He said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except one, God. But if you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
In this verse, with his question (“Why do you call me good?”), Jesus shows that true goodness belongs only to God, and that if someone calls him “good,” he must also accept his divine nature. It is as if he is saying, “Have you thought about why you call me good, or are you simply doing it as a formality?” This is an indirect exhortation to recognize his divinity. Then Jesus answers the young man’s question by teaching that if he truly wants to enter eternal life, he must keep the commandments. This is not a claim that salvation is possible only by commandments, but a first step so that the young man may understand how incomplete the righteousness he imagines (merely doing good) really is, and how greatly he needs divine grace. Jesus begins from where that man’s understanding was, gradually leading him to the recognition of his spiritual shortcomings.