18 How to Obtain Eternal Life (19:16-22)
And behold, one came to Him and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” And He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He said to Him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not commit murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; and You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to Him, “All these things I have kept; what am I still lacking?” Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieved; for he was one who owned much property. (19:16-22)
At first one might wonder what kind of message Jesus was trying to give this man who came to Him. The truth is summarized in Jesus’ statement on another occasion: “So therefore, no one of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions” (Luke 14:33).
Some years ago the young man in the seat next to me on an airplane asked, “Sir, you wouldn’t know how I could have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, would you?” Taken somewhat by surprise by his openness and seeming readiness for salvation, I told him that he needed to receive Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. He said, “I’d like to do that,” and we prayed together and rejoiced in his decision. He was on his way to a new job near our church, so he was baptized and began attending services. But some months later I was extremely disappointed to discover that he had developed no interest at all in the things of the Lord and was living in such a way that it was apparent he had not been transformed. He soon disappeared from the church and has never returned.
Anyone who has done much personal witnessing has encountered persons who make a profession of faith in Christ but whose subsequent lives show no change in attitudes or behavior. And when they indicate no love for God and Christ, no interest in the Bible, in prayer, or in the fellowship of God’s people, there is no good reason to believe they were ever saved.
Our Lord gave this young man a test. He had to make a choice between Christ and his possessions and sin, and he failed the test. No matter what he may have believed, because he was unwilling to forsake all, he could not be a disciple of Christ. Salvation is for those who are willing to forsake everything.
The incident recorded in Matthew 19:16-22 gives insight into how some people who show great interest in the gospel never come to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. This young man went away from Christ not because he heard the wrong message or because he did not believe but because he was unwilling to admit his sin, forsake all that he had, and obey Christ as Lord.
THE REQUEST TO JESUS
And behold, one came to Him and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” (19:16)
From verse 20 we learn that the one who came to Him was a young man, and from verse 22 that he was wealthy. Luke informs us that he was also a ruler (18:18), probably a ruler in the synagogue, an especially honored position for a young man. He was a religious leader—devout, honest, wealthy, prominent, and influential. He had it all. Behold suggests how unusual and unexpected it was that he would admit he lacked eternal life and come to Jesus to find it.
Several factors are clear as we analyze this unique encounter. First, He came genuinely seeking eternal life, motivated by his sense of need for a true spiritual hope. The term eternal life is used some 50 times in Scripture, and always refers primarily to quality rather than quantity. Although eternal life obviously carries the idea of being an everlasting reality, it does not refer simply to unending existence. Even ancient pagans knew that mere unending existence would not necessarily be desirable. According to Greek mythology, Aurora, goddess of the dawn, fell in love with a young mortal named Tithonus. When Zeus offered to provide anything she wished for her human lover, she asked that he might never die. The wish was granted, but because she had not asked that Tithonus remain forever young, he continued to grow older and more decrepit. Instead of being blessed, he was cursed to perpetual degeneration.
If, as William Hendriksen insightfully observes, “‘life’ means active response to one’s environment,” then eternal life must mean active response to that which is eternal, namely God’s heavenly realm. Just as physical life is the ability to live and move and respond in the physical world, eternal life is the ability to live and move and respond in the heavenly world.
Eternal life is first of all a quality of existence, the divinely-endowed ability to be alive to God and the things of God. The Jews saw it as that which fills the heart with hope of life after death. The unsaved person is spiritually alive only to sin. But when he receives Christ as Lord and Savior, he becomes alive to God and to righteousness (Rom. 6:1-13). That is the essence of eternal life, the life of God’s own Son dwelling within.
The young ruler could not have understood the full meaning of what he asked for, but he realized there was an important dimension to his present life, religious and prestigious as it was, that was missing. Despite his high standing in men’s eyes, he knew he did not have the God-given peace, rest, hope, assurance, and joy of which the psalmists and the prophets spoke. He may have sensed that he needed a closer relationship to God than he had. Simply by asking that question of Jesus he showed himself to be beyond the hypocritical religiosity of the scribes and Pharisees. He recognized a deep spiritual need that, for all his religious efforts, was unfulfilled. He knew he did not possess the life of God that satisfies here and now and gives hope for the life to come.
The fact that he came to Jesus publicly and asked such a personal and revealing question shows the man’s sincerity. He was not haughty or presumptuous, but was humbly determined to find satisfaction for the overwhelming need he felt in his life, and he was oblivious to what people around him may have thought.
The young ruler not only knew his need but deeply felt that need, and he was desperate. Many people who admit they do not have eternal life nevertheless feel no need for it. They know they are not alive to God and do not care. They know there is no divine dimension to their lives but consider that fact irrelevant and unimportant. They have no hope for the life to come but are perfectly content to remain as they are.
