Option #2: Jesus
Uses the Shema and the Decalogue to Imply He Is Equal with God
According to other scholars, however,
Jesus is not denying that he is divine. Instead, he is actually using the allusions
to the Shema and the Decalogue to invite the rich man to realize that Jesus is
much more than just a merely human “teacher” (Matt 19:16; Mark 10:17; Luke
18:18). In order to see this clearly, two key observations need to be made.
First and foremost: despite what is
often claimed, Jesus does not actually deny he is good—much less that he is
God. A closer look at the evidence shows that Jesus never says, “I am not
good,” or “I am not God.” In fact, he does not say anything explicit about
himself one way or the other. Instead, he simply responds to the rich man’s question
about how to obtain eternal life by insisting that the one God alone is good and
that it is necessary to keep the commandments. In other words, Jesus begins his
response to the rich man with an “affirmation of monotheism.” This affirmation
is particularly important, given what Jesus does next.
Second, Jesus adds a commandment to
the Decalogue that is entirely focused on following him. In a first-century
Jewish context, it is difficult to overestimate just how striking Jesus’s act
of adding a requirement to the Decalogue would have been. In Jewish Scripture,
the Ten Commandments alone are written by the very “finger of God” (Exod
31:18). As such, they have a unique and supreme place in the Mosaic Torah.
Hence, for Jesus to presume to add anything to the Decalogue raises the
question: Who does Jesus think he is? It is difficult to overestimate just how
problematic “the extreme nature” of Jesus adding a requirement to the Decalogue
is for those who argue that Jesus is denying both that he is good (and that he
is God). if Jesus is actually denying that he is good, then how can he possibly
make “following” him as a disciple a condition for obtaining “eternal life”?
How could it be necessary for salvation to follow a sinful human teacher who
insists that he is not even “good,” much less that he is not God?
In light of such observations, a
strong case can be made that, far from denying his equality with God, Jesus’s
response to the rich man is actually a riddle meant to lead the man to
the realization of who Jesus really is:
When Jesus adds that no one is good
but God alone, he does not make a direct statement about himself. What this statement
means regarding Jesus’ identity is merely implied. . . . Jesus’ answer was
intended to tease out the implications that Jesus was indeed equal with God . .
. Jesus thus takes the place of God in giving absolute commandments. . . . He
does not make a statement about himself, but provokes the audience to make
their own judgment. (Grindheim, God’s Equal, 187)
If God alone is good and able to give
commandments, then Jesus does so as well. By implication, then, he is also good.
And he is good not in the sense implied by the rich man, but in the absolute
sense, used by Jesus himself. (Simon J. Gathercole, The Preexistent Son:
Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke [Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2006], 74.)
In other words, when it comes to the question
of eternal life, following Jesus is essential. Indeed—and this is important—the
only way to take Jesus’s declaration that no one is good but God alone as a denial
of his divinity is to wrench his words completely out of context by separating his
initial response from his final demand. Taken as a whole, Jesus’s response to
the rich man functions as a riddle-like invitation to discover the truth about
Jesus’s identity. (Brant Pitre, Jesus and Divine Christology [Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2024], 135-36, italics in original; “Option #1” is “Jesus
Denies That He Is God [and that He Is Good” [ibid., 134])
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