The Rich Young Ruler

Mark 10:17-31 (Mt 19:16-30; Lk 18:18-34)

As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. 19 You know the commandments, ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” 20 And he said to Him, “Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up.” 21 Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” 22 But at these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property.

23 And Jesus, looking around, said to His disciples, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 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.” 26 They were even more astonished and said to Him, “Then who can be saved?” 27 Looking at them, Jesus said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”

28 Peter began to say to Him, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You.” 29 Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, 30 but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last, first.”

How do we interpret this passage? According to Lordship Salvation teaching, this rich young ruler was required to fully surrender everything to God to be saved. On the surface this sounds convincing because of the fact that he asked Jesus how he could have “eternal life,” Jesus gave him the answer, to sell everything he had to the poor and then follow Him, then he refused. Jesus then replied telling him and the disciples how hard it is for a rich man to “enter the kingdom of God.” The disciples also reaffirm that salvation is the topic in discussion here because they said, “then who can be saved?” Therefore, we can’t just say this is talking about discipleship and the consequential costs of following Jesus. So either Jesus is saying that the rich man has to sell everything to be saved or there is something else going on here…

It might help for us to examine the wider context in Luke’s account. Prior to this story, Luke mentions a parable Jesus taught about a Pharisee and a tax collector. Both of these men were wealthy. But one was prideful and the other wasn’t. The tax collector humbled himself and asked mercy from God and he went home justified. He went home right with God while the Pharisee stood condemned in his sins and self-righteousness. Then after this, children were coming up to Jesus and Jesus said, “the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all” (Lk 18:16-17). It’s from this backdrop that Luke proceeds to retell the event where a rich young ruler asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life.

It might seem that we have two stories opposite from each other. The rich young ruler is told to sell everything he has to get eternal life while the other rich man, the tax collector, doesn’t do that. Instead, he just asks God for mercy. So then, we can at least come to the conclusion that it is not required in every instance to surrender all of one’s possessions to God in order to be saved because the tax collector wasn’t required to do that. He just humbled himself, confessed his sins, asked God for mercy, and he was saved. Yet later Jesus says of rich men, that it is very hard for them to enter the kingdom of God. Why is that? Is it because they fail to surrender all their possessions to God? Was Jesus teaching that salvation required fully committed obedience to God? Or was Jesus saying that it is the humble that enter the kingdom of God? If that’s the case, then we can conclude that it wasn’t the rich man’s lack of obedience that prohibited him from salvation but rather, his abundant wealth and easy-going life that was a stumbling block which prevented him from the humility necessary to receive salvation. For this reason, Jesus was not presenting the gospel to him. He was presenting the law to him. The rich man asked Jesus what he must “do” to inherit eternal life. So, naturally, Jesus told him what he had to “do.” If his mindset was how he could be justified on the basis of the law, then that is how—he would need to be perfect.

This guy was a prideful man. He thought he had it all, he did it all, and he obeyed all the commandments. He probably was thinking, “are there any more boxes I need to check off? I’ve obeyed all the commandments since my youth, is there anything else left to do?” And Jesus knew what was in his heart. So, it was Jesus’ intent to expose that—to show him the weight of the law for him to see how far he fell short of perfection. But if eternal life is based on the commandments, perfection is required because all sin leads to the corruption of death. But because all have sinned, all die; and this is the problem humanity finds themselves in.

The problem was that this man didn’t see his need for God. In the present state he was in, he was incapable of relying on God. But that’s what faith is, it’s relying on God. It’s trusting and resting in Him. But that’s hard to do when everything in life is going well for you and you don’t have any needs or any problems. At that point, eternal life isn’t so much a need as it is an addition to your fancy life. So Jesus showed him the law so that he might see his need—so that he might be led to salvation. At this moment, he could have gotten on his knees and cried out like the tax collector, “be merciful to me, a sinner!” and he would have received forgiveness and God would have showed him mercy and would do a work on his heart to die to his selfishness by giving his wealth to the poor. But instead, he just left sad because he chose to trust in his wealth rather than trusting in God.

