Then we have the passage where a ruler addresses Christ as '_Good_ Master,' and Christ demurs to this, saying that the word was only applicable to God.[426] And how, it is asked, could He have done so, if He had been both good and God? The best explanation seems to be that among the Jews, it was the custom never to address a Teacher (or Rabbi) as _Good_. They said God was 'the _Good One_ of the world'; it was one of _His_ titles.[427] Therefore as the ruler had no means of knowing that Christ was God, he was not justified in thus addressing Him as _Good_. [Footnote 426: Mark 10. 18.] [Footnote 427: Edersheim's Life and Times of the Messiah, vol. ii., p. 339.] The remaining two passages, 'I go unto the Father; for the Father is greater than I'; and 'I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God,'[428] are easier to explain, since here it is obvious that they refer to Christ's _human_ nature alone, as it was in His human nature alone that He was ever absent from the Father. And even here He carefully distinguishes His own relationship to God from that of His disciples. For though He teaches them to say _our Father_, yet when including Himself with them, He does not here or anywhere else say _our_ Father, or _our_ God; but always emphasises His own peculiar position. While we may ask in regard to the first passage, would anyone but God have thought it necessary to explain that God the Father was greater than Himself? Anyhow, these passages do not alter the fact that Christ did repeatedly claim to be both superhuman and Divine. [Footnote 428: John 14. 28; 20. 17.] (3.) _How these Claims were understood at the time._ We have now to consider how these claims were understood at the time. And first, as to _Christ's friends_. We have overwhelming evidence that after His Resurrection all the disciples and early Christians believed their Master to be both superhuman and Divine. And to realise the full significance of this, we must remember that they were not polytheists, who did not mind how many gods they believed in, and were willing to worship Roman Emperors or anyone else; but they were strict monotheists. They firmly believed that there was only one God, yet they firmly believed that Christ was Divine. This is shown throughout the New Testament.