The young ruler felt his need so keenly that, when he heard Jesus was in the vicinity, he “ran up to Him and knelt before Him” (Mark 10:17). He could not wait to ask this great Teacher how to find the answer to his deep longing. He was not embarrassed by the fact that he was known and respected by most of the people who crowded around Jesus. He did not mind the risk of losing face with those who probably considered him already to be religiously fulfilled and specially favored by God.
Although he was probably in the midst of the multitude of parents who had brought their young children to be blessed, this man was not ashamed to request a blessing for himself. He was saying to Jesus, in effect, “I need your help just as much as these little children.” Just as the children submitted to Jesus by being taken in His arms, the rich young ruler submitted by kneeling down before Him. He prostrated himself before the Lord in a position of humility. He appeared serious, sincere, highly motivated, and anxious.
This young ruler came seeking for the right thing—eternal life—and he came to the only One who could give it. Him, of course, refers to Jesus, who not only is the way to eternal life but is Himself that life. “God has given us eternal life,” John declares, “and this life is in His Son,” who “is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:11, 20). There was nothing wrong with his motivation, because it certainly is good to desire eternal life.
By addressing Jesus as Teacher (didaskalos), the young man acknowledged Him to be a respected rabbi, an authority on the Old Testament, a teacher of divine truth. Although the two other synoptic gospels report that the man also called Jesus “good” (Mark 10:17; Luke 18:18), there is no reason to believe he considered Him to be the promised Messiah and Son of God. But he obviously considered Jesus to have a stature of righteous character above the typical rabbi. The authority of Jesus’ teaching and the power of His miracles surely qualified Him as someone who knew the way to eternal life. Even though he did not acknowledge that Jesus was Messiah and God in the flesh, he had come to the right person (cf. Acts 4:12).
Not only did the young man come to the right source but he asked the right question: “What good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” Many interpreters have criticized the man for asking about what he must do, suggesting that his question was works oriented. Doubtlessly he was steeped in the Pharisaic legal system that had come to dominate Judaism and was trained to think that doing religious things was the way to gain divine favor. But taken at face value, his question was legitimate. There is something one must do in order to come to God. When the multitude near Capernaum asked Jesus, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” He replied, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (John 6:28-29).
The main point of the question was to discover how to obtain eternal life, and that is the most crucial question a person can ask. The entire purpose of evangelism is to bring lost people to Jesus Christ in order that they may obtain eternal life. The very purpose and meaning of salvation is to bring eternal life to those who, because of sin, face eternal death (Rom. 6:23).
The issue on this occasion was the man’s salvation, not some higher level of discipleship subsequent to salvation. Most of the work of evangelism is to bring people to the point where they sense their need for salvation, but this young man was already there. He was ready to sign the card, raise his hand, walk the aisle, or whatever. He was ripe and eager—what many modern evangelists would consider a “hot prospect.”
THE RESPONSE BY JESUS
And He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He said to Him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not commit murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; and You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (19:17-19)
Jesus’ response is even more amazing than the young man’s request. He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
Instead of taking the young man at face value and asking him to “make a decision for Christ,” Jesus went much deeper in searching out the state of his heart and tested his true purpose and motivation. Instead of rejoicing that the man was apparently willing to receive eternal life and encouraging him to simply pray a prayer or affirm his faith, Jesus asked him a question in return that was immensely disconcerting.
The Lord’s abrupt and seemingly evasive words, “Why are you asking Me about what is good?” reveal that He could read the man’s heart. He had asked about eternal life verbally, and his heart was longing to know what good work could bring him that life. Jesus’ comment that “there is only One who is good” was perhaps a means of prying out of the man just who he thought Jesus was. Did he realize that the One whom he was asking about what is good was Himself the One who is good, namely, God? Had he come to Jesus for divine help because he believed Jesus Himself to be divine? Because the man made no response concerning the only One who is good, it seems certain that he viewed Jesus as no more than an especially gifted human teacher. He had indeed come to the right source for the answer to his question and the fulfillment of his need, but he did not recognize that Source for who He really was.
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.
Jesus’ next comment, “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments,” was more than familiar to the man. Jews were taught all their lives that the way into life was through obedience to God’s commandments. Leviticus 18:5 clearly refers to such a truth: “So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the Lord” (cf. Ezek. 20:11). Perhaps Jesus was simply saying to the man, “You know what to do. Why are you asking Me? I haven’t taught anything that is not already written in the Scriptures. You are a learned and devoted Jew and you know what God’s law requires. Go do it.”
