1 The Way To Life
You know the commandments,” said Jesus (Mark 10:19). He was talking to a young man (Matthew 19:20) who was wealthy (v. 22) and a ruler (Luke 18:18), evidently a young hopeful among Jewish politicians who had quickly, as we say, got ahead. He was glib, impulsive, pushy, and superficial, with, it seems, a habit of dramatizing himself in public. We might easily dismiss him as a bumptious show-off. Yet according to his lights he was serious and sincere, at least in intention, and Jesus, heart-reader extraordinaire, felt real affection for him (Mark 10:21).
This young man had run up to Jesus, probably elbowing his way through a crowd, dropped to his knees before him, addressed him formally and honorifically as “Good Teacher” (Mark 10:17) and asked him, “What good deed must I do to have eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16). The form of the question showed that he saw himself as a special person, different from the rank and file and entitled therefore to a special personal agenda. Jesus, evidently thinking that his interrogator’s youthful mouth was outrunning his youthful mind, countered at once with two questions of his own, both designed to make the speaker think about what he had just said. “Why do you call me good? Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good—God” (Matthew 19:17; Mark 10:18). As if to say, “Surely you don’t think I’m God—or do you? (You should, for I am.) And surely you don’t think you can ever do anything that is good without qualification—or do you? (You shouldn’t, for you can’t—no one can—that’s why you can only live by being constantly forgiven).” Having fired these two piercing verbal arrows, he turned to the young man’s inquiry.
“You know the commandments,” Jesus began (Mark 10:19), as one stating a fact, and as if to say, here is where everything starts.
“Which ones?” the young man asked (Matthew 19:18). Maybe conceit led him to