Jesus gave him an extremely hard law to follow and it was to show him his utter bankruptcy before God. If the rich man would truly have seen the worth of Jesus and were to believe Him to be God, then he would have left everything behind to follow Him and God would have provided for all his needs. God was standing right before him in the flesh and still he did not believe. His unbelief was the problem and that unbelief was made easy because of his great wealth. From this passage we see that this man failed to fulfill the whole law and he broke the first and greatest commandment and this reveals to us that he had sin and this sin is what would lead him to death. The rich man was condemned not because he did not obey what Jesus commanded him, but he was condemned because he failed to obey the whole law perfectly and because of his unbelief. But it is not through perfect obedience that we are justified because no one can achieve that except Jesus. Paul also writes, “because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” and “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law” (Ro 3:20, 28).

In the story of the rich man, Jesus was certainly not teaching that we could be justified before God on the basis of the law. That would also contradict everything the apostle Paul teaches. The rich man would not be able to obtain eternal life through more law-keeping. That is the very thing Jesus is showing the impossibility to do. If he had obeyed that command, Jesus would reveal to him some other way that he fell short of the law until he would come humbly before God. Eternal life only comes by the mercy of God to those humble enough to receive it by trusting in God for their salvation rather than their own good works. One of the foundational teachings of the church is actually not repentance from sin but rather “repentance from dead works and of faith toward God” (Heb 6:1). For some reason, the author of Hebrews doesn’t even mention repentance from sin in his list of foundational things. But he does mention repentance from dead works. Why? Because we have to turn away from trusting ourselves and instead trust God for forgiveness and salvation. That is the only way to be saved and the only way to press on to maturity in Christ in our sanctification. It is also from that place of genuine faith that true repentance from sin follows.

So then, we see that the rich young ruler didn’t have the faith necessary to receive salvation and his riches were an obstacle to being in a humble enough position of receiving. Jesus wasn’t presenting the gospel to him but rather, the law, in order to expose his absolute need to trust God for salvation. But instead of asking for mercy, he went away sad because of his unbelief. This unbelief is why his heart remained devoted to riches rather than to Jesus. Idolatry is one of the number one sins that God hates. Idolatry is equivalent to worshipping and serving another god; but Jesus wouldn’t have that. For some rich people, riches are not their idol. But for others, like this man, it was. He worshipped money. He worshipped himself.

But here was the true test: would he humble himself before Jesus and confess his sin? Would he ask Jesus for more faith and for God to cleanse his heart from his idolatry? For the willingness to lay everything aside to follow Him? Would he then change his allegiance from wealth to God? We know from Scripture that God only dwells with the humble (Isa 57:15). Pride and idolatry are darkness and unless people decide to let go of that, God will not dwell with them. Pride and idolatry close off the heart to God and resist the light of His love and grace from shining within to cleanse the heart. Unbelief will remain unless we let go of the darkness to let His light in. This is why the tax collector was saved but the young ruler wasn’t. One had repentance (a change of mind) and the other didn’t.

We have to understand that repentance is changing our heart to the desires of God’s heart and agreeing with that. Agreement opens the door to let God’s light in. Just do the agreement part first and then God will help you turn from sin. Once the heart is in alignment with God and the idols of the heart are cast down and confession is made, God can provide strength. So don’t worry about trying to get yourself right first or waiting until you’re ready to turn from sin or striving in your own self-effort to first clean yourself up before God. The way of self-effort has to die in you. But this new life begins as you acknowledge that you are helpless to change your own heart and so God must do this work in you. So rest in God through trusting in Him. Surrender your heart to Him in faith. Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords. Do you believe that? Will your heart align with that? Will He be King of your heart so that He will be King of your life? There is salvation in no one else except Jesus (Acts 4:12). Money can’t save you. Advancements in healthcare and technology can’t save you. Your own good works can’t save you. But death is coming. You can trust Jesus or you can trust yourself and your own possessions but only Jesus saves. To truly believe will result in coming into alignment with that truth through action (James 2:14-26). But to not act, reveals the quality of faith or lack thereof. But this doesn’t mean perfect obedience or perfect faith. It just means a faith that is effectual.