Judged by the principles and strategy of much contemporary evangelism, Jesus seems to have made a serious and insensitive mistake. He not only did not take advantage of the man’s obvious readiness to make a decision but He even seemed to be teaching righteousness by works.
But Jesus knew this man’s heart was not ready to believe in Him, just as the hearts of many people who express great interest in Him are not ready to believe. The man had a deep longing for something important in his life that he knew was missing. He doubtlessly had anxiety and frustration and longed for peace, joy, hope, and assurance. He wanted all the inner blessings the Old Testament associated with spiritual life. He longed for God’s blessings, but he did not long for God. He wanted to know what good things he should do, but he did not want to know the only One who is good.
Throughout history, and certainly in our own day, the church has witnessed many questionable principles and methods of evangelism, often exercised with sincerity and good intent. Undue emphasis on such external acts as raised hands, cards signed, and verbal decisions can lead many people—Christian workers and professed converts alike—into believing salvation has occurred when it has not. A premature and incomplete decision is not a decision Christ recognizes as valid.
The gospel is not a means of adding something better to what one already has, a means of supplementing human effort by divine. Nor is it simply a means of fulfilling psychological needs, no matter how real and significant they may be. Jesus did not die simply to make people feel better by relieving their frustrations and anxieties. And relief from such feelings is no certain evidence of salvation.
Many people are simply looking for solutions to their felt needs, but that is not enough to bring them to legitimate salvation. Jesus therefore did not offer any relief for the young man’s felt needs. Instead, He gave an answer designed to confront him with the fact that he was a living offense to Holy God. Proper evangelism must lead a sinner to measure himself against the perfect law of God so he can see his deficiency. Salvation is for those who hate their sin.
The young ruler must have sounded more than a little perplexed as he asked, almost rhetorically, “Which ones?” The implication seems to be, “I have read the commandments many times. I memorized them when I was a small boy, and I have carefully kept them ever since. How could I have missed any? Which ones could you possibly have in mind?”
Jesus responded by quoting five of the Ten Commandments: to not commit murder, to not commit adultery, to not steal, to not bear false witness, and to honor your father and mother (see Ex. 20:12-16). He then added the second greatest commandment: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19:18; cf. Matt. 22:39).
No words of Scripture would have been more familiar to the young ruler than those. But again he missed Jesus’ point. Just as he failed to recognize that the One to whom he spoke was Himself God and the source of eternal life, he also failed to see that those well-known commandments, and all the other commandments, could not provide the life to which they pointed. If a person were able to perfectly keep all the commandments throughout his entire life, he would indeed have life, just as Jesus had said (v. 17). What He was trying to show the man, however, is that no one is able to keep all the commandments perfectly, not even one of them.
The Lord did not mention the first four of the Ten Commandments, which center on man’s attitude toward God (Ex. 20:3-11), or the first and greatest commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5; cf. Matt. 22:38). Those commandments are even more impossible to keep than the ones Jesus quoted. The Lord therefore challenged the young ruler against the least impossible of the commandments, as it were.
THE RESPONSE TO JESUS
The young man said to Him, “All these things I have kept; what am I still lacking?” Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieved; for he was one who owned much property. (19:20-22)
The man’s response—“All these things I have kept; what am I still lacking?”—was probably sincere but it was far from true. Like most of the scribes and Pharisees, he was convinced in his own mind that he had kept all of God’s law. He told Jesus, “Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up” (Mark 10:20). Because the commandments concerning attitudes toward God were just as familiar to the man as the one’s Jesus quoted, he obviously thought he had fulfilled those as well. His view of the law was completely superficial, external, and man-oriented. Because he had not committed physical adultery or murder, because he was not a liar or a thief, and because he did not blaspheme the Lord’s name or worship idols, he looked on himself as being virtually perfect in God’s eyes.
By asking, “What am I still lacking?” he implied that there either must have been a commandment of which he had never heard or that something in addition to keeping the law was required to obtain eternal life. It simply did not occur to him that he fell short in obedience to any part of God’s known law. Because his outward, humanly observed life was upright and religious, he never suspected that his inner, divinely observed life was “full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matt. 23:27). He would not admit to himself that lust is a form of adultery, that hate is a form of murder, or that swearing by anything in heaven or on earth is a form of taking the Lord’s name in vain (Matt. 5:22, 28, 34-35). And it certainly never occurred to him that “whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, . . . has become guilty of all” (James 2:10).
Like most of his Jewish contemporaries, he totally failed to see that the Mosaic commands were not given as means for humanly achieving God’s standard of righteousness but were given as pictures of His righteousness. The law was also given to show men how impossible it is for them to live up to His standards of righteousness in their own power. Obedience to the law is always imperfect because the human heart is imperfect.
