthy man, becomes sad after Jesus suggests he should sell ans give everything he owns. Indeed, i suppose if he didn't believe, he would not have become sad

Junotheservant said:

Well it's actually literally. Jesus simply did not want to give any credit to the flesh. The flesh is evil and can be tempted to go against the Fathers will. Jesus did not having any sin but the reason he did not wanted to be call good because the flesh itself kick against the will of the father.

Spoiler: Matthew 26

38 Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.

39 And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

Jesus knew he had to die but yet he did not want to die so he said if it can't then thine will be done.

So if the man with no sin is not good then neither are we who have sin. The flesh is evil and Jesus wore it so nobody can tell him on judgement day that you don't understand. If we don't walk just like Christ we are in danger of hell fire.

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Thank you Juno
It's the interpretation i'd be favoring

St_Worm2 said:

Hello Peter2, I've come to believe that the Lord Jesus' point (the one that He was really making to the rich, young ruler) was actually pretty direct (IOW, there wasn't a double or hidden meaning behind it). So, when he called Jesus "good teacher", and Jesus responded to him by saying that "no one is good except God alone", the point that I believe the Lord was attempting to make to the ruler (who tells us that he is a seeker, not a believer) was that, since God ALONE is good, that means that no one else can be .. not even you

Then the Lord recited most of the horizontal commandments from the Decalogue to him (in answer to his question, "what must I do to inherit eternal life"), and the rich, young ruler correctly replied to Him by saying,

"If that's what I've needed to do throughout my life, then woe is me, because I've failed miserably, am without hope, and will be damned forever"!!​

Wait a minute, that's what he SHOULD have said, but it's not WHAT he said, is it, rather, he told the Lord, "All these I have kept since I was boy", so Jesus replied by saying, "Then you're good dude! No worries, eternal life is yours"

Wait, that's not what Jesus said either, is it!

Instead, He pointed out the principal vertical commands to him (e.g. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength"), and by doing so, told him that he needed to make God first in his life (and that the way to do so, in his case, was by "selling everything that he owned and giving the proceeds to the poor"). This, we quickly learn, is something that rich, young ruler was unwilling to do, 1. because he was very wealthy, and 2. because he wasn't willing to love God as he needed to, instead, he loved his stuff and the kind of life that his $$ bought for him, far more

Everybody wants God's blessings, yes, especially eternal life*. Unfortunately, few seem to want Him too (but you can't have one* without the Other)

God bless you!!

~Deuteronomy
p.s. - my replies are usually a little more straight-forward than this one has been, so please don't hesitate to ask me to clarify something for you if you want me to.

Lastly, the Apostle Paul rightly referred to the Law as a (harsh) tutor, because its purpose is to show us who/what we really are (sinners w/o any hope of obtaining eternal life on our own), and to drive us, then, to the feet of the One who can (who has obtained it for us, that is) our merciful and gracious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Galatians 3​

21 Is the Law contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would have been based on law. ​

22 But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. ​

23 But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. ​

24 Therefore, the Law has become our ~tutor~ to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. ​

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Hello St worm
I agree with everything you write, but you don't seem to answer my question.
I was thinking that Jesus' response to the young man, that no one is good except God, if taken literally, seems to indicate that Jesus himself is not good either. In another thread, I wondered if this might indicate the degree to which Jesus was willing to consent to his sacrifice. In other words, the reluctance of his human side to sacrifice himself (asking the Father to take this cup away from him) would go further than I had imagined before asking this question. That is to say, his love for mankind, although universal, would not consist in sacrificing himself for sinners, which, incidentally, would not be educational from a human point of view. Yet it was out of this love, with little regard for his own life, that I previously considered Jesus to be making his sacrifice. But since reading this thread, I am more divided: I have recently come to think that Jesus may not have adhered to the morality of his sacrifice. Perhaps, I tell myself, Jesus felt that sinners did not deserve such kindness from the Son of God. Hence his remark to the rich young man. This kindness could only be found in God the Father, who did not become man and therefore did not have the same “legitimate status” to react to the injustice to which Jesus was subjected.
I mean: Jesus, as a man, has every right not to want to condone his sacrifice. The Father lacks this right, since he is not on an equal footing with his creation.
So, according to this second hypothesis, Jesus did accept his sacrifice, but it was not inspired by sinful men; it was exclusively out of obedience to God, who is love.
My reason leads me to the second hypothesis, but I remain attached, perhaps mistakenly, perhaps emotionally, to the idea of Jesus, a man, who sacrificed himself for me, a sinner, including by accepting to endorse the injustice of which I am guilty when my sin nails him to the cross.
But as I write, I feel more and more justified in favoring the second hypothesis

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Shane R said:

Perhaps we could think of the dialogue like this: Why do you call me good? Are you ready to acknowledge that I am God? No one is good, but God alone. Yet I am good.

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Hello Shane.
You may read what i wrote to St Worm
I am less and less sure that Jesus' goodness does not have a limit: that of not condoning his sacrifice, because that would mean condoning the injustice done to him. Even if it is up to him whether he accepts this sacrifice, justice is also one of his prerogatives.

St_Worm2 said:

If I'm misunderstanding what you're after, please ask me the question that you'd like me to answer again. Thanks

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Thank you for your interest, St. Worm.
Indeed, I have not managed to make myself understood, but for once it is by referring to the context, and not by isolating a piece of verse.
Here again is Luke 18:18-19:

18 Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

19 So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.

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Jesus does not explicitly say that he is not good, but that is nevertheless what I think can be concluded from the two verses as a whole... or at least that his own goodness is distinct from that of the Father.

