Matthew 5:48 says, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” But in Luke 18:19, Jesus bawls out a man who called him “good teacher” by replying that no one is good but God alone.
The first thing to do is check some word definitions:
Perfect (teleioi) = to bring to an end by completing or perfecting, mature, full-grown. You could say that it means reaching your individual goal or potential.
Good (agathon) = beneficial in its effect, morally honorable.
“The natural man is irretrievably in bondage to the powers of sin and death and has no right to claim the attribute 'good' for himself...But through the redemption which has taken place in Christ, goodness overflows the believer.” (New International Dictionary of NT Theology, 2, 101)
But why did Jesus deny being good? Keep in mind that the questioner in Luke didn't recognize Jesus as divine but merely as a good teacher. Jesus replied to those presumptions by saying that if that's all he is, he shouldn't be called good.
Another wrinkle to this question appears if you consider the parallel passage in Matthew 19:17: “Why do you ask me concerning that which is good? There is One who is good.”
“If Jesus is simply Teacher, then he is calculated to know no more and no less than any other teacher as to what actions are deemed “good for” entrance into the life of the age-to-come. If he is Good Teacher (as in Mark and Luke), then Jesus will not allow the questioner to use [the] word or ascription lightly.”
W. F. Albright and C. S. Mann, Matthew
As usual, C. S. Lewis has expressed it the best: “You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool; you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
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