One of sin’s greatest curses is the spiritual and moral blindness it produces. It would not seem to require special revelation from God for men to realize that even the commandments concerning their relationship to other men are impossible to keep perfectly. What truly honest person would claim he has never told a single falsehood of any sort, never coveted anything that belongs to someone else, and always treated his parents with respect and honor—much less that he had always loved his neighbors as much as he loved himself? But one of Satan’s chief strategies is to blind sinners to their sin; and because pride is at the heart of all sin, there is a natural inclination toward self-deceit. And nothing is more effective in producing self-deceit than works righteousness, which is the basis of every man-made religion, including the God-given but humanly corrupted religion of first-century Judaism.
The young ruler was aware of what he did not have and needed to receive, namely eternal life. But he was not willing to admit what he did have and needed to be rid of, namely sin. He had too much spiritual pride to acknowledge that he was sinful by nature and that his whole life fell short of God’s holiness and was an offense to Him. His desire for eternal life was centered entirely in his own felt needs and longings.
He had no hatred for sins that needed forgiving and no admission of a heart that needed cleansing. He was therefore not looking for what God needed to do for him but for what he still needed to do for God. Like most Jews of his day, and like most people in all times and cultures, he believed his destiny was in his own hands and that if his lot were to improve it would have to be by his own efforts. All he wanted from Jesus was another commandment, another formula, another rite or ceremony by which he could complete his religious obligations and make himself acceptable to God.
But salvation is for people who despair of their own efforts, who realize that, in themselves and by themselves, they are hopelessly sinful and incapable of improving. Salvation is for those who see themselves as living violations of His holiness and who confess and turn from their sin and throw themselves on God’s mercy. It is for those who recognize they have absolutely nothing good to give God, that anything good they receive or accomplish can be only by His sovereign, gracious provision in Jesus Christ.
Paul spends three full chapters of Romans declaring the sinfulness of man before he ever discusses the way of salvation. John 1:17 declares, “The Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.” Law always precedes grace; it is the tutor that leads to Christ (Gal. 3:24).
Jesus took the focus off the young man’s felt religious and psychological needs and placed it on God. He tried to show the man that the real problem in his life was not his feeling of emptiness and incompleteness, legitimate and important as those feelings were. His great problem, from which those felt needs arose, was his separation from God and his total inability to reconcile himself with God. Scripture says, “God is angry with the wicked every day” (Ps. 7:11 KJV). In himself this man not only fell far short of God’s righteous standards but was, in fact, an enemy of God and under His wrath (Rom. 5:10; Eph. 2:3). And God will not save those who try to come to Him harboring sin.
Evangelism or personal witnessing that does not confront people with their utter sinfulness and helplessness is not faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ, no matter how much His name and His Word may be invoked. A profession of Christ that does not include confession and repentance of sin does not bring salvation, no matter how much pleasant emotion may result. To tell an unbeliever that God has a wonderful plan for his life can be seriously misleading. If the unbeliever turns to Christ and is saved, God does indeed have a wonderful plan for him. But if he does not turn to Christ, God’s only plan for him is damnation. In the same way it is misleading and dangerous to tell an unbeliever only that God loves him, without telling him that, in spite of that love, he is under God’s wrath and sentenced to hell.
God’s grace cannot be faithfully preached to unbelievers until His law is preached and man’s corrupt nature is exposed. It is impossible for a person to fully realize his need for God’s grace until he sees how terribly he has failed the standards of God’s law It is impossible for him to realize his need for mercy until he realizes the magnitude of his guilt. As Samuel Bolton wisely commented, “When you see that men have been wounded by the law, then it is time to pour in the gospel oil.”
Instead of being wounded by the law, however, the rich young ruler was self-satisfied in regard to the law He diligently sought eternal life, but he sought it on his own terms and in his own power. He would not confess his sin and admit his spiritual poverty. Confession of sin and repentance from sin are utterly essential to salvation. John the Baptist began his ministry preaching repentance (Matt. 3:2), Jesus began His ministry preaching repentance (4:17), and both Peter and Paul began their ministries preaching repentance (Acts 2:38; 26:20). Peter even used repentance as a synonym for salvation when he wrote that “the Lord . . . is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).
