IMPOSSIBLE: The Rich Young Ruler, Part 2

Jesus initially responded to the rich young ruler by taking him to the Law of Moses. The young man should have become convicted of sin, and convinced that it is impossible for righteousness to be attained by keeping the Law. But he was not. The riches of a religious life were holding him in blindness. How easy it is for us to become blinded by our own righteousness, to forget that any good in us is God's work, to believe that we ourselves have brought something meritorious to the salvation equation. In the Gospel, God is dying to lead us to a different conclusion. And in the Law, God has engraved our unworthiness and guilt in stone.

It is interesting to note that Jesus did not always refer people to the Law. Nicodemus, for example, was merely given a baffling command to be "born again," something not particularly related to the Law. The woman at the well was told the damning and embarassing facts about her sad life, but not a list of specific transgressions. The disciples heard the simple invitation, "Follow me," rather than a list of rules they had broken. There are those today who would encourage us to preach the Law before we preach the Gospel, or at least to include Law as a key part of the presentation. There is certainly wisdom in this approach, but let us never get ourselves stuck in a system that is unable to flex and respond to each individual God brings our way. There is a time to preach the Law, and there is a time to proclaim free mercy. There is a time to go straight to the cross, and even a time to listen quietly and shed tears. It all depends on the needs of the one with whom we are speaking. Let us be Spirit-led and guided by love, not just committed to a good method.

When the young man responded to the Law by asserting his self-righteousness, our Lord looked at him, and He loved him. This fact is significant, because Jesus is about to ask a wealthy real estate tycoon to give up everything he has. What motivates this demand for complete surrender? Only love.

If this man chooses to leave all and follow Christ, he will be responding to divine love. If he walks away, he will be rejecting it. May this be the case when we share the Gospel with others. Let our hearers be confronted with God's truth as we speak to them, and enveloped in God's love as we look upon them.

IMPOSSIBLE - The Rich Young Ruler, Part 1

This series examines some of the ways Jesus used the Law to bring conviction of sin and prove the impossibility of human perfection. Ultimately, Jesus' intention is to have us see our need and trustingly surrender to His sovereign Lordship.

We have seen this principle in Jesus' interaction with Nicodemus; now let's take a look at how our Lord responded to a very religious young man. The story is found in three of the four Gospels, in Matthew 19, Mark 10, and Luke 18.


Below you can read the three accounts merged into one harmonized story, which will help us to notice some interesting details . . .

As He was setting out on a journey, a man who was a ruler ran up to Him, knelt before Him, and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do to inherit eternal life, that I may obtain eternal life?" And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments. Then he said to Him, "Which ones?" Jesus replied, "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 YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." The young man said to Him, "All these things I have kept from my youth up; what am I still lacking?" When Jesus heard this, looking at him, He felt a love for him and said to him,"One thing you still lack; If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions, all that you possess, and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." But when the young man heard this statement, he became very sad and he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property and he was extremely rich. And Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!" And Jesus, looking around, said to His disciples, "How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God! Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” 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! For 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." When the disciples heard this, they were even more astonished and said to Him, "Then who can be saved?" But looking at them, Jesus said to them, "With people this is impossible, but not with God; the things that are impossible with people are possible with God, for all things are possible with God."

As we move along, I'll be looking specifically at the phrases highlighted in light blue. Several months ago, we studied the beginning of this story in a 4-part series called "My Goodness, What a Paradox!"

Jesus begins by leading this man to the Law of Moses. This Law was the God-ordained path by which the Jewish people were to be led to Christ, as Paul explains here:

Galatians 3:19-25 Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions ... Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.


The Law was not meant to be a means of salvation, but a means of exposing sin and proving the need for Christ's righteousness. It is not meant to save a person from sin and guilt. Rather, it proves us guilty and sinful. Jesus applied the Law with this purpose in mind.



The list of commandments given by our Lord is notable in three ways. First, he adds a commandment not directly given in the Old Testament: Do not defraud. Is it possible that the rich ruler had gained his wealth through a scheme of some sort? Or perhaps his money came from a father who had perpetrated such a scheme. Could it be that Jesus added this command to give the man an opporunity to question it - and thereby realize that he was guilty of breaking the spirit of the Law in this way? We can only speculate, but we have to address the obvious question, why did Jesus include this particular command in His list? Secondly, Jesus adds "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," which is not properly part of the ten commandments. Could it be the young man had not treated others with love, though he had lived a strictly moral life, outwardly? That, after all, was the plague of Pharisaism: a hyper religiosity with strict outward morality and supposed love for God - and all of it entirely discredited by a lack of compassion and an indifference to the needs of others. Thirdly, Jesus does not mention the first 4 commandments, which focus on our relationship with God. He also does not mention the last commandment, "Do not covet" - the only one of the 10 commandments that deals solely with the inward man. He gave the most tangible, obvious, outward commands dealing with our treatment of other human beings.

Jesus was applying the Law in a targeted way, aiming right at this man's most obvious sins. But the intended effect of the Law was not happening, and the elite ruler remained self-righteously blind to his need for a Savior. The Lord was not finished with him yet, however . . .

