Chapter 19 - The Poverty of Riches and the Riches of Poverty (19:23-29)

19 The Poverty of Riches and the Riches of Poverty (19:23-29)

And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” And when the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?” And looking upon them Jesus said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Then Peter answered and said to Him, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what then will there be for us?” And Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, shall receive many times as much, and shall inherit eternal life.” (19:23-29)

The rich young ruler came to Jesus seeking eternal life, but the barriers of his self-centeredness and self-righteousness stood in the way of his receiving it (19:16-22). He would not recognize his need for repentance and Christ’s forgiveness nor would he submit to Christ’s lordship. He sincerely wanted eternal life, but he wanted his riches and his self-righteousness even more. Whoever wants anything more than Christ will forfeit Christ.

In this present passage the Lord elaborates on the spiritual danger of trusting in material riches and the spiritual blessings of forsaking them for His sake. He first focuses on what might be called the poverty of riches (vv. 23-26) and then on the riches of poverty (vv. 27-29).

THE POVERTY OF RICHES

The expression Truly I say to you was a common Jewish figure of speech used to introduce a teaching of great importance. It carried the idea of, “Pay special attention to what I am about to say.” The important truth Jesus wanted to convey to His disciples at this time was that, as they had just seen tragically illustrated by the rich young ruler, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

The kingdom of heaven refers to the sphere of God’s gracious rule and, as is clear from the fact that Jesus uses both in the same statement, is synonymous with the kingdom of God. By intertestamental times, heaven had become a common Jewish substitute term for the covenant name of God (Yahweh, Jehovah), which they preferred not to speak. In this context the terms are also synonymous with eternal life, which the rich young ruler was seeking (v. 16), and therefore with salvation. Following up on the incident of that young man, whose wealth was for him an impenetrable barrier to receiving Christ as Lord and Savior, Jesus explained to the Twelve the eternal danger of trusting in material possessions.

The Lord repeatedly emphasized that following Him required willingness to sacrifice everything a person had, economic, personal, social, and all else. “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me,” He said; “and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life shall lose it” (Matt. 10:37-39). A person must desire salvation more than anything else, so that no sacrifice is too great to make for Christ’s sake. That is why “the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it” (Matt. 7:14).

Duskols (hard) is used in the New Testament only here and in the parallel synoptic accounts (Mark 10:23; Luke 18:24). Jesus went on to explain that, as far as a rich man entering the kingdom of heaven is concerned, hard is equivalent to impossible: “Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

The expression easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle was a Jewish colloquialism for the impossible. It was probably a modified form of a Persian expression for impossibility, “easier for an elephant to go through the eye of a needle,” that is quoted in the Talmud. Being the largest animal known in Palestine, the camel was substituted for the elephant.

Some have been confused by this text, thinking it appears to say that the rich have no hope of salvation. So in order to make the expression signify something difficult but not impossible, interpreters have suggested numerous explanations, many of them farfetched. Some propose that there was a very small gate in the ancient wall of Jerusalem called the Needle’s Eye. In order for a camel to go through it, they surmised, the animal would have to be completely unloaded and then crawl through on its knees. But neither the Persian nor the Jewish saying used the term gate, and no Jerusalem gate by that name is mentioned in any extant historical or archeological record. In any case, no sensible person would go to such trouble when he could take his camel a few hundred yards down the wall and go through a larger gate.

Other scholars have suggested that scribal error changed the Greek word kamilos (a large rope or cable) into kamlos (a camel). But a large rope would also be impossible to thread through the eye of a needle. More than that, it is hard to conceive that the scribes who made copies from the original manuscript all made the same mistake and made it in all three gospel accounts!

Even if an ancient manuscript were found with the word for camel changed to rope, it would be rejected for the reason that it would indicate a scribe had changed it to make it more acceptable. Because no scribe would turn rope into camel, the latter would be considered the original reading. The expression clearly refers to an impossibility. It is impossible for a rich man such as the one just encountered to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Before considering what Jesus meant by saying it is impossible, let us consider some reasons why it is difficult. For one thing, the rich tend to have false security in their riches. Because wealth can provide for all physical needs and a great many things beyond needs, the wealthy are inclined to rely on their money to buy whatever they want, so they see little reason to depend on God. That is one reason there are “not many wise, . . . mighty, . . . noble; but God has chosen the foolish, . . . weak, . . . base, . . . despised” (1 Cor. 1:26-28). The poor, on the other hand, became the special objects of and responders to our Lord’s teaching (Luke 4:18).

An attitude of self-sufficiency plagued the church at Laodicea. Because they said, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” they did not realize that spiritually they were “wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked” (Rev 3:17). In A.D. 60 Laodicea had a devastating earthquake that virtually levelled the city. Although the Roman government offered to rebuild the city for them, the proud inhabitants insisted on doing it themselves. They succeeded in raising the entire city out of the ashes, as it were, without any outside help. That proud, self-sufficient attitude obviously had spilled over into the church, whose members came to think of themselves as able to do without the help even of God.

