John Gill Commentary Mark 10:18

"And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good save one, [even] God." — Mark 10:18 (ASV)

And Jesus said unto him
The same as in Mt. 19:17, (See Gill on Matthew 19:17).

Why call you me good ?
This is said, not as denying that he was good, or as being angry with him for calling him so, but in order to lead this young man to a true knowledge of him, and his goodness, and even of his proper deity:

there is none good, but one, [that is], God ;
some render it, "but one God", as the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions; and so the words are a proof of the unity of the divine being, and agree with (Deuteronomy 6:4) , but are not to be understood to the exclusion of the Son and Spirit, who, with the Father, are the one God: nor do these words at all militate against the deity of Christ, or prove that he is not God, as the Jew objects ^F1 ; seeing this is not to be understood of the person of the Father, in opposition to the Son and Spirit, who are equally good: nor does Christ, in these words, deny himself to be God, but rather tacitly suggests it; since he is good in the same sense in which God is good:

in Matthew it is added, "but if you will enter into life, keep the commandments", (Matthew 19:17) : this Christ said not as his sense, that the way to eternal life lies in keeping the commandments of the law; but he speaks in the language of the Pharisees, and of this man; and his view is, to bring him to a sense of the impossibility of obtaining eternal life by these things, as the sequel shows: wherefore the above Jew ^F2 has no reason to confront the followers of Jesus with this passage, as if it was a concession of his, that it is impossible any should be saved without keeping the commands of the law of Moses.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F1: R. Isaac Chizzuk Emuna, par. 2. c. 19. p. 408.
• F2: Ib.