Luke 18:18-30 English Standard Version The Rich Ruler 18 And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 19 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’” 21 And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” 22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 23 But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. 24 Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 25 For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” 27 But he said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” 28 And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” 29 And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, 30 who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.” The opposing worldviews that we've been studying for the past several chapters come into full focus in this passage where a man who was a "lawyer" meaning that he was an expert in the Law of God and maybe one of the "teachers of the Law," came to Jesus and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to be saved?" A couple of things are revealed by the man's question. First, he says that he believes that Jesus is "good" (we'll see by what standard he's using in a second) and second, he believes that he must DO something to EARN eternal life (he uses the word "inherit," but you understand by his question that he really doesn't mean it that way. He's just like the older brother in the Parable of the Lost Son who thought that the younger brother's actions disinherited him, and that his actions should have secured his inheritance and that somehow the inheritance was payment for being a s "good son"). Do you see that how he frames the question tells us much about what he believes? His whole worldview is self-centered as well. He wants to do something to earn his own salvation so that he can take credit for it.
Let's assume for the moment that the word "good" that we're talking around here for the moment means, "pleasing or acceptable to God." We've already seen God say, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Jesus corrects this young man to ask, "Why do you call Me 'good' when only God is good?" In essence Jesus knew that this man was flattering Him and was throwing around adjectives that only belonged to God, which means they should also belong to Jesus, but Jesus also knew this man didn't believe that He was God in the flesh. So, then what did this lawyer mean when he called Jesus a "good teacher"? He likely meant that he had never observed Jesus breaking the Law and that he thought Jesus to be a "good" person because He also taught people to obey the Law. That said, we see a good model here from Jesus to address the issue of misappropriated words or words that the world has tried to change the definition of. Even asking the other person to define that word for you will be telling, because, unlike Jesus, you can't see into their minds and souls and know what they meant without them telling you. We won't see the lawyer make the mistake of calling Jesus "good" again this entire passage, which tells me that he did not believe Jesus to be God. That's important here. The lawyer is asking a question that he should only ask of God, that is how to inherit eternal life, and yet he doesn't believe the one whom he asks is God, but instead probably just thinks of him as some sort of prophet who speaks for God, or is well-versed enough in Scripture to know what the answer is that God has given. Surprisingly, Jesus answers the question that He was asked. He did not challenge the question itself by saying "you can't do anything to earn your way" or "there's not enough good that you could do to make up for the bad that you've done." Both of these answers would have been correct, but Jesus instead seems to say, "You know all the commandments and requirements of the Law in which you are an expert? You must keep all of them perfectly." Only then would this man be good enough to earn his way into heaven. To our great surprise, this man claims that he has done all these things--at least the external commandments that Jesus lists, for Jesus did not list any of the ones that were based on the internal nature of the man where he sinned with his thoughts or desires, but focused purely on the man's works. Jesus does not seem to argue with this man when the man claims that he has kept all these commandments perfectly since his youth. We know from our own experience that this is probably not true, and most in the crowd probably wouldn't have believed the man either, but maybe a few imagined that the religious leaders were morally superior to the rest and somehow there might be a man (other than Jesus) out there who had perfectly kept the Law. We still have people today that think that this is possible--to keep the Law perfectly, or at least well enough--to earn their way to heaven. Jesus sees into the man's heart and knows that this man covets his wealth and that it has become a god to him. Both the 1st and 10th commandment would deal with this issue, but so would many of the other commandments in the Law that are not in the Ten Commandments. Jesus says, "One thing you lack," that's a powerful statement as it seems that Jesus would be giving an honest evaluation of this man, "Sell all that you have and give the money to the poor, and then you will have treasure in heaven; and come follow Me." We can't miss that last part where Jesus calls the man into a relationship with Him where the lawyer would become a student of the One whom he had just called "Good Teacher." Jesus is calling for repentance here (whether we see that or not) and for obedience to submit to Him and His gospel message, part of which is that His disciples needed to be willing to give up everything, not just their wealth, but likely their lives, to follow Him. If they were not willing to count the cost and give up everything, they were not worthy to be called His disciples. This man goes away sad because he was very rich, and while he imagined that he owned a lot of money and property, at this moment, it was obvious that the money and property owned him and that he was a slave to the wealth that God had blessed him with. He was unwilling to part with it because he trusted in that wealth for his identity and his security, and it was a price too high that Jesus had demanded for this man to give up everything and to follow after Him. Now comes the part of the story that we can't miss. Jesus' disciples, even after three years of following after Jesus, are still getting it wrong. They too still believe that eternal life is something earned because they ask, "If this man isn't good enough, then who can be saved?" They wonder if there is even any hope for them at this point. Jesus tells them that it is very hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, in fact He says it's as impossible as it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. It is impossible for any of us to come to God on our own though, but riches are an extremely strong hinderance, both for those who have them and don't want to lose them, and those who don't have them and think they need them to be happy. Jesus knows He just made a statement about an impossibility because He comes back and says, "With man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible." God is able to change the heart of this man, but the man is not able to do anything to change himself. The disciples still miss the mark on this though and seem to think that Jesus has said that giving up one's wealth and following Jesus was a sure-fire way for anyone and everyone to get into heaven. That's not what Jesus said here--He was addressing a particular sin issue in the heart of the lawyer that was invisible to everyone else, but Jesus reached out and touched it and put His finger on it and said, "You still need to give that part of your heart and life to Me." Peter speaking for the group seems to say that they all think they are in good shape because they all have left everything to follow Jesus--some of them were extremely wealthy before becoming disciples of Jesus. Yet, we know that not all the disciples were going to go to heaven, because not all of them had surrendered their lives to Jesus, and at least one of them still had an issue with money having hold over him. Judas Iscariot, who had been trusted by the group to be their treasurer, often embezzled money from Jesus, who didn't have much to begin with, and he was full of greed. We'll see that when Judas sees a woman pouring expensive ointment/perfume on Jesus that he gets upset because he says that it could have been sold for a large amount of money and the money given to the poor, but the text tells us he was only interested in the money going into the money bag so that he could take some or all of it for himself. He then would be willing to betray Jesus and turn Him over to the Pharisees and Temple guard for 30 pieces of silver so that he could have a little more money. So then we too must be careful that we can look like we are following after Jesus, but we too may have divided hearts that need to be completely given to the Lord. For a heart given to anything else such as money is a heart engaged in an act of idolatry. You cannot love both God and money (or material wealth). The last thing in this passage is that Jesus replies to Peter's statement about the disciples giving up everything to follow Him. He said that everyone who truly gives up everything to follow Him will lose things like house, wife, brothers, parents, and children that are much harder to give up than money, but no one that gives these things up will go without reward in this life. This is not the Prosperity Gospel of "Sow $1, reap $100." No, Jesus is talking about what we gain by being a part of the Church here. Even if we lose family members because they disown us when we become a Christian, we will gain an even more tight-knit family through the local Church and we will have many people that will fill the role of father, mother, sister, brother, son and daughter for us. As far as losing one's home, we should all be welcome in the home of our Christian brothers and sisters at any time, for we are to be a people of hospitality and generosity towards each other. These are not just promises of how life will be better for us once we get to heaven--we know that to be true. Jesus is saying that He has a plan to replace that which we "lost" with something even better in the here and now. We may not have wealth (notice Jesus never promises that we will get money back that we lost), but we will have new and better relationships that are deeper and stronger than even the bonds that we imagine to be unbreakable for those that are of the same flesh and blood. For we as Christians are family of one flesh and blood as well--the flesh and blood of Jesus who has made us all children of God by adoption. Comments are closed.
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Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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