True conviction, confession, and repentance of sin are as much a work of the Holy Spirit as any other part of salvation (John 6:44; 16:8-9). They are divine works of grace, not pre-salvation works of human effort. But just as receiving Christ as Lord and Savior demands the action of the believer’s will, so do confession and repentance. It is not that an unbeliever must understand everything about confession, repentance, or any other aspect of salvation. A person can genuinely receive Christ as Lord and Savior with very little knowledge about Him and the gospel. But genuine belief is characterized by willingness to do whatever the Lord requires, just as unbelief is characterized by unwillingness to do whatever He requires.
In another attempt to make the self-satisfied young ruler face his true spiritual condition, Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” In this context, complete is used as a synonym for salvation, as it frequently is in the book of Hebrews, where the same basic Greek word is translated “perfect” (see 7:19; 10:1, 14; 12:23). Jesus was saying, “If you truly desire eternal life, prove your sincerity by selling your possessions and giving what you have to the poor.” If he truly lived up to the Mosaic command to love his neighbor as himself, he would be willing to do what Jesus now commanded. His willingness to obey that command would not merit salvation but it would be evidence that he desired salvation above everything else, as a priceless treasure or a pearl of great value for which no sacrifice could be too great (see Matt. 13:44-46).
The ultimate test was whether or not the man was willing to obey the Lord. The real issue Jesus presented was, “Will you do what I ask, no matter what? Who will be Lord in your life, you or Me?” That hit a sensitive nerve. Jesus demands to be Lord, sovereign over all. There was no better way to find out if the man was ready to accept Christ’s sovereignty than to ask him to give up his riches. The Lord challenged his wealth to force him to admit what was most valuable to him—Jesus Christ and eternal life or his money and possessions. The latter was clearly the man’s priority, and therefore for him salvation was forfeited.
The first part of Jesus’ command was quite capable of being obeyed in the man’s own power. But he refused to comply with it, not because he could not but because he would not. He not only failed to keep God’s impossible commands but failed to keep this one that was easily possible, proving conclusively that he really did not want to do God’s perfect will and be spiritually complete.
Mark tells us that as He gave the man that command, “Jesus felt a love for him” (10:21). The Lord must have felt for him as He did for Jerusalem as He looked out over that great city and cried, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it” (Luke 13:34). Jesus was approaching the time when He would shed His own blood for the sins of the rich young ruler, and for the sins of Jerusalem and of the whole world. But as much as He loved the man and desired for him not to perish, He could not save him while he refused to admit he was lost. The Lord can do nothing with a life that is not surrendered to Him, except to condemn it.
It is possible the man did not even hear Jesus say, “Come, follow Me.” He was so dismayed by the command to sell his possessions and give to the poor that Jesus’ call to discipleship did not register on his conscious mind. His call to discipleship always falls on deaf ears when there is unwillingness to give up everything for Him (see Matt. 8:19-22).
The young man did not want Jesus either as Savior or as Lord. He was not willing to give Him his sins to be forgiven or his life to be ruled. Therefore when he heard Jesus’ statement, he went away grieved; for he was one who owned much property. Contrary to his own self-assessment, he did not live up to any of God’s law, but he was especially guilty in the area of materialism. The property he thought he owned really owned him, and he would rather be its servant than Jesus’.
He went away grieved because, although he came to Jesus for eternal life, he left without it. He did not desire it above the possessions of his present life. He wanted to gain salvation, but not as much as he wanted to keep his property.
Zaccheus was also a wealthy man. But when Jesus called him, “he hurried and came down, and received Him gladly.” Spontaneously he volunteered to do essentially what Jesus commanded the rich young ruler to do. “Half of my possessions I will give to the poor,” Zaccheus said, “and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.” Jesus then told him, “Today salvation has come to this house” (Luke 19:5-9). Zaccheus was not saved because of his new-found generosity. Rather his new-found generosity was evidence that he was truly saved. As implied in the next verse, Zaccheus was saved because he confessed he was lost (v. 10).
Although every sin must be forsaken for Christ’s sake, there is often a certain sin or group of sins that a person finds particularly difficult to give up. For that young man it was love of his wealth and the prestige associated with it. Willingness to give up his property would not have saved him, but it would have revealed a heart that under the convicting work of the Holy Spirit was ready for salvation.
When Jesus declared, “No one of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions” (Luke 14:33), He was not referring only to material possessions. For some people the supreme obstacle to salvation might be a career, an unsaved boyfriend or girlfriend, or some cherished sin. Many people who are materially destitute are just as far from the kingdom as the rich young ruler. Yet they must be willing to give up whatever they do possess, even if all they have left is pride, if they would be saved.
Salvation involves a commitment to forsake sin and to follow Jesus Christ at all costs. He will take disciples on no other terms. A person who does not “confess with [his] mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in [his] heart that God raised Him from the dead,” cannot be saved, “for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation” (Rom. 10:9-10).