Matthew 19:16-22: The rich, young ruler. Jesus sees his heart, confronts his idols

“Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?”  The rich young ruler to Jesus, Matthew 19:16

Jesus did not respond by immediately showing the way of salvation because the man was missing an essential quality.  He lacked the sense of his own sinfulness, and Jesus had to point that out… He longed for God’s blessing, but he did not long for God. 

John MacArthur’s commentary on this passage

Your money flows most effortlessly toward your heart’s greatest love…if God and His grace is the thing in the world you love the most, you will give your money away to ministry, charity and the poor in astonishing amounts.

 Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods, p. 168

This is one of the most fascinating exchanges that Jesus has during His physical life on earth.   On His way to Jerusalem (Matthew 16:21), Jesus is approached by a rich young ruler who asks Him, ““Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” (v.16).  Instead of leading this hot prospect in a prayer after presenting him the Four Spiritual Laws,  Jesus responds to his question by asking some hard questions of His own that cut to the very core of the young man’s beliefs.  

The first thing Jesus does is to challenge the rich young ruler in a few of his theological categories.  These categories stem from the idea that a human can be saved by perfectly keeping the law.  Theoretically, this is true.  But “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23).  Therefore, Jesus challenges the rich young ruler’s definition of “good.”   “Only God is good,” Jesus reminds him.  Next, Jesus challenges the young man’s idea of who He is.   For the young man, Jesus is merely a “good teacher,” (Mark 10:17).   This is a far cry from Peter’s proclamation to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!” (Matthew 16:16).

Next Jesus says something that should be unsettling to all who believe in salvation by grace through faith.  Jesus says, “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments” (v. 17).  What is Jesus getting at here?  After all, whether it is a late night encounter with Nicodemus (John 3:16), the crowds at Capernaum (John 6:29) or at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:25-26), Jesus repeatedly teaches faith in Him is the key to eternal life.  Yet here with the rich young ruler, Jesus seems to contradict Himself.   Why?  What is He doing?

Jesus is showing the young man the logical conclusion of the wrong belief that salvation can be earned by good works.   After Jesus tells him, “keep the commandments,” (v.17), He then lists several of the Ten Commandments.   Interestingly, Jesus only lists the commandments that deal with man’s relationship with others while omitting the commandments about man’s relationship with God.    When the young ruler says, “All these things I have kept, what am I still lacking?” (v.20), Jesus tells him he must be “perfect”; (NIV, v. 21) and “go sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me,” (v. 21).  

Jesus is not saying in verse 21 the only people in heaven are those that have sold all they have and given it to poor.  Rather, Jesus sees that this young man is trusting in his own good works and that his riches have become an idol and are more important to him than his Creator God.  The Bible says that forgiveness, reconciliation and salvation are not found in our ability to live a good Christian life; rather salvation is found in our response of faith to the completed work of Christ on the cross.  We have been justified not by good works but by His blood and His life (Romans 5:9-10; 1 Peter 2:24).    It is this lesson that Jesus wants to teach to the rich young ruler.   

When Jesus was a guest at Zaccheus’ house, Zaccheus exclaimed, “half of my possessions I will give to the poor and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.” (Luke 19:8 emphasis added).   To this Jesus pronounced, “Today salvation has come to this house…”     For the person who trusts in his good works to save him, this story of Zaccheus should be troubling when read alongside this story of the rich young ruler.   For Jesus told the young ruler to give it all to the poor.  Yet for Zaccheus, the saving portion was only half.  The issue isn’t that Jesus has a varying set of weights for the judgment scale; rather Jesus knew the hearts of both men and He knew what they needed to hear in order to respond by faith in a saving way to Himself.

When Jesus encountered the rich young ruler, He did not want just another ministry trophy.  Rather Jesus wanted to address the root issues that kept the young man’s heart in darkness.   Unfortunately, at the end of their dialogue, the young man went away grieved; for he was one who owned much property (v.22).   Surely Jesus must have grieved too for He loved this young man (Mark 10:21).

What are the idols in your life?  What are those things that keep you from a 100% devotion to the Lord?   Even as His followers, we have idols.  What must you pluck out in your life in order to follow Christ more fully?  Are you trusting in your own futile efforts or are you trusting in Christ’s death to save you?  Now is the time for each of us to examine our hearts.  And may our hearts be fully His. 

