Mark 10:17: As Jesus started on His way, a man ran up and knelt before Him. “Good Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 “Why do you call Me good?” Jesus replied. “No one is good except God alone. 

 Some people use this verse to say that bad people can go to heaven, just do better tomorrow; if Jesus is a mere mortal and He is sure that He is going to Heaven, then we have nothing to worry about. 

There are also people who use this verse to deny the deity of Christ. That man, as most others, saw Jesus as a mere mortal, a non-deity. 

Question:

Are human inferiorities, and sins not taken into account when allowing people to pass into Heaven? That’s not what I read in the New Testament. 

Jesus said in Matthew 5:20, “…For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, 

you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” 

Does that sound like everyone goes to Heaven? Nope.  Even that man in Mark 17 said , "...what must I do...?

Jesus said in John 6:29: 29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”  (read the entire chapter for context).

My opinion of Mark 17, 

1) Since the man saw Jesus as a mere mortal, Jesus was chastising hiim for thinking a mere mortal could be a truly good person and deserve to go to Heaven. 

2) Jesus was pre-declaring His deity. Then when He rose from the dead, people would see this that this scripture would illuminate His deity, 

    for how could He save us if He was an unworthy human like us?

Doing better won’t save us; we each have a filthy past that needs to be forgiven, lest our sins follow us to the Judgment Day. 

Once we have done wrong as lucid adults, we are marked for destruction, unless we repent, and rely on the sacrifice of Jesus to secure our salvation.