Those who have great material resources tend to imagine they do not require divine resources. Paul therefore told Timothy to “instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy” (1 Tim. 6:17). More than that, the apostle goes on to say, “Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed” (vv. 18-19).

Paul’s advice to Timothy was that he confront prospective converts who were rich in the same way Jesus confronted the rich young ruler. If a person prefers his earthly fortune to the lordship of Jesus Christ, his heart is not prepared for salvation. Willingness to give up everything for the Lord will not in itself save him, but it demonstrates that he is desperate for salvation and has found the “pearl of great price” for which he will sell all he has if need be.

Only godliness brings gain that has lasting value and satisfaction, Paul assures us. “But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith, and pierced themselves with many a pang” (vv. 6, 9-10).

It is especially difficult for rich people not to be closely tied to this world, to their bank accounts, investments, and possessions. A person’s heart is where his treasure is (Matt. 6:21), and the wealthy usually find it hard, and seemingly unnecessary, to treasure the things of God. When they hear the gospel, its divine seed frequently falls on thorny hearts that may have an initial response but are full of “the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things” that choke the Word and make it unfruitful (Mark 4:18-19).

The successful farmer who tore down his old barns and built bigger ones to hold all his grain was oblivious to the welfare of his soul. Completely content in his riches, he said to himself, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.” And because he refused to recognize God as the source of his many goods or to allow Him to have any place in his life, his life was forfeited. “God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ So is the man,” Jesus explained, “who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:18-21).

Every possession a person has is by the provision of God and ought to be used to His glory. Even Christians run the danger of being sidetracked and trapped by their possessions, giving to God only what remains after they have accumulated what they want and fulfilled their own plans.

All that may explain why it is so hard for the rich to enter God’s kingdom, but why it is impossible is a completely different issue—and is the whole point here.

The young ruler was not a denouncer of Christ but a seeker who wanted eternal life, who wanted kingdom citizenship. But the flaw was that he thought he himself had the resources to procure it. That is the point here.

In Mark’s parallel account, Jesus makes clear that the impossibility of entering the kingdom by any humanly devised or empowered means extends to everyone, not just the rich. We learn from Mark that after the disciples expressed amazement about His statement concerning the wealthy, Jesus said, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10:24). The rich young ruler’s problem was not his wealth itself but his trust in his wealth and in his own ability to meet God’s standards for acceptance. He wanted to enter the kingdom and receive eternal life on his own terms, through his own money, and by his own efforts. But, Jesus said, it is so hard for anyone to get saved on his own terms and by his own efforts that it is absolutely impossible. The poorest of the poor have no better chance to gain eternal life by their own efforts at righteousness.

Jesus is not here teaching how hard it is for rich people to get unhooked from their riches and bow their knees to Him in humble faith. He is saying how impossible it is for them or for anyone else to be saved by self-effort of any kind. In effect, He was saying the same thing God said through the Mosaic law It was humanly impossible to live up to a single one of the Ten Commandments or to the two great commandments (Lev. 19:18; Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:37-39), and those laws were intended to show God’s people the impossibility of meeting His perfect, holy standards in their own power. Salvation has always been impossible by human effort.

Paul expressed the same truth when he wrote: “Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:19-20).

Jesus declared that all works-righteousness, which is the basis of every man-made religion, is worthless, affirming what Jeremiah had written hundreds of years earlier: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to do evil” (Jer. 13:23). Every human being since the Fall is by nature “accustomed to do evil” and is therefore unable to do good in any way that is acceptable to God. No one can save himself any more than he can change the color of his skin or than a leopard can change his spots.

Jesus was not separating out the rich as being more inherently far from the kingdom than other people but was pointing out that their riches on the one hand were a formidable barrier and on the other hand that their money gave them no advantage at all, though they might be able to buy more sacrifices, give more alms, and make more offerings at the Temple.

The wealthy are also inclined to be selfish and self-centered. Their time and interests are often devoted to enlarging, protecting, and enjoying what they have, and consequently they have little time or concern for the interests or welfare of others. I once talked with a man who had worked for several multimillionaires. He said that they had three things in common: they not only were rich but were capable of getting even richer, they were eccentric, and they were extremely selfish and self-centered. Although there are exceptions, those characteristics are generally universal. Like the self-indulgent rich man who was oblivious to the diseased and destitute Lazarus who laid outside his gate hoping to have a few table crumbs (Luke 16:20-31), the wealthy are inclined to be interested only in themselves.