Matthew 19:13-15: Jesus blesses children and confronts a big baby

“Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”  Jesus in Matthew 19:14

 “Have you ever noticed that when you tell the smallest child about God, it never asks with strangeness and wonder, “What or who is God?” – but listens with shining face to the words as though they were soft loving sounds from the land of home?  Or when you teach a child to fold its little hands in prayer, it does this… as though there were opening for it that world of which it had been dreaming with longing and anticipation.”  (R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Matthew’s Gospel, p. 743)

“I have found Him good, so good, indeed, that all the good I have has come to me through Him.”  (Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, “June 2, evening”)

This vignette where Jesus lays His hands on children and blesses them can be seen as a back bookend with the front bookend being Matthew 18:1-3.  Both bookends look the same: Jesus blessing and valuing children.  A common theme runs between the two bookends.  That theme is instruction on the care of His sheep: avoiding stumbling blocks, bringing back the wayward sheep, forgiving others because Christ has forgiven us, treasuring both marriage and celibacy, and the blessing of children.   The current chapter break was made because of a geographic change (19:1) but the theme which begins chapter 18 runs all the way through 19:15. 

 

This passage begins with the disciples once again trying to act like alpha males in a patriarchal society.  Just moments ago, they balked at the high value Jesus placed on women when they said, “It is better to not marry.” (19:10).  Now they feel as if the Master should not be troubled by the townspeople who brought their children to Him so he might lay his hands on them and pray (v.13).   Jesus simultaneously destroys their preconceived notions of male supremacy and yet affirms His cultural role as a patriarch by saying, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them” (v. 14).   

I believe that we are all born with a sinful nature as heirs of Adam (Romans 5:12,18).  However children also display a quiet trust and an uncynical heart toward the things of God.  As was mentioned in the devotion from Matthew 18:1-6, “Childlike innocence doesn’t boast or brag; a child rests and trusts.  There is no place for status or boasting in the kingdom of God.   Rather, we hope, we rejoice, and we rest in the Fatherhood of God.”   This is why Jesus said that to a child “belongs the kingdom of heaven” (v.14).  

  

Yet lurking in the crowd, waiting for the right moment, was another child.  Although this child was not a child by chronological age, he was a child by spiritual age; for he had not yet grown up and who was full of himself (1 Corinthians 3:1-3).  Once Jesus had departed after tenderly praying for children, this rich young ruler jumped forward and blurted out, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”(v.16)   In one verse we go from the blessing of children to the hell of egotism.    

All his life this man had kept a careful tally of all of his good deeds and was careful to keep the commandments.  Surely he was also an expert on letting others know of these very facts.  On one hand, all of us at some point on our spiritual journey have turned to the heavens and asked, “What must I do to have eternal life?”  And this man’s question is not unlike the question in Acts 2:37 where the crowd asks Peter, “What shall we do?”  Whereas the crowd in Acts 2 was influenced by the Spirit, the young ruler in Matthew 19 was influenced by his own sense of religious self-importance.

Jesus challenges the rich young ruler’s assumption of goodness in two ways.  First, man cannot ask, “What *good* thing shall *I do* that I may obtain eternal life?”   The standard for good, for holiness, for perfection lies not in man religious efforts but in the character of God.  Second, Jesus was not content with being known as just a “Teacher.”  Jesus blessed Peter for his proclamation that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (16:16).    God Incarnate was not going let this rich young ruler get away with the belief that He was just a good teacher (Mark 10:17); He let the young man know that only God is good (v.17).    By saying, “There is only One who is good (v. 17), Jesus challenges the beliefs that man can work his way to heaven and that Jesus is just a good moral teacher, nothing more. 

C.S. Lewis famously said in his book Mere Christianity, “"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher…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."

How will you come to Jesus?  Will you come with child-like faith resting and trusting in Him?  Or will you come with your own sense of piety determined to earn points with God through your religious efforts?   Do we call Him “Good Teacher” and line him up with all of history’s other religious sages?  Or do we bow and call Him “my Lord and my God”?   Jesus leaves us with only one choice.

