Matthew 19:16

‘And behold, one came to him and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” '

In Mark 10:17 this is rendered, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' But that is simply a difference in emphasis in translation from the Aramaic. The young man had the idea of true goodness, the goodness which is God's, in his mind. And he wanted this prophet, Whom he saw as having something of that goodness, to explain it to him. (He may well have said, ‘Good teacher, what good thing must I do --', but trying to decide what Jesus said in the Aramaic is always a little dangerous, for we quite frankly never know. We should note that the dropping of ‘good' before Teacher would be in accordance with Matthew's abbreviating tendency. It may well therefore have originally been there. But once he dropped it he clearly had to slightly rephrase what followed in terms of what Jesus had said).

One reason for the different way in which Matthew presents it may well have been his awareness of the Jewish reluctance to apply the word ‘good' to men when speaking in terms of God (compare how he mainly speaks of the Kingly Rule of ‘Heaven' rather than God, even where the other Gospels use ‘God'). But in view of Matthew 28:19 he is clearly not avoiding the term for his own theological reasons. For that verse demonstrates that he is quite clear about his own view of the full divinity of Jesus. Nor is he toning down Mark for the next verse makes quite clear that the word ‘good' is still to be seen as connecting Jesus with God. Thus, assuming that he has Mark's words before him, and probably the original Aramaic that Jesus spoke, which some would certainly have remembered even if he did not himself, he must have had some other motive. And that can surely only have been in order to emphasise that what the young man is really concentrating on is the question as to how he himself can become ‘good'. Matthew is not arguing about wording, he is conveying an idea.

The young man is clearly well aware that only the good can have eternal life (compare Daniel 12:2, especially LXX). But he is also aware that he himself is not good. He knows that somehow there is something that keeps him from being able to be described as ‘good'. What supremely good thing then can he do so as cap off all his efforts and so ensure that he will have eternal life? In the way he phrases it Matthew has the ending in mind. He knows what ‘good thing' the young man must do, trust himself wholly to Jesus. And he knows that he will refuse to do it.

For the idea of eternal life in Matthew compare Matthew 7:14; Matthew 18:8; Matthew 19:17 b, Matthew 19:29; Matthew 25:46.