Jesus’ teaching about the impossibility of the rich entering the kingdom by their own efforts was a shocking idea to Jews. Therefore, when the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?” For many centuries the rabbis had taught that accumulation of wealth was a virtue and that it was not only unwise but sinful for a person to give away more than one fifth of what he owned. They had designed a religious law to protect their selfishness and greed. Envisioning the Lord in their own materialistic image, they reasoned that God was pleased with a gift in direct proportion to its size. Therefore, the more one gave out of the permissible one fifth limit, the more favor he found with God.

Such ideas were so strongly entrenched that in much Jewish thinking alms giving was virtually a means of buying salvation. Much like the indulgences of the Middle Ages, alms giving was considered a means of literally purchasing a more favored place in the kingdom. For Jesus to teach that wealth was actually a serious barrier to the kingdom was diametrically contrary to everything most Jews had been taught. The rich could afford the largest and choicest of the sacrificial animals. They could give large amounts to the Temple and their local synagogues. They never lacked for money to drop into the thirteen trumpet-shaped receptacles in the court of the women that were conspicuously located so that their generous giving to the Lord’s work could be observed by fellow worshipers.

But if even the rich cannot enter the kingdom by their own efforts and generosity, the disciples wondered, what could the poor hope for? In total bewilderment they therefore asked Jesus, “Then who can be saved?”

And looking upon them Jesus said to them explicitly what the Mosaic law said implicitly: “With men this is impossible.” Just as it is not merely difficult but impossible for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, it is not merely difficult but impossible for men to please the Lord and come into His kingdom on their own terms and by their own efforts. In one simple declaration, Jesus utterly destroyed the current perspective in the religion of Israel and, at the same time, all hope in works-righteousness. Whatever his material possessions and earthly accomplishments, every person stands totally helpless and powerless before God. He stands condemned before a righteous God, and in his depraved nature he can do nothing to make himself holy and worthy of God’s forgiveness and acceptance. With that statement Jesus swept all religions of human achievement and works-righteousness into hell. Left to any work of man, salvation is impossible.

“But with God all things are possible,” Jesus went on to say. Because God is able to change sinful hearts, it is possible for Him to save helpless men. God can do what men cannot do. The rich young ruler went away without eternal life because he sought it on the impossible basis of his own human resources and goodness. Salvation is entirely a gracious and sovereign work of God, and the work of His human witnesses is simply to proclaim the full truth of the gospel as clearly and lovingly as possible and to rely on God to apply that truth to an unbeliever’s heart and bring him to recognize his spiritual bankruptcy and come to repentance and obedient faith. Although repentance and faith require an act of human will, they are prompted by the power of God.

“No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him,” Jesus said (John 6:44). That is why Paul admonished that “the Lord’s bondservant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will” (2 Tim. 2:24-26).

THE RICHES OF POVERTY

Then Peter answered and said to Him, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what then will there be for us?” And Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, shall receive many times as much, and shall inherit eternal life.” (19:27-29)

With hope perhaps tinged with uncertainty, Peter ventured to ask Jesus, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what then will there be for us?” “We came on Your terms, didn’t we?” he said in effect. “Do we thereby qualify for eternal life? The rich young ruler refused to surrender his possessions and his life to You, and he forfeited the kingdom. But we forsook our jobs, our families, our friends, and everything else we had in order to be Your disciples. We have repented of our sins and surrendered to Your lordship. Just as You commanded, we have denied ourselves and taken up our crosses for your sake. Doesn’t that qualify us for a place in Your kingdom?”

Peter was speaking for all of the Twelve, because he had no suspicion of Judas’s betrayal. As that false disciple would soon make evident, he had not forsaken everything for Christ but was instead seeking to use Him for his own ends. He expected Jesus to overthrow Rome and set up His own earthly kingdom, with the disciples given the highest places of honor and power. Judas was much further from the kingdom than the rich young ruler, who at least knew he needed eternal life and had a certain desire for it. Judas, on the other hand, was totally concerned with his present, earthly life.

But the rest of the Twelve, despite their small faith and slowness to understand Jesus’ teaching, had truly given themselves to Him. They shared with Judas many of the common Jewish misconceptions about the Messiah and His kingdom. They may still have been expecting Him to establish the kingdom during their lifetimes and therefore could not bring themselves to accept the idea of His suffering and death. But they nevertheless continued to follow and obey Him. As Peter had declared in behalf of the Twelve, “You have words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69).

Although Peter and the others were still confused about much of Jesus’ message and mission, they knew they truly belonged to Him and that He truly loved them and would not forsake them. They were certain He had something divinely good in store for them, even if they had a distorted idea of what it was. Peter therefore asked to hear from Jesus’ own lips concerning what then will there be for us? “What are the benefits of Your kingdom for us?” they wanted to know. “What do we have to look forward to as Your disciples?”

Some have criticized Peter for his expectation of blessing and reward. But Jesus gave no hint of dissatisfaction with the question. Instead, He acknowledged that they were indeed His true and sincere disciples, referring to them as you who have followed Me. The Greek aorist participle characterizes them as His followers.