Psalm 32:1 - A Blessing for Sinners

When God calls a sinner to Himself, the initial response is often terror. The knowledge of sin. The feeling of guilt. The sense of responsibility. The grave realization of depravity. No man can reach the safety of salvation until he has passed through the dread wasteland of spiritual poverty.
Should it be otherwise? We have willfully and willingly rebelled against God's Words. We have hated the One Who is love. We have defied the Sovereign One. We have loved and served and devoted ourselves to evil, and filth, and destruction, and everything that is less than God and therefore unworthy of our devotion. We have made evil out of good. We have lied to ourselves and to others. We have selfishly taken whatever we have desired. And on top of all this, we are proud of ourselves. I don't know about you, but for me this is just scratching the surface of the sins I know I have committed. No wonder we are terrified by the call of a holy, perfect and pure God.

God's law, which is "holy, righteous and good," reveals our guiltiness and condemns us to the judgment we truly deserve: to be separated from the presence and glory of the living God forever. We have good reason to be afraid of the voice of God.
But God does not call sinners to Himself in order to deal out the justice they deserve. He calls us with the distinct intention of blessing us. You may be thinking, "What? How can God bless a sinner?" God blesses sinners by forgiving them when they come to Him. This is the profound realization of amazing grace which led David to cry out with these words:

Psalm 32:1 "How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered!"

Every repenting sinner is moved by the realization of two great needs. The need to be forgiven, and the need to change. This was David's cry in Psalm 51, as he expressed the need for forgiveness here . . .

Psalm 51:1 Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions.

and the need for change here . . .

Psalm 51:2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity And cleanse me from my sin.

The Hebrew word used here suggests that David is literally asking God to stomp the sin out of him. It pictures the ancient method of laundering clothing by trampling the dirt out in a field of lye. And the word "thoroughly" is added to this already rugged concept. David is desperate to change, and he's not praying rosy little prayers about it. I'd like very much to see this verse on a devotional poster, with a picture of people in a third world country doing their laundry the old-fashioned way.
In Psalm 32, we deal primarily with the need to be forgiven. However, this experience of forgiveness is a necessary step toward change. One who has not been forgiven cannot possibly change in the ways prescribed by Biblical repentance.
As we work through the verses of this psalm, I pray that we may come to the understanding that it is ALWAYS right and best to name every shortcoming we find in ourselves exactly as God does: as SIN. And it is always right and best to take every sin directly to Him in confession and repentance, without delay or hesitation.
The sight of one's own sinfulness can be daunting. "Am I really this bad?" we ask ourselves. It's best to admit the truth. No, I am not this bad. I am much worse. By grace, most of my sin remains inside. I am not even conscious of most of it. But if my heart were fully revealed, every kind of sin would be found there.

Matthew 7:21-23 "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man."

When we call our faults by any name other than sin (or the other Biblical classifications like transgression, wickedness, evil, abomination, etc.), we separate them from the remedy offered in the cross. Jesus did not bear our "disorders" or "syndromes" or "slips" or "mistakes" or "things that aren't really my fault." He bore our sins. OUR sins. We chose them, we own them, we are responsible for them.
We have trained ourselves to blame others - our parents, society, friends, enemies, the devil, the dog, the door man. Anyone but ourselves. If we place the responsibility for our sins outside of ourselves, we won't apply the remedy where it is most need: in our hearts.
We tend to avoid facing our responsibility before God by busying ourselves with work, or play, or entertainment, or study, or reading, or sleeping, or talking. Anything but direct confrontation with ourselves and God. If we run and hide, as Adam and Eve did in the garden, we rob God of the opportunity to restore us; and we rob ourselves of the opportunity to grow in grace.

It doesn't have to be this way . . .
Look! There, for all to see, stands a blood-stained cross and an empty grave. Christ has tasted death and been raised to life. He has carried our sins away and covered them with His own blood! Dear friend, the cross means your sins are gone. Christ has bought us and reconciled us to God with NO WRATH REMAINING against us! He has called us friends, called us righteous, called us His very own! The just sentence of the Law has been fulfilled because He died in our place. All has been paid, and we now owe nothing for our sins. He has purchased our forgiveness, and we are affectionately loved by God, adopted into His family, accepted in Christ. We are placed next to the Son of God as the Father's beloved children.

Look again! Christ is seated in the center of heaven, and all who trustingly come to Him receive a forgiveness without bounds. He wants to bless us. He wants to reassure us. He wants to bring us out of the perilous swamp of sin and guilt. These are the blessings found by those who cast themselves - as sinners - at His feet.
In our text, sin is dealt with in two ways: it is forgiven and it is covered. The word "forgiven" means carried away, removed from sight and consideration. The word "covered" indicates that God hides our sin. It's the same word David uses in verse 5, where he says that by confessing he "did not hide" his sin from God. If we cover our sins, we remain unforgiven. But if we confess our sins to God, He covers them! God is much better at dealing with sin than we are, so we must trust Him. This is the message of the cross, and this is how God deals with sin when we bring it to Him.
Dear friend, do not run and hide from the God Whose desire is to bless you with grace, pardon, forgiveness and mercy. The shame that drives you away from Him will disappear when you look into His eyes. Those all-seeing eyes burn with a passionate will to show mercy to approaching sinners.