Jesus asked, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.” The rich young ruler had one definition of good while Jesus had another in mind. Or perhaps the young ruler thought it was possible that Jesus was morally perfect because he thought himself to be morally perfect. And so, when Jesus questioned him on his definition of good, Jesus was hinting at the fact that the young ruler was not good and he should think about that. But Jesus doesn’t tell him that He is God in the flesh, either, but simply says, “No one is good except God alone.” So this might have been stirring in his mind later to get him thinking, “is Jesus God?” Jesus was questioning and challenging his belief system. There’s also a sense here in which Jesus is hinting at the question, “are you saying that I am God? Do you believe that I am God? Because, you have just said that I am good but if no one is truly good and morally perfect except God alone, then am I God to you? Do you believe this?” Because the young ruler went away sad, it revealed that either (1) he didn’t fully believe Jesus was the Son of God and/or (2) he believed that salvation could be obtained through good works and that was the only way to obtain it. And so Jesus challenged both of these assumptions and left him to think about it so that it might make him spiritually destitute and humble enough to receive salvation. Notice also in his second reply, the young man dropped the word, “good” and only called Jesus “Teacher” after that. He apparently wasn’t ready to own the claim of Jesus being the Son of God. He did not believe.

We have to keep in mind that Jesus often used the law to help people see their spiritual need. But before they see their need and incapability, they won’t know how to receive a gift that is freely given. Jesus also did not present to him the gospel because that message would not come until He died and rose again.

Though the rich young ruler went away sad and unsaved, I have hope that this wasn’t the end of the story. Jesus gave this young man the law and he had time to think about it. Then Jesus died on the cross, rose from the grave, and the outpouring of the Spirit came upon the believers to spread the good news of Jesus throughout the world. The young ruler still had opportunity to repent and I believe it is very possible this encounter with Jesus planted a seed in him that would grow into salvation through fully believing in Jesus and devoting his heart to Him. Because, as Jesus said, “with God all things are possible.”

Here is the order of progression and perceived rules and mechanics of salvation: The law reveals sin. This brings people humbly before God in need of Him where only God can save them. Faith begins to ascend. They acknowledge only God can save them. Then they renounce all their own strivings since they acknowledge that they are unable to be saved by their own efforts. This state of spiritual destitution of both their sin and failure of self-effort bring them to place faith in God, to confess sin and self-effort, and to cast down the idols of their heart to then devote their heart to God in loving loyalty. They confess Jesus Christ as God, King, and Savior. The heart is the holy of holies of the temple of God and so once those idols have been removed from the holy of holies of this temple, the presence of God comes to live and dwell in them and begins to sanctify their hearts. True faith in God’s love, goodness, justice, and forgiveness produces repentance, surrender, confession, and turning from sin. So then, when faith has the true knowledge of self and all the reasons to believe and the illumination of who God is and what He has done through Jesus in His life, death, and resurrection, everything else will begin to follow. By true knowledge of self, I mean the knowledge of sin, incapacity, and the knowledge of being made in the image of God and for God. However, not everything in this list is required to be fulfilled perfectly or in that exact order for one to be saved since all these things are the working and drawing of the Holy Spirit through the active participation of faith.

It can be sufficient in other cases to simply present the love and goodness of the Father through Jesus Christ which of itself can contrast their evil to God’s perfect love so that their evil is exposed and laid bare before God simply by an intense knowledge and understanding of God’s love. This love then becomes so good and desirable to them because it is so pure and holy that they despise the evil and darkness of their own hearts and so choose to let God’s love in to wash them clean. This reception of love does the work of casting down the idols so that it is only an act of receiving the Spirit of Jesus into the heart. It is faith in this love that brings about all other actions from this new state of mind and desire. The work of the evangelist then, is to convince the unbelieving mind, but not through something merely memorized and repeated, but through appealing to the heart and mind to truth and reason.

Continue to part 5: The Test of Discipleship