Jehovah's Witnesses, is Jesus good?

According to Jehovah's Witnesses, who reject the deity of Christ, they say Jesus was "good" but Jesus was not God. They take Jesus' words in Mark 10:17-22 to suggest that because he says only God is good, that must mean that all praise goes to Jehovah God, his Father, and not to himself. Look at what Jesus says:

“As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. ‘Good teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ ‘Why do you call me good?’ Jesus answered. ‘No one is good – except God alone. You know the commandments: Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’ ‘Teacher,’ he declared, ‘all these I have kept since I was a boy.’ Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ At this, the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.”

Is Jesus here rebuking the man for calling Him good and thereby denying His deity? No. Rather, He is using a penetrating question to push the man to think through the implications of his own words, to understand the concept of Jesus’ goodness and, most especially, the man’s lack of goodness. The young ruler "went away sad" (Mark 10:22) because he realized that although he had devoted himself to keeping the commandments, he had failed to keep the first and greatest of the commandments—love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Matthew 22:37-38). The man’s riches were of more worth to him than God, and thus he was not "good" in the eyes of God.

Jesus’ fundamental lesson here is that goodness flows not from a man’s deeds, but rather from God Himself. Jesus invites the man to follow Him, the only means of doing good by God’s ultimate standard. Jesus describes to the young ruler what it means to follow Him—to be willing to give up everything, thus putting God first. When one considers that Jesus is drawing a distinction between man’s standard of goodness and God’s standard, it becomes clear that following Jesus is good. The command to follow Christ is the definitive proclamation of Christ’s goodness. Thus, by the very standard Jesus is exhorting the young ruler to adopt, Jesus is good. And it necessarily follows that if Jesus is indeed good by this standard, Jesus is implicitly declaring His deity.

Jesus’ question to the man is designed not to deny His deity, but rather to draw the man to recognize Christ’s divine identity. Such an interpretation is substantiated by passages such as John 10:11 wherein Jesus declares Himself to be “the good shepherd.” Similarly in John 8:46, Jesus asks, “Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?” Of course the answer is "no." Jesus was “without sin” (Hebrews 4:15), holy and undefiled (Hebrews 7:26), the only One who “knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The logic can thus be summarized as follows:

1: Jesus claims only God is good.

2: Jesus claims to be good.

3: Therefore, Jesus claims to be God.

Such a claim makes perfect sense in light of the flow of Mark’s narrative with regards to the unfolding revelation of Jesus’ real identity. It is only before the high priest in Mark 14:62 when the question of Jesus’ identity is explicitly clarified. The story of the rich young ruler is one in a sequence of stories designed to point readers toward Jesus’ self-understanding as the eternal, divine, incarnate Son of God.

The matter is very simple. They have to muddy and convoluted it to hide what is being said. They try and add a bunch of qualifiers to it, how that good isn't the same as regular good, and what Jesus "really" meant but its nonsense.

Jesus asked a lot of questions to challenge people. He is getting the man to think. He is not rejecting the description. That view can't be supported by one sentence, especially when Jesus takes the very word "good" that according to Him only belongs to God for Himself when He says "I am the Good Sheppard."

Would it make sense for Jesus to say "hey whoa! dude! Why are you calling me "Good Teacher"? I'm just a teacher guy, God, he's the Good one!" and yet also say "I know I just said "Good" belonged to God, but hey, I'm the Good Sheppard!" No. He was challenging the man to think about why he was using that term for Him, challenging him to acknowledge and see who He was.

Felt led to copy over Gary's comment under SC's answer: "That is not what he is saying. He is not claiming to be good since his God is the only one good. Why call me good when only God is good?"

Wow. They really can't stand what the Bible says about Jesus, can they? To go this far, with what Gary said...we need to pray against the evil around them.

Of course Jesus is good, because He is God. True light, true bread, true vine, true Shepherd, true gate, true way, true resurrection, true life, true God.

In that passage, He questions the man who calls Him Good "Teacher". The man didn't know whom he was really speaking with. Great passage.

Jesus expanded on this in:

(Mat 19:17) And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is NONE GOOD but ONE, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

*Who is not Good ?

Answer: Man ( human race)

(Rom 3:10) There is none righteous, no, not one:

v:23 For ALL have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.

*Surely the JWs are not going to say Jesus was not good but a sinner like everyone else!!

*The bible clearly says Jesus did NOT sin (2Cor 5:21 & 1John 3:6)

*ONLY God cannot sin !

*Jesus healed a sick man and told him:

(Luke 5:20) Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.

*The unbelieving Jews considered this blasphemy and said:

v:21 Who can forgive sins, but God ALONE?

*Jesus said:

(John 10:11) I am the GOOD shepherd.

He is also called the "that great shepherd" and the "chief shepherd" (Heb 13:20 & 1Pet 5:4)

(Psa 23:1) The Lord is my shepherd.

This is a brilliant verse to demonstrate the divinity of Christ not least because JWs often try to use it to show Jesus isn't God.

JWs think Jesus is saying in effect.. "How can I be good only God is good" and then they try delusional explanations (like 'Suzanne shows here) to say "Yeah Jesus is good but he was just saying praise God" when this is not what Jesus said or meant.

The key to understanding Jesus message here is easily shown by highlighting a word....

"Why do YOU call me good? No one is good--except God alone."

or in simpler terms ..."Are you saying I'm God?"

consider what John writes in chapter 1, verse 18: No man has seen (Almighty) God at any time.

However, humans have seen Jesus, the Son, for John says: The Word (Jesus) was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. John 1:14, KJ

How, then, could the Son be part of Almighty God? John also states that the Word was with God.

But how can an individual be with someone and at the same time be that person?

Moreover, as recorded at John 17:3, Jesus makes a clear distinction between himself and his heavenly Father. He calls his Father the only true God.

And toward the end of his Gospel, John sums up matters by saying: These have been written down that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God. John 20:31

Notice that Jesus is called, not God, but the Son of God. This additional information provided in the Gospel of John shows how John 1:1 should be understood.

Jesus, the Word, is a god in the sense that he has a high position but is not the same as Almighty God.

By the JW definition, Jesus would NOT be Ggood, as the JWs do not believe that Jesus Is God.

in fact, their Bible, the New World Translation (NWT), has been intentionally MIS-translated to "prove" this.

This is a great scripture to show that Jesus is not God. He asked another why he called him good because he believes that only his God is good. Jesus was not accepting praise. He was correcting the asker.

This was a teaching moment and Jesus taught the asker that he was not God.

"As Jesus started on His way, a man ran up and knelt before Him. “Good Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

Er what? Why are you calling ME good? No one is good except God alone."

I'm sure I smell a troll qustion like why do people call Jesus good teacher if he isn't god.

Because he teaches good that's why

Yes. In this passage, he was subtly saying that he is God.