Who are You Calling Good?

Passage: Lord’s Day 23

Few Reformed Doctrines are as offensive as the Doctrine of Total Depravity. This doctrine is touched on briefly in Q&A 60 of the Heidelberg Catechism, which states:
“…my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God's commandments and of never having kept any of them, and…I am still inclined toward all evil…”
Grievously sinned against all God’s commandments? Inclined toward all evil? We read this. And we react. Who are you calling evil?

Ironically, during his ministry on earth, Jesus asks the opposite: Who are you calling… good?
The question occurs during a conversation with a rich young man. The man is devoutly religious. He has grown up learning the Scriptures and following God’s Law. He comes to Jesus and poses the ultimate question: “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus knows the answer. But he doesn’t give it. Instead, he asks another question. A seemingly unrelated question:
Good? Who are you calling good?
Actually, what Jesus says is, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God!”

This question contains the two components of the wisdom of Jesus' response. The first has to do with Jesus’ identity. As is often the case, Jesus is having fun with his audience. Jesus doesn’t say what he says about goodness because he isn’t good, but because he is! What he asserts is true. That "no one is good but God" doesn’t preclude the possibility that Jesus is good; it implies that Jesus is God.

This leads to Jesus' second point: that the young man (along with the rest of us) doesn’t really know what we’re talking about when we use the term "good". The young man is operating under the assumption that his standing before God can be improved by his actions. That he will be rendered “good” once he’s achieved a level of performance or moral purity. Hey, I’m a good person, he thinks. Jesus says, “Who are you calling good?” Because when Jesus says “good”, he means, “good enough to be good with God.” And no person is that good. The reality is that if you use the rules as a measuring stick, you’ll fail every time. Goodness is all or nothing. One infraction renders you a lawbreaker. A rebel. Not Good. No human being is good enough at following God’s rules to be called good.

But the Law wasn’t given to make us good with God. God would have done us an infinite injustice to suggest that we had to work our way into his heart. God gives the Law to teach people how to live right – how to live the way he created us to live. God also gives the Law to point out how we should live once we’re in right relationship with him. But we can’t use the Law to get right with God. Only God can do that.

The amazing thing is that God does. We’re not good. But God is. Through Jesus God imprints us with his goodness. If you and I are in Christ, then it’s not our goodness God sees. It’s his. Who are you calling good? There’s only one, and he’s our shot at being good with God.