What Must
We Do to Inherit Eternal Life?
[Luke
chapter 18, verses 15-30]
To view
this in any browser, click
here! :-)
Last
week when we left off at verse 14, we had just gone over the story of
the proud Pharisee and the remorseful tax collector. As you recall,
Jesus had just made a sharp contrast between the arrogance of the
Pharisee and the humility of the tax collector. “He who exalts
himself will be humbled”, Jesus remarked at the time, “but he/she
who humbles themselves will be exalted.” This week as we take up
where we left off, we find ourselves at the same time and place while
the apostle Luke narrates his ongoing observations of the activities
and performance of Jesus' ministry. So let's all begin at verse 15,
shall we?
“People
were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the
disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children
to him and said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not
hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell
you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a
little child will never enter into it.'” (Luke 18, verses 15-17)
Evidently
the apostles thought there was insufficient time for Jesus to be
doting on and playing with little children. I would say the rebuke
Jesus gave to his apostles was much sharper than the rebuke they had
just given to the parents of that bunch of kids who were gathering
around Jesus. That's because the exact wording of his rebuke is not
disclosed. It was probably on the order of a sergeant barking out
orders to his platoon. “Do
not hinder them”,
he said, “for
the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
Unless we experience our faith like the wide-eyed wonderment of a
child – as if it were Christmas morning and Jesus came to visit –
we will never see the kingdom of God. While this truism gives us the
route to the heart of Christ, it does not give us license for
immature behavior. So, it's safe to say Jesus wants us to have the
innocence of little kids while remaining cognizant of our discernment
as adults, all at once. It was a similar train of thought that caused
our Lord and Savior to say in the very next sentence, “...anyone
who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will
never enter into it.”
However, note the flip side of this coin, which is that heaven will
be devoid of the immature as well as the cynical. Let's move on now
to part 2 of today's lesson.
“A
certain ruler asked him, 'Good teacher, what must I do to enter
eternal life?' 'Why do you call me 'good'', Jesus answered. 'No one
is good – except for God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not
commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false
testimony, honor your father and mother.' 'All these I have kept
since I was a boy', he said. When Jesus heard this he said to him,
'You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the
poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.'
When he heard this, he became very sad, for he was a man of great
wealth. Jesus looked at him and said, 'How hard it is for the rich to
enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, 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.'” (Luke 18, verses 18-25)
“No
one is good”, Jesus
said to the wealthy ruler,
“except for God alone”.
Why did Jesus not call himself good even though he was the Son of
God? Because at that point in time our Lord and Savior had not yet
risen from the dead, gaining for himself and all who follow him
eternal life together with the Father who is the Lord God Almighty!
Since he had not yet been sanctified, Jesus had not yet been purified
through his resurrection on the morning of the third day. Moreover,
he was the only one who knew this at the time. But when Jesus was
asked about the way to immortality, he responds by telling the man he
must obey God's commandments. “I have done all this since my
youth”, the gentleman responded to Jesus. The man who inquired of
the Lord was evidently a devout Jew. Jesus was not at all critical of
the wealthy ruler's answer to his question, so he must have spoken
truthfully to Jesus.
Jesus'
answer evidently surprised everyone due to their preconceived notions
about the nature of God. “You
still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Notice how the wealthy ruler was living his life on the right track
in so many ways, and yet still came up short in the eyes of Christ!
Our good deeds, in and of themselves, will never get us into what we
call 'heaven', nor can we attain eternal life by getting there on our
own efforts. Remember it was God the Father who raised his Son from
the dead. Jesus didn't raise himself since he was part God and part
man – like a hybrid car. They don't start until somebody starts the
engine or electric motor. Jesus couldn't be raised from the dead
until God did so, and not before the appointed time in Scriptural
prophecy.
“Sell
everything you have and give to the poor”.
Our worldly goods are utterly worthless in God's sight, and
materialistic people are shallow-minded individuals who disregard the
spiritual side of themselves. Those who are enamored with the pursuit
of wealth trade their spiritual worth for material worth, and that's
an unfavorable trade any way we look at it. Instead, let's all learn
to trade our worldly goods for heavenly ones, and to cease from
living for ourselves so we can devote our time to living for Jesus
Christ by emulating the good he showed us how to do! “Then
come, follow me.”