St_Worm2 said:

As for the rest of what you just wrote, I'll have to take another look at it later, but it seems to me that you are reading way too much into this passage (and way too much too about His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, including what it means that He was is such deep anguish at that point in time).

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It is quite possible i too much focus on something. Thank you for your later look

St_Worm2 said:

Hello again Peter2, no worries, we'll eventually figure it all out and be on the same page Also, I believe that French, not English is your native tongue, yes, so there is that too. BTW, I'm old enough to remember when French was the principal language in the world, like English is today. In fact, my mother enrolled me in French class instead of preschool for that very reason. Sadly however, I am anything but well-versed in it any longer, and I was never fluent.

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Hello David,
Please excuse the delay in my reply. I've been swamped with daily tasks.

I never knew the days when French was predominant. Was it ever really?
Thank you for making the effort to read my rough English (to be honest, I'm using the translator more and more, as the topics are becoming increasingly specialized).

St_Worm2 said:

why, then, do you believe that Jesus gave the rich, young ruler the answer that He did in Luke 18:20 (as the way that he could obtain eternal life)?

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You've given me food for thought. Thank you!
I would say that Jesus reminds us, through his question and what follows, that God's goodness was already evident to anyone who could perceive it in the gift of the commandments.
I must tell you that, personally,
I have come to believe that God accepts a role that no worldly person would willingly play. That is, the role of the uncool guy, or the one who contradicts the words of the tempter.
For example,
it would not occur to the tempter to command us to love with all our strength, soul, and mind the One who has already given us everything (or an enormous amount: life, growth, etc.), out of a simple impulse of gratitude from the creature to the Creator.
No!
On the contrary, he proposes to provoke the One who has shown this kindness, and to make a mockery of it, by proposing not only ingratitude to the creature, but outright replacement of God, in a kind of “denial of filiation.”
So, in summary,
God's goodness is manifested in accepting to play the corny role of the One who “commands” love (and therefore self-giving), in order to become a child of God, where the world is inclined to try to dishonor this commandment (by loving oneself and seeking to take by force what is deliberately given).
Even in Satan's temptation, one could see love. After all, doesn't he seem to want good for the creature?
So what's the difference?
I believe that God's gift precedes the commandment.
It is free, whereas Satan's promises bind the creature who allows itself to be tempted to give up what it has received freely from God. And Satan's promise, unlike God's gift, only takes effect once the creature has succumbed to temptation, if Satan honors his promise (?).
Satan engages in a kind of racketeering.

All this to say, and to answer your question, that Jesus is simply reminding the ruler that he already had the keys to his answer in the commandments.
At least, that is what you seem to be suggesting.
So Jesus gives both the content (commandments) and the container (what I have just written) in his answer.

St_Worm2 said:

I believe you'll see that the assumption that you've made (about Jesus NOT being God .. from v19) cannot be true!

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My hypothesis was not that Jesus would have distinguished himself from his divine nature, but from the Father, to whom alone he attributes goodness.
What I meant was that if God is so good as to give his Son as a sacrifice, Jesus' love for humanity might not have led him to the same goodness.
I mean that he might not have consented to this sacrifice without the Father's will, because of his human nature.
He could not have silenced his human survival instinct for the sake of the love that mankind inspires in him.

The sacrifice could only have meaning, it seems to me, if it was inspired by love and obedience to the Father.
At least for his human side... for his right to life, which was denied him during his trial.


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Hello Arial

Arial-byGrace said:

The wealthy man was likely asking the question because he considered himself good. And he thought "goodness" according to obedience of the law. was the way to eternal life. He claimed to have kept all the commandments that Jesus mentioned. He was sad because he realized when Jesus asked him to dispose of his wealth, he was not willing to do so.

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i agree, yes, but i don't understand why you consider my response to a New Dawn

Arial-byGrace said:

has nothing to do with

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her remark.
My response to New Dawn was likely linked to the fact that in my youth, I knew young people of my age who were well-off, and they were generally among the kindest of my friends. They would have been very likely to respond openly to the parable about the tax collector's prayer and the welcoming of infants that precedes it, and to show a desire to be seen favorably by Jesus and the crowds that followed him. In short, they would have been won over by Jesus' personality, not by irony.
The young man's profile would be that of someone who had always had a full stomach;
he might have thought himself good, but Jesus would show him in his reply that it is easier to keep the commandments with a full stomach. This would be an extension of Luke 18:9.

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Thank you for your giving details. Indeed, John Calvin is dead long ago. French might have been first language under Francis I or a bit later, but i'm not sure i would nowadays easily understand someone speaking with this old french.

St_Worm2 said:

I talked above about asking/giving one another explanations whenever we need to clarify something, and lo and behold, here we are already, with me needing an explanation of both the sentence and the question about Satan that I've just quoted.

So, first off, in what way do you believe that Satan 'loved' our first parents when he tempted them to disobey the one and only commandment that God had given them to keep?

Lastly, what in Genesis 3 led you to believe that Satan, in his tempting of Adam & Eve, did so for their "good"?

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I didn't think you would be perplexed.
Of course, I don't think Satan loves men, but just that our first parents might have thought so.

God bless you as well
Pierre

Edited : I must admit though your question is worth being asked for.
One might think that God and Satan are in cahoots.
In fact, no one ever responded to my short thread in “Testimonies,” in “Prayer and Encouragement”: “Who is the more a victim?...” But you can read there my conception of what Judah inspires in me, which is related to how I understand the articulation of their relationship, to God and Satan (they are not working together at all)