Matthew 19:1-12; Jesus Values Women, Marriage and Celibacy

“What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” Jesus in Matthew 19:6

 Marriage. The roots are deep. The covenant is solid. The love is sweet. Life is hard. And God is good.

                John Piper, from his blog January 4, 2011

What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy? 

Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage.

The law [from Moses allowing for divorce] was unequally balanced to the disadvantage of women, and Jesus’ ruling with its appeal to the Creator’s intention, had the effect of redressing this unequal balance.  It is not surprising that women regularly recognized in Jesus one who was their friend and champion.

                F.F. Bruce, The Hard Sayings of Jesus

Jesus has left the city of Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee (17:24) and continues south toward Jerusalem (16:21).  He has now come into the region east of Judea beyond the Jordan river (v.1) which is ruled by the tetrarch Herod.  Herod had John the Baptist beheaded for challenging his marriage to Herodias, who Herod seduced away from his brother Philip (Matthew 14:3-12).   The Pharisees are “testing” Jesus (v.3), trying to get Him to publically denounce divorce for any reason, and hoping it would lead to the same fate as John.

Yet before Jesus interacts with the Pharisees, He heals the multitudes that are following Him.   Matthew records many such mass healings (4:23, 8:16, 9:35, 12:15, 14:14, 14:36, 15:30, and 21:14).  The Pharisees ignore or are oblivious to these healings.  For the Pharisees, religion is about power and self-worship; they do not comprehend that they are aligning themselves against God Himself.

The Pharisees roll out the trap: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” (v. 3)   Jesus responds not with logic or pop psychology but with the authority of God’s Word; Jesus immediately quotes Genesis 2:24: For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.  Jesus puts God squarely in the middle of the marriage covenant.   Marriage is more than just a social contract between two people; it involves a third Person.  Marriage is a God-centered covenant where both people pledge to God to love the other and to be the human face of the divine love God has for their spouse.

The Pharisees counter by quoting from Deuteronomy 24:1-4, “why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?”   “Why is divorced even allowed?” the Pharisees are saying.   “Because of your hardness of heart,” Jesus says.  Divorce is not God’s plan.  “I hate divorce,” says the Lord in Malachi 2:16.  Divorce is permissible, but not ideal.  And Jesus gives immorality as the reason why divorce may be permissible.  With this statement Jesus publically denounces Herod’s marriage to Herodias, just as His cousin John did before (Matthew 14:3-4).  But Jesus also wonderfully liberates women with that same statement.

In that culture, as is true today in many parts of the world, women were second class citizens void of most legal protections.  A man could divorce a woman with about the same effort needed to buy a piece of property.  Women were abused and mistreated.   But with Jesus’ proclamation of immorality as the only God-ordained reason for divorce, both the status of women and the institution of marriage are now elevated.  Women cannot be divorced the same way a man sells livestock.  Women are to be loved and valued for a lifetime, to the glory of God.  Marriage is not merely a piece of paper but a covenant between two people and the Living God.

The disciples, fully immersed in the culture of their day, respond to Jesus’ teaching, “If this is what marriage is like, then it is better not to marry” (v.10).   To this boneheaded comment, Jesus mentions those who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God (v. 12).  Is Jesus creating a new physical standard of spirituality?   Why do we not have one eyed, one-handed (18:8) eunuchs in our churches today?   As He did in 17:20 and 18:8-9, Jesus is speaking here metaphorically.   Some people remain celibate so they may more diligently serve God.  The Apostle Paul acknowledges that some people are gifted to not marry; therefore they devote more of their resources to direct service of the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:7).     Here we see Christ Himself giving value to those who never marry. 

No other human being can fully satisfy us; only Christ can satisfy.  The purpose of marriage is not to make demands on another but to learn how to love another unlovable human being.  This gives us insight as to how Christ has loved us in our sinfulness (Romans 5:8).  Marriage also forces us to face our own sinfulness.  And we are taught to lay down our lives for our spouses, even as Christ has laid down His life for His bride, the church (Ephesians 5:25).  Whether single or married, Christ is to be glorified in our lives above all other pursuits.   May He give us each faithful grace to accomplish such a lofty task as we love one another, whether single or married.