We read in Luke's Gospel (xviii. 19) that Jesus replied to the young man who asked him what he should do to inherit Eternal Life: "Why callest thou me Good? None is Good save one,—that is, God."
Good Master was perhaps only an expression of outward respect, such as was common in Oriental address. Jesus, however, seizes upon it as an opportunity to awaken thought upon a higher plane than that on which the question of the Ruler was asked.
What a man must do to gain Eternal Life, is a question whose answer must be elaborate and unsatisfactory, at the best. To gain that which we have not, either as a reward or an acquisition, involves a series of efforts, where so much discernment and judgment are necessary as must always render the result doubtful. To be, rather than to do, is suggested by the Great Teacher. The good man has Eternal Life. To him it is a possession, and not a prize. If Jesus was a good man, immortality was his by right, for goodness can not die.