Next, He gave them the marvelous and unique promise that in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

The term palingenesia (regeneration) literally means new birth. It was used by Josephus for the new birth of the Jewish nation after the Babylonian Captivity and by Philo of the new birth of the earth after the Flood and after its destruction by fire. It is used only twice in the New Testament, here and in Titus 3:5, where Paul uses it to refer to the personal new birth of believers. In the present passage, however, Jesus uses it to represent the rebirth of the earth under His sovereign dominion at the time of His second coming. It will be paradise regained and a global parallel to the individual rebirth of Christians.

The earth and the world of men will be given a new nature, described in great detail by the Old Testament prophets and by John in Revelation 20:1-15. Just as they have been given spiritual life and a new nature in Jesus Christ but are not yet perfected, so there will be a rebirth of the earth that is divinely recreated. Although it will not yet be a totally new earth (Rev. 21:1), it will nevertheless be wonderfully superior to the present fallen and unredeemed earth. It was the belief of the Jews that Messiah would renew the earth and heavens, based on the prophecy of Isaiah 65:17 and 66:22. Peter called it “the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient times” (Acts 3:21).

All believers will sit on the throne of Christ (Rev 3:21), exercising authority over the people of the earth (Rev 2:26), while the apostles are uniquely ruling restored Israel. This cannot be the eternal state described in Revelation 21:12-14, where twelve gates in the New Jerusalem are inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes and twelve foundations are inscribed with the names of the twelve apostles.

At the time of the restoration of the earth, righteousness will flourish, peace will abound, Jerusalem will again be exalted, health and healing will prevail, the earth will produce food as never before, the lion will lay down in peace with the lamb, the deserts will blossom, and life will be long. The age-old curse that began with the Fall will then be limited, in anticipation of its being eliminated completely in the eternal state to follow (Rev 22:3).

As God had long before predicted, the Messiah, the Lord’s Anointed, will then receive all the nations as His inheritance and have the very ends of the earth as His possessions. “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron,” the psalmist declared; “Thou shalt shatter them like earthenware” (Ps. 2:2, 8-9). Then the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, as King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16). This is a reference to the prophecy of Daniel 7:13-14, where God, “the Ancient of Days,” gives the kingdom to the Son of Man. Jesus is affirming the reality that He will rule in the coming kingdom.

At that time the redeemed of all the ages will also reign with Him. “Then the sovereignty, the dominion, and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Highest One; His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey Him” (Dan. 7:27; cf. 1 Cor. 6:2; Rev 20:4). The nation of Israel will be restored, and sharing Christ’s rule over her will be the Twelve apostles, who also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Matthias, who took Judas’s place among the apostles shortly before Pentecost (Acts 1:26), will join the other eleven on the twelve thrones (cf. Dan. 7:22 and Isa. 1:26).

Because amillennial interpreters do not believe in a literal thousand-year kingdom on earth or in Israel’s national restoration, they take the twelve thrones and the twelve tribes as being purely figurative. One such writer made no attempt to discern Jesus’ meaning but simply commented, “Now we have to wonder what our Lord meant by the twelve tribes of Israel.”

If Jesus was referring to a real reigning on His part when He spoke of His throne, He must be referring to literal thrones that the apostles would sit upon while literally judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And as already noted, this millennial truth is also revealed elsewhere in Scripture.

The Word makes clear that in the reign of Christ over the world, He will be sovereign and rule over Jews and Gentiles with righteousness, peace, and immediate justice. He will be worshiped as supreme Lord, and His kingdom will bring prosperity, healing, health, and blessedness.

Not only that, Jesus continued, but “everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, shall receive as much, and shall inherit eternal life.” Those who renounce their possessions and become poor for Christ’s name’s sake are going to share with the apostles in His triumph and reign. Mark reports that Jesus said the person who gives up those things for His sake and the gospel’s “shall receive a hundred times as much now in the present age” (Mark 10:30).

When a person comes to Jesus Christ he must often have to turn his back on certain relationships, even with those who are very dear to him. Many times his conversion turns his own family and closest friends against him, in some cases even to the point of seeking his disinheritance or even his life. But the one who gives up everything for Christ’s sake, not only will inherit eternal life but also the family of God in this present life. He will have a host of new fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters with whom he will forever be united in God’s divine family. Wherever he goes, he meets spiritual loved ones, many of whom he has never seen or heard of before. Throughout the world he finds those who will share his sorrows, encourage his spirit, and help meet his needs, material as well as spiritual.

The believer in Jesus Christ will have blessings now, blessings in the millennial kingdom, and blessings throughout all eternity. To be poor for the sake of Christ is to be rich indeed. Jim Elliot, a young missionary martyred by the Auca Indians of Ecuador whom he was seeking to reach for Christ, wrote shortly before his death, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”