OUR FATHER WHO MADE A WAY TO ETERNAL LIFE FOR THOSE WHO SEEK

The young man, having heard of Jesusˋ spiritual teaching about the kingdom of heaven, recognized that Jesus was an authority on a question that he had pondered all his life so he took an opportunity that arose and he approached Jesus with an honorific of  ˋGood Teacherˋ.

Matthew chapter 19 verses 16 - 22 records this encounter that the Lord Jesus had with the young man who approached Him to ask what righteous actions he could take to gain eternal life for himself.

The Lord Jesus replied to the young manˋ question by first rectifying the error He had made in calling a person whom he thought was a teacher, ˋGoodˋ. Jesus reminded the man that only God is good and so he should not have used the term unless He knew that Jesus was God.

Jesus then explained that to enter into life, he only needed to keep the commandments.

The man responded to Jesusˋ  answer by asking which specific commandments of the one written in the scriptures he needed to keep. 

16 Now behold, one came and said to Him, “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?”

17 So He said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”

18 He said to Him, “Which ones?” Jesus said, “‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’ 19 ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”

Jesus narrowed it down for the young man by listing five of the ten commandments and then he summarized this list with the one primal law, ˋYou shall love your neighbor as yourselfˋ. 

The earnest man responded by saying that from when he was a child he had never broken any of those commandments but he knew in his heart that he was still short of the standard and so he pressed Jesus further by asking him what was still missing from the equation that made him feel perpetually unassured of eternal life.

20 The young man said to Him, “All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?”

21 Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

The Lord Jesus diagnosed the young manˋs uncertainty problem. He had kept the commandments with the understanding that doing so would acquire the standing to enter eternal life but he had also retained confidence in the material world.

He failed to undertsand that to ascend to the eternal realm, one had to trade away the advantages one had in temporal the realm to gain eternal treasure. 

The Lord then revealed to him that the pathway he had been seeking to find eternal life was actually in Jesus Himself.  To gain eternal life, he would have to follow Jesus to gain salvation.

The young man did indeed have great confidence in his good conduct and great wealth and when he heard that eternal life was gained by abandoning oneˋs stake in the coporeal realm and following Jesus, he went away in sorrow because he had reckoned that eternal could be assured while everything in his present life remained the same.

Have mercy on us O God.

8