A Dangerous Question & An Affective Encounter (Matthew 19:16-23)

And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” 

And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” 

And Jesus said, “You shall not 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 I have kept. What do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 19:16-23)

This well-known story from the gospels reveals something about salvation and discipleship that we often miss...

This man’s story is usually referred to as that of “The Rich Young Ruler” though he is not directly called that in any one account. We get the phrase from reading all three parallel gospel accounts and harmonizing them—Luke 18 calls him “a ruler”, Matthew 19:22 calls him a “young man”, while Mark 10 simply uses the generic “a man” and in all three cases, the author’s explanation reveals that he was quite rich. Like any legitimate eyewitness testimonies, they each add important details that help us to better understand the situation.

Today, I am responding to the passage in Matthew 19 but will include details revealed in both Mark 10 and Luke 18.

The Big Question

v. 16 “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?

This is a question all spiritually woke people ask. What is it that we must do to have, or inherit eternal life? We begin to wonder, introspectively, whether we could ever be good enough, and in moments of painful honesty, we realize that we fall far short of the righteousness required. This young man had the amazing opportunity to approach Jesus and ask him face-to-face. His enthusiasm in seeking Jesus' answer (Mark— “ran up and knelt”) was likely fueled by his thinking that he had it nailed. We can sometimes think this way too. We ask for input only from those we think will confirm our own bias.

Jesus answered his question, eventually, but first, he asked a rhetorical question to prepare the man for the answer to his questions.

The Rhetorical Question

Jesus took a moment to get the man’s attention by asking a rhetorical question. Here in Matthew’s account, Jesus’ question is used to hint at the answer that nobody is “good” enough for eternal life by what they do… except for God himself. 

“Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” 

This is made stronger in the Gospels of Mark and Luke who record the question slightly differently where the focus is on the character of Jesus himself. “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” Jesus was not denying that he himself was good, but making the man think about who he was really asking. Was he wrong about Jesus being “good”, or should he listen to him like he was God? 

In all these accounts the punch line is essentially the same, that God alone is good. This implies that the man asking the question was not good at some point, a point made explicit later by Paul, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Far from being justified by his response that he had kept the representative commands Jesus listed (the easier ones?) the law will ultimately silence our excuses and bring conviction upon us, not our hoped-for justification (Rom. 3:19-20).

For all his boldness in proclaiming “All these I have kept”, the man did not have an internal assurance of his being an heir of eternal life. He must have had an elevated level of anxiety for his soul that comes from knowing that for all his external effort, his heart has not been transformed. This anxiety, this drive for assurance, prompted him to ask a blessedly dangerous question.

The Dangerous Question (v.20)

The young man asked Jesus, “What do I still lack?” I love that this young man would ask Jesus this question. Perhaps it was asked defensively, perhaps he was even embarrassed he had said it aloud, but I would hope that it was asked sincerely, after the manner of the psalmist,

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,    
and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psalm 139:23-24)

If it is true that the young man asked this question sincerely, despite Jesus’ reframing the context, it seems to suggest a certain knowledge of who Jesus was. But this knowledge alone was not enough to produce relational obedience for the story ends with him departing disheartened and in sadness.

The Affective Point

Jesus answered the young man’s question directly (which strongly suggests that it had been asked sincerely). Mark adds the detail that on hearing his response, Jesus looked at him, loved him, and spoke the truth to him that there was one thing that he lacked (Mark 10:21).

Jesus’ challenging answer was not a call to a more severe, ascetic, standards-based, external compliance to the Mosaic law.  It was not the spiritual discipline of poverty that he ultimately sought. Rather, it was an invitation to respond to the overflowing love of God in Christ that was being extended. It is an applied theology of the first three commandments (Ex. 20:3-7) as summed up in Deut. 6:5 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

The emphasis of the directive to “sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” should be on the last phrase not the first. This was not a command for all Christians to give away all their possessions (though generosity and even sacrificial charity are taught elsewhere in the Bible). It was an affective encounter—one which illustrated Jesus’ earlier teaching about how we cannot serve two masters, for we will love one and hate the other (Matt. 6:24; Luke 16:13) and “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt. 6:21)

Jesus Face, By Richard Hook

The only viable answer to the question of how to inherit eternal life is to respond to the love of God by faith in Jesus Christ. It changes everything…from the inside out.

The key to eternal life is not our resume of good works, nor our knowledge of Jesus’ messianic ministry, but in our being known by Jesus…our walking in a loving relationship with him by faith. Oh, and such a life of love eagerly participates in the good and just work of the Triune God in the world!

Bringing it Home

So, the challenge for us today is not one of divesting ourselves of all possessions, but of cutting off any love that demands a greater loyalty than that to Christ. Is there something that we would choose to keep over and above our relationship with Jesus Christ? It has been said that sometimes what we own actually owns us—that which we think might bring freedom ironically holds our hearts in bondage.

This passage serves as an example, a lived-out parable, prompting us to ask a similar question to that blessedly dangerous question asked by a wealthy young man long ago.

What that man lacked was a heart that loved God, because God had loved him. Imagine walking away from Jesus’ invitation to “Come, follow me!” in favor of waxing your car, marketing your business, or organizing your bobblehead collection. Ridiculous right?

But how is that any different from investing our heart and soul into our endless gym workouts and selfies, social media feeds, naming our own identity, and seeking the praise of humanity?

Following Jesus, once we realize how he loves us, would be like the two kingdom responses in Matthew 13:44-46,

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

Here in Matthew 19, don’t miss the affective encounter as Jesus invited the rich young man to enter into just such a joy of the kingdom, to lay down the idols of his heart, and to “come, follow me,” but it appears that he was too invested in his possessions and privilege to replace that love of the world with the love of Christ. From our perspective, it was a tragic missed opportunity. Yet what are the idols of our hearts that restrict our own availability and responsiveness to Jesus’ love? Could such misdirected love be the sin that trips us up (Heb. 12:1) or the "cares of the world" that choke out the gospel seed in our hearts (Matt. 13:22)?

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy!

Susan Kirsch on Unsplash

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:18-19)