Did Jesus Deny his divinity?

By: Jordan Hampton

Published: 04/03/21

A viewer named Doug contacted me and raised an objection to the deity of Christ based on Mark 10:18. I’ll first lay out Doug’s objection, and then offer my response to it.

The Objection

In Mark 10:17-18, a rich man says to Jesus, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life.” And Jesus responds by saying, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” How should we interpret Jesus’ words here? Is Jesus saying that he is not good, thereby implying that he is not divine? That’s what Doug thinks, and he offers two reasons to interpret the passage this way.

First, after hearing Jesus’ response, the rich man stopped referring to Jesus as “Good Teacher,” and instead just called him “Teacher” (v. 20). This suggests that Jesus was saying not to call him good.

Second, every other time there’s a “rhetorical ‘why’ question” in Mark’s gospel, it’s always a way of saying “don’t _______” or “you shouldn’t ________.” Here are just three examples, but more could be offered.

1. In Mark 4:40, Jesus asks, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” That’s Jesus’s way of saying, “Don’t be afraid.”

2. In Mark 5:39 Jesus asks, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” That’s Jesus’s way of saying, “Don’t make a commotion and weep.”

3. In Mark 14:6 Jesus asks, “Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing.” That’s Jesus’s way of saying, “Don’t bother her.”

Doug thinks we should be consistent and interpret the “rhetorical ‘why’ question” of Mark 10:18 the same way we interpret the “rhetorical ‘why’ questions” elsewhere in Mark’s Gospel. And that would mean Jesus is saying, “Don’t call me good. Only God is good.”

My Response

Let me first identify some points of agreement.

• Doug’s first observation is correct. The rich man stopped calling Jesus “good” after Jesus told him that ‘No one is good except God alone.”

• Doug’s second observation is also correct. “Rhetorical ‘why’ questions” in Mark’s Gospel most often mean “don’t ______.”

I disagree though, with Doug’s final interpretation. Doug thinks the most consistent interpretation of Mark 10:18 is that Jesus denies that he is good, and thereby implies that he is not divine. I think the most consistent interpretation of Mark 10:18 is that Jesus implies that he is good, like God, and thereby implies that he is divine. Jesus implies his goodness in two distinct ways.

First, notice that Jesus answers a question (“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”) with a question (“Why do you call me good?”). And Jesus immediately adds the remark, “No one is good except God alone” (v. 18). Jesus’ word choice is highly significant. The word “why” that Jesus uses here is τίς. The phrase “except God alone” (εἰ μὴ εἷς ὁ θεός) occurs in only one other verse in all of Mark’s Gospel, and that same verse begins with τίς. See Figure 1 below for the parallels.

Jesus’ word choice in Mark 10:18 is intentionally designed to remind the reader of a very specific question asked earlier during a very specific set of events- the events recorded in Mark 2:1-12. For this reason, one should interpret Mark 10:18 in light of Mark 2:7.

When you read Mark 2:1-12 you will see that it is the scribes that ask “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (v. 7), after Jesus told a paralytic man that his sins are forgiven. We should note that the scribes question clearly fits the pattern Doug identified in his objection. It is a “rhetorical ‘why’ question” meaning something like, “Don’t speak like that. Don’t claim to forgive sins. Only God can forgive sins.” What’s striking though is the way Jesus responds to the scribes question. He demonstrates his authority to forgive sins by healing the paralytic (v. 8-12). At minimum, this shows that both God and Jesus share a prerogative, namely the authority to forgive sins. This is true even if Doug interprets the passage as saying that God has given this authority to a man (Matt 9:8). Both God and Jesus still have the prerogative.

Since Mark 2:1-12 shows that God and Jesus share a prerogative, and Mark 10:18 intentionally points back to this pericope, then to be consistent, we should interpret Jesus’ words in Mark 10:18 to imply that God and Jesus share a prerogative, namely goodness. It appears that Jesus has borrowed the rhetorical question of the scribes he encountered earlier, especially the phrase “except God alone,” and is using it now to make a point about the rich man in contrast to himself. When Jesus tells the rich man that ‘No one is good except God alone”, it implies that this rich man is not good, a point that becomes relevant when the rich man claims to have kept the law. By contrast though, the phrase “except God alone” is a reminder of Jesus’ previous action demonstrating that he shares prerogatives with God that some think only God has. It is an allusion to Mark 2:7. The purpose of the allusion is clear. It was thought that only God can forgive sins, yet Jesus can forgive sins. Similarly, it was thought that only God is good, yet Jesus is good. So the man has unconsciously (but correctly) called Jesus good, and thus implied that he is divine.

