Apologetics · FaithLogic
"Why Do You Call Me Good? No One Is Good but God" — Mark 10:18 Answered
"Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" — "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone" (Mark 10:18). This is used as proof that Jesus distinguished himself from God. It does not do the work the objection needs, but it is not a coded proof of deity either. Here is a careful account of what Jesus is doing, and how the church has read it.
What the Verse Does — and Does Not — Say
First: Jesus does not deny being good
He does not say "I am not good." He asks a question — "why do you call me good?" — and states a principle: goodness in the full and proper sense belongs to God. Whatever else is going on, the objection's version ("Jesus admitted he is not good, therefore not God") is reading a denial that is not in the text.
Matthew's parallel makes this clearer. Matthew 19:17: "Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good." Matthew shifts the question from the person ("why call me good") to the category ("what is good"), and both point the man to the one Good — God. The New Testament writers themselves did not read Mark 10:18 as Jesus disowning goodness.
Matthew's parallel makes this clearer. Matthew 19:17: "Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good." Matthew shifts the question from the person ("why call me good") to the category ("what is good"), and both point the man to the one Good — God. The New Testament writers themselves did not read Mark 10:18 as Jesus disowning goodness.
The mainstream reading: Jesus is redirecting the man
Most commentators (R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark, NIGTC; Joel Marcus, Mark, Anchor Bible) take the primary sense to be pastoral: the man approaches Jesus with a flattering address and a works-question ("what must I do?"), and Jesus first pushes back on the easy compliment and turns his attention to God, the source and standard of goodness — before going on to expose that the man has not, in fact, kept the commandments he claims (Mark 10:19–22).
On this reading the verse is not about Christology at all; it is Jesus refusing cheap praise and confronting a man who thinks eternal life can be earned. That is a legitimate and probably correct reading, and it should be granted.
On this reading the verse is not about Christology at all; it is Jesus refusing cheap praise and confronting a man who thinks eternal life can be earned. That is a legitimate and probably correct reading, and it should be granted.
Why the verse still does not help the objection
Even on the mainstream reading, nothing in Mark 10:18 separates Jesus from God ontologically. He says goodness belongs to God; he nowhere says "and therefore I am not that God." Set against the rest of the same Gospels:
— He calls himself "the good shepherd" (John 10:11), the shepherd Ezekiel 34 said YHWH would be.
— He challenges anyone to convict him of a single sin (John 8:46) — and no one does.
— Every New Testament witness affirms his sinlessness (Hebrews 4:15; 7:26; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:22).
— In the same Gospel of Mark, under oath at his trial, he claims the seat at God's right hand and the cloud-coming of Daniel 7 (Mark 14:62), and is condemned for blasphemy.
So the person who says goodness belongs to God alone is presented, by the same authors, as the sinless one and as sharing God's throne. Mark 10:18 is a step in Mark's unfolding portrait, not a contradiction of it.
— He calls himself "the good shepherd" (John 10:11), the shepherd Ezekiel 34 said YHWH would be.
— He challenges anyone to convict him of a single sin (John 8:46) — and no one does.
— Every New Testament witness affirms his sinlessness (Hebrews 4:15; 7:26; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:22).
— In the same Gospel of Mark, under oath at his trial, he claims the seat at God's right hand and the cloud-coming of Daniel 7 (Mark 14:62), and is condemned for blasphemy.
So the person who says goodness belongs to God alone is presented, by the same authors, as the sinless one and as sharing God's throne. Mark 10:18 is a step in Mark's unfolding portrait, not a contradiction of it.
How the Church Read It
Chrysostom — the pedagogical reading
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 63.1–2 (on Matthew 19:16–17): "Since the young man came to Him as to a mere man, and one of the common sort, and a Jewish teacher, Christ answereth him as a man… 'Why callest thou Me good? There is none good but One, that is, God' — not denying that He is good, but leading him up little by little, and teaching him to know God, and drawing him off from the notions of the crowd." On this reading Jesus answers the man on the level the man is on, in order to lift him higher.
Ambrose — the implicit reading
Ambrose of Milan, On the Christian Faith (De Fide) 2, prologue and ch. 1. Ambrose insists Jesus does not disown goodness: "He said not, 'I am not good,' but… He bade him honour God the Father, that from the Father he might understand the Son also." Ambrose's conclusion: because the Son is "of one substance with the Father," and God is good, "the Son is good" — the very goodness the man half-recognised in calling him "good teacher." Ambrose thinks the address was truer than the man knew.
Augustine makes the same move in his sermons on the Gospel: the young man called Christ "good" while taking him for a mere teacher; Christ's question invites him to follow his own words home — if only God is good, and you are right to call me good, then acknowledge who I am.
Augustine makes the same move in his sermons on the Gospel: the young man called Christ "good" while taking him for a mere teacher; Christ's question invites him to follow his own words home — if only God is good, and you are right to call me good, then acknowledge who I am.
💡 Mark 10:18 — Reasonable Summary"Jesus does not deny being good; he questions a flattering address and points the man to God as the standard of goodness — most commentators (France, Marcus) read it as pastoral redirection, not Christology, and that reading should be granted. But it gives the objection nothing: Jesus never says 'therefore I am not God,' and the same Gospels present him as the sinless one (John 8:46; Hebrews 4:15) who claims God's throne under oath (Mark 14:62). The fathers split on emphasis — Chrysostom (Hom. Matt. 63) reads it as Jesus meeting the man on his own level to lift him higher; Ambrose (De Fide 2) reads the man's 'good teacher' as truer than he knew. Neither reads it as Jesus disowning either goodness or deity."
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