Matthew 19:17 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

There is none good but one, that is God— This passage has been produced and strongly argued by the Arians in favour of their system. They found their argument upon the Greek, which runs thus, Ουδεις εστιν αγαθος, ει μη εις, ο Θεος. There is none good, but εις one; and that (one) is ο Θεος, God. Whence it is argued, that the adjective εις being in the masculine gender, cannot be interpreted to signify one being, or nature (for then it should have been εν in the neuter), but one person; so that by confining the attribute of goodness to the single person of the Father, it must of course exclude the persons of the Son and Holy Ghost from the unity of the Godhead. This, it must be owned, is a plausible objection: for, supposing the word εις to signify one person (and in that lies the whole force of the argument) then, if one person only is good, and that person is God, it must also follow, that there is but one person who is God; the name of God being as much confined hereby to a single person, as the attribute of goodness. But this is utterly false; the names of God, Lord, Lord of hosts, the Almighty, Most High, Eternal, God of Israel, &c. being also ascribed to the second and third persons of the blessed Trinity. Take it in this way, therefore, and the objection, by provingtoomuch,confutesitself,andprovesnothing. The truth is, this criticism, upon the strength of which some have dared to undeify the Saviour, has no foundation in the original. The word εις is so far from requiring the substantive person to be understood with it, that it is put in the masculine gender to agree with its substantive Θεος, and is best construed by an adverb. If you follow the Greek by a literal translation, it will be thus, There is none good,— ει μη εις ο Θεος, —but the one God; that is, in common English, but God only. And it happens, that the same Greek, word for word, occurs in Mark 2:7. Who can forgive sins,— ει μη εις ο Θεος, but God only? So it is rendered by our translators; and we have a plain matter of fact, that the word εις in this place cannot possibly admit the sense of one person, because Christ, who is another person, took upon him to forgive sins. In the parallel place of St. Luke's Gospel (Luke 5:21.) the expression is varied, so as to make it still clearer,— ει μη μονος ο Θεος,— not εις, but μονος, another adjective, of the masculine gender, which,though it agree with its substantive Θεος, is rightly construed with an adverb,—either the alone God, or God only: and the Greek itself uses one for the other indifferently, as επ αρτω μονω, by bread only, Matthew 4:4. εν λογω μονον , in word only, 1 Thessalonians 1:5. The utmost that can be gathered therefore from these words, is no more than this, that there is one God, (in which we are all agreed) and that there is none good besides him, which nobody will dispute. Whether in this God there be one person or three, remains yet to be considered; and the Scripture is so express in other places as to settle it beyond all dispute. If it should here be asked, for what reason Christ put the question before us, Why callest thou me good? I answer, for the same reason that he asked the Pharisees, Why David in spirit called him LORD? Matthew 22:43 and that was, to try if they were able to account for it. This young man, by addressing our Saviour under the name of good master, when the Psalmist had affirmed long before, that there is none that doeth GOOD, no NOT ONE, (Psalms 14:3.) did in effect allow him to be God; no mere man since the fall of Adam having any claim to that character; and, when he was called upon to explain his meaning, forthat God only was good, he should have replied in the words of St. Thomas, My Lord, and my God! which would have been a noble instance of faith, and have cleared up the whole difficulty. See Jones's "Catholic Doctrine of a Trinity," p. 13.