Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except One, God.”
The Lord does not deny His goodness, but seeks to bring the man to the true meaning of his words. If he calls Jesus good merely as a respectful teacher, then he must also understand that absolute goodness belongs to God alone. Thus Christ sets him before an important question: does he recognize Jesus’ divine dignity, or does he see in Him only a moral teacher? The Lord also shatters the illusion that a person can be fully good by himself. If only God is good in the perfect sense, then a person cannot demand eternal life by his works, but must recognize his need for God’s grace.