Being Good is Good Enough
I’m a tennis player. I began when I was 9 years old, started competitive tennis at 10, competed in the junior circuit in Florida through age 18, then played one year of college tennis. Following my graduation from college, I coached professionally for 14 years. I still play every now and again.
Some people think I’m a good tennis player, but good is certainly one of those loaded, abstract words that can mean many things to many people.
For example, to my children and some folks I play with these days, I’m perceived as a good tennis player. But the reality is I never played professionally. And although I attained a high level of proficiency at the game, even at my very best, there was always somebody better than me.
In fact, at the height of my tennis powers in my late teens, there were hundreds of touring professionals who could beat me with ease! To some people, like those at my local tennis club, I was viewed as good, while to others, like touring pros, not so much. Being good at tennis is a relative term.
In the spiritual, being good is also a relative term, and as we think about the objection to the Christian faith stated in this submission, goodness or the lack thereof is front and center.
A common objection that seeks to diminish the imperative Christian claim demanding a person wholly trust on the finished work of Christ on the cross in order to get to heaven is this:
Being a good person is all that really matters.
When discussing faith issues and this objection arises, the first response can be, “What do you mean by good?” While defining who is good typically focuses on a level of external morality, it’s helpful to point out that no matter how good a person is, nobody is perfect. Additionally, you could follow up with, “How good is good enough to get to heaven? And by whose standard?” This line of questioning can provide a platform for Jesus’ setting the record straight on, “Who is truly good.”
Two thousand years ago a rich young ruler engaged in a fascinating and instructive conversation with our Lord. At the heart of the conversation was, “Who is good and what ‘goodness’ gets someone into heaven?”
“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?’ So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.” Mark 10:17-18.
There is nothing new under the sun, for just as many people today believe we get to heaven through good deeds, so it was in the time of Christ. “What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” was a question Jesus addressed, but not before clarifying that only One is good, namely God!
The Bible is very clear about the goodness of man and his ability to be good.
“For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin” (Ecclesiastes 7:20).
“There is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands, none who seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become useless. There is none who does good, there is not even one” (Romans 3:10–12).
The gospel is about acknowledging we are not good. The Bible calls us sinners, and that sin separates us from God. The Bible says God is good, He is righteous. In His goodness He sent His Son to die for our sins and rise again so we could be brought into a right relationship with God. So, the gospel is not about being good. It’s about trusting in the One who is.
Ouch! When put in such distinct terms, Jesus is not only putting the rich young ruler in his place, but anyone who would make the claim, “I’m good” – or in other words, “I’m good enough to get to heaven.”
The gospel makes a statement about the inherent condition of man: we are not good. This flies in the face of the common perception that man is inherently good. No, people are not good. We are sinful. David wrote, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5). In Jeremiah 17:9 the prophet added, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?”
We shouldn’t be surprised that a message of the good news of God is couched in the bad news that something is terribly wrong with people. Naturally, we don’t want to hear that we are born into and live in a state of depravity.
The late British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge put it this way: “The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.”
Nobody likes to be the object of criticism, but the truth remains. What should we do with this uncomfortable knowledge about our spiritual condition? Pride will attempt to reject and rationalize it away. Humility will receive it and confess it before God. And this is why we need to pray God would soften the heart, convict the heart, and humble the heart of a person to acknowledge the truth about their hopeless condition apart from God’s grace found in Christ.
The Holy Spirit must bring us to a place where we can agree with God about our true condition. Then we can receive a new life through God’s provision found in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. For the Bible says, “Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up” (James 4:10), and “He who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).
We shouldn’t harbor illusions about the nature of the message and people’s response to it. Many will cringe and reject, it while others will receive it and believe.
In the case of the rich young ruler, here was a person who thought he had it all together, telling Jesus he had “kept all these things”—a reference to the commandments, from his youth (Mark 10:19-20). Notice Jesus’ loving correction and exhortation:
“Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.’ But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions” (Mark 10:21-22).
Jesus was not looking for this man to be good or to do good. He was requiring the man to surrender all and follow Him.
As we address this objection, pray that the Lord would reveal to people their true condition apart from Him—that they are not good—and that He would also reveal the true nature of the goodness and grace of God found in Jesus, our Lord, the only hope for eternal life! Amen.
“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).