Matthew 19:17 ¶ Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" 18 So Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.
There is only One who is good. God alone is good. But what about the goodness of men? Could not Jesus be called good for all the great things He was doing for others?
According to Jesus, that is not an accurate understanding of good.
In creation, every time God created He stated it was good. Concerning man it says, he, was made in God’s image. But through the fall of Adam, all that was once known as good became bad. It became bad at the core of it’s being.
Through Adam sin entered the human race. No one escapes their human heritage. Our great…………...grandfather left us something. It is called the state of sin.
Romans 3:9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. 10 As it is written: "There is none righteous, no, not one; 11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. 12 They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one."
This is not to say that in the time of Paul the Apostle there were not charitable acts being carried out by human beings in the earth.
Knowing this, I think it is safe to say, all the good deeds one can do will never account for being good in the sight of God, since good is directly associated with God, and not an action.
To clearly define something there must be an original source for it’s existence. This is true of good as much as it is anything else.
When we speak of good, we must, if we are honest, go to the original source of good and let the source define good for us.
For mankind the original and only source of good is God Himself.
Based on Adams sin all that was once seen as good by God, became bad at it’s core and mankind from that time till now is according to the Holy Spirit, “under sin, and there are none who does good.”
So we see two connections here. One: good is associated with God Himself, and Two: the absence of good is associated with the condition of being “under sin.”
About The Author
- Tim Atchley
- Knoxville, Tennessee, United States
- I currently serve as Senior Pastor of Harvest Church in Knoxville, Tn. I was sent out from Trinity Chapel of Knoxville in 1993 accompanied by my wife Sheila our four children Sarah, Hannah, Josiah & Isaac and a handful of bold, brave and committed believers determined to plant our first church. Pioneering is hard work but well worth the journey. That is why we desire to make disciples of Christ who will, like us, also embrace the call to plant churches.
