Mark's Gospel records an incident in the three-year ministry of Christ Jesus, when a rich man sought out the Master in the hope of obtaining spiritual guidance.See Mark 10:17-22. Approaching Jesus, he addressed him as "good Master." This could be the normal way to address a recognized teacher, but perhaps Jesus discerned that the man was looking to a human personality as a source of wisdom instead of to God. To turn the man's thought from a human being to God as the fountain of all wisdom, Jesus said, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." What an incisive response to the greeting!
Jesus constantly endeavored to turn people's thought to God as his source and to his spiritual nature, or the Christ, which his healing and teaching activity demonstrated. Even though he was the world's greatest man, he did not personally possess, but reflected from God, the good that people saw in his earthly life. Since God is good, the good expressed by man must have its source in God, not in a human personality.
Perhaps this can be more readily understood when we consider Mrs. Eddy's answer to the question "What is God?" in Science and Health. She tells us, "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love."Science and Health, p. 465. And God's man is His reflection. As the sunshine flooding through the window of a room is not actually the sun itself, but expresses the sun's qualities, so man expresses God—Life, Truth, Love—through such qualities as justice, purity, intelligence, goodness. As Jesus told his questioner, "There is none good but one, that is, God."
