17And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 18And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 19You 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.'" 20And he said to him, "Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth." 21And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." 22Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. (Mark 10:17-22)
My view of this account has changed somewhat.
First, as I wrote before, and will only repeat the conclusion here, I believe that the rich ruler was saved. (OK, just one point: I believe he was saved if for no other reason than Mark went out of his way to tell us that Jesus loved him. I don't believe there are any lost among the people Jesus loves.)
The troubling aspect of this interaction is when Jesus unambiguously states that a requirement for this man to inherit eternal life is "sell all that you have and give to the poor." What are our choices here?
A) That Jesus was not telling the absolute truth. It actually was not required of the man. He was using hyperbole in a teaching moment.
B) That it is not required of everyone, but this man is an exception. Maybe the only exception. There actually are different requirements for different people to inherit eternal life. Some, or at least one, must sell all and give it to the poor.
C) In fact it is required of the ruler, and it is required of us. We all must liquidate our assets for the benefit of the needy.
I used to lean toward answer A. As a teacher I should know better. The answer to multiple choice questions is always C.
Yes, I now think it is required of us. Of all of us. We all are required to sell all and give to the poor. That it is part of God's moral law as introduced by Jesus in the Sermon in the Mount. Jesus liquidated all His assets and distributed the proceeds to the sick and weary. Plus it fits the "new and improved" pattern wherein the OT gives us a glimpse, a taste, a foreshadowing, viz.
- New and improved priesthood.
- New and improved high priest.
- New and improved temple.
- New and improved sacrifice.
- New and improved Sabbath rest.
- New and improved Passover.
- New and improved circumcision.
- New and improved covenant.
- New and improved moral law.
We can stipulate, merely for the sake of argument, that the ruler did keep the Ten Commandments, as he claimed. But like the ruler soon found out there is no way to keep the more fully revealed moral law. This is good news. Why is that good news? Because since we can't do it God has provided a representative who can and did.
This story could have been written another way. Instead of the rich ruler, it could have been the any-man story:
And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus said to him "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.'" And he said to him, "Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth." And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "You lack one thing: you must never ever look at a women who is not your spouse with lust, because that is adultery." Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he was--any man.
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