That means unconditionally, with nothing held back! We must never
allow any distractions from Satan (and that's where most distractions
come from) to interfere with our walk with Christ. Otherwise, how can
we ever truly follow him? And how could we effectively serve others
in the process?
“When
he heard this, he became very sad, for he was a man of great wealth.
Jesus looked at him and said, 'How hard it is for the rich to enter
the kingdom of God!'”
As Jesus said in the gospel of Matthew, “You
cannot serve both God and materialism.”
(Matt 6: 24) Let us ask ourselves this question – could any of us
sincerely and truthfully follow these instructions of Christ?
Although I do not currently own any property, many of my readers are
homeowners, and at least a few own businesses. Jesus is telling all
of us to sell our houses, cars, jewelry, and to liquidate all our
investments. Once that is accomplished, we are to give all the money
to the poor, to the sick (including the mentally ill and those in
addiction recovery), the disabled, orphans, widows, the homeless and
other vulnerable individuals with no questions asked nor any
qualifications demanded. Could you do that? What about those raising
families? Does Jesus want folks with families to sell their houses
and give away the proceeds, rendering the wives and children, or the
single parents, both homeless and penniless? Of course not! Jesus
would never make such an unreasonable demand from us because, as the
Son of God, he is the very personification of reason, logic and
balance. On the other hand, there are many people out there who could
easily afford to obey such a commandment and yet they refuse to. The
very idea of having to share any of their “hard-earned wealth”
literally drives them crazy! Having said that, let's close out this
week's Biblical teaching beginning from verse 26.
“Those
who heard this asked, 'Who then can be saved?' Jesus replied, 'What
is impossible with men is possible with God.' Peter said to him, 'We
have left all we had to follow you!' 'I tell you the truth', Jesus
said to them, 'no one who has left home or wife or brothers or
parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to
receive many times as much in this age, and the age to come, eternal
life.'” (Luke 18, verses 26-30)
The
question being asked in verse 26 was a follow-up to Jesus' statement,
and I paraphrase, “It's easier to get a camel through the eye of a
needle than for the wealthy to have an eternity with God.” The
unidentified person asking this question was voicing a similar
objection to what I wrote further above. Jesus doesn't make
unreasonable demands because as the Son of God he cannot. All the
same, what seems unattainable to us is effortless for God. But
there's something we've overlooked, and I would be remiss to not
mention this, and that's the part about selling all we have, giving
it all away, and then following Jesus for the rest of our lives. In
today's world of ever-rising prices in the face of stagnant or
falling earnings, shady politicians who play with people's lives for
sport, rampant hatred and random violence, the very idea of opening
up our homes, hearts and wallets to complete strangers sounds
laughably naive at best and suicidal at worst! Do either of those
adjectives describe our Lord and Savior? Absolutely not!! Was Jesus
merely rambling or even babbling when he said these things? Same
response as before.
Let's
be realistic here – no one wants to make themselves this vulnerable
unless it's someone they know, and sometimes not even then. OK then,
does this teaching still apply here in the early 21st
century? If we sell our vehicles and give the money to the poor, how
are we supposed to get to work? If we sell our houses and donate the
net proceeds from the sale, where are we supposed to live? The answer
is something many people can't wrap their brains around, which is
that if everybody followed this teaching of Christ, all those
questions about who gets what (and how much) would be immaterial and
beside the point! There would be more than enough for everyone, and
with room to spare! I can define the reason why we can't follow this
teaching of Christ's in one simple word: Inequality! We have 99% of
the world's wealth in the hands of 1% of the population. This
problem, contrary to popular belief, is global. It's not limited to
North America, or more accurately the US since Canada already offers
her citizens nearly free lifetime medical care while heavily
subsidizing higher education. Now you know why Jesus statement about
rich people not being able to enter heaven was also a prophetic one.
The world is more prosperous today than any other civilization in
history. Jesus, you can now see, was talking about us – Americans!
Now there's something you can spend the rest of the week thinking
about. And next week we'll finish up chapter 18 of the Gospel of
Luke.
No comments:
Post a Comment