Robert Gundry makes this point in his commentary on Mark. He writes, “That God alone is good lays the groundwork for the inadequacy of keeping commandments even God’s commandments (vv 19-21). Since in 2:1-12 some scribes asked, ‘Who is able to forgive sins except one, God?’ and Jesus proceeded to heal a paralytic for proof of his own divine prerogative to forgive sins, here he borrows those scribes’ phraseology and proceeds to answer the present question for proof of his divine possession of goodness…” (Gundry, pg. 553).

The second way that Jesus implies that he is good, and thereby implies that he is divine, can be seen in the transition from verse 18 (no one is good but God alone) to verse 19 (you know the commandments: do not murder, etc.). Some commentators have argued that this transition is significant because it shows that Jesus thinks only God can ultimately define what is required of someone to inherit eternal life, and that is why Jesus begins listing commands found in the Torah. But notice what happens next. The man says he’s kept all the commands Jesus listed. Jesus then gives the man a command of his own, not found in the Torah (“Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” [v. 21]). Simon Gathercole points out the implication very well. If God alone is good and able to give commandments necessary to keep to inherit eternal life, then Jesus does so as well. By implication, then, he is also good (Gathercole, pg. 74).

Now, did the rich man pick up on these two ways that Jesus implied his goodness, and thereby implied his divinity? No. That’s why the rich man stopped calling Jesus “good” after hearing Jesus say, “No one is good except God alone” (v. 18). But, does that mean that Jesus was not implying his divinity? No, not at all. All that follows is that the rich man thought Jesus was saying not to call him good. But in Mark and the other Gospels, people frequently misunderstand what Jesus is really saying. So, I don’t take Doug’s first point to be a very strong one. And Doug’s second point becomes irrelevant when you see that Jesus is borrowing the scribes rhetorical question, to serve as a reminder that he shares divine prerogatives. That’s the purpose of the allusion back to the events of Mark 2:1-12.

I think these considerations alone are sufficient to justify my original claim that the most consistent interpretation of the passage is that Jesus implies that he is good, like God, and thereby implies that he is divine. But there may well be another way that Jesus implies his divinity in this passage. And this way seems very plausible in light of the considerations just discussed.

The list of commandments Jesus cited is highly significant. See Figure 2.

Notice that Jesus cites the second half of the Decalogue (commandments five through ten), but not the first half (commandments one through four). The second half is about obligations to one’s neighbor. The first half is about obligations to God. Jesus omits the first half though. Why? After all, the first half spells out what Jesus considers the greatest commandment, “to love the Lord your God..” (Mark 12:30). The second half spells out what Jesus considers the second greatest commandment, “to love your neighbor as yourself…” (Mark 12:31). So why leave out the most important part? Well, he didn’t. In the place of the first tablet, Jesus sets his command to, “sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow me” (Mark 10:21). The rich man’s duty to follow Jesus, takes the place of the rich man’s duties to God, the first of which is “to have no other gods before me”(Ex 20:3). Jesus is telling this man to put nothing else before him, including his great wealth. The implication is that Jesus, in some sense, takes the place of God (McDermott, pgs. 319-320). Now Doug may say that the implication is just that one loves and obeys God by following his merely human Messiah, or something like that. Perhaps. But, in light of the two ways Jesus already implied his divinity in this same pericope, it seems quite plausible to interpret Jesus’ words here as implying his divinity as well. At the very least, my interpretation of this part of the pericope seems no less plausible than the skeptical interpretation.

Summary

I’ve argued that when one examines Mark 10:17-22, Jesus implies that he is good and thereby divine in at least two ways. First, he borrowed the scribe’s rhetorical question posed to him in the scene from Mark 2, in order to reveal that the rich man was not good, and that he shares divine prerogatives, including God’s goodness. Second, the transition from verse 18 to verse 19 suggests that Jesus thinks only God can ultimately define what is required of someone to inherit eternal life, yet Jesus gives his own command of what is required of this man to inherit eternal life, thereby implying his divinity. Jesus may also be implying his divinity when he intentionally sets his command in the place of the first tablet of the Decalogue.

Sources

• Gathercole, Simon. The Pre-Existent Son: Recovering the Chrisologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Eerdman's. (2006).

• Gundry, Robert. Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross. Vol 2. Eerdman's. (1993).

• McDermott, John M. Didn't Jesus Know He Was God? Irish Theological Quarterly, 73 (2008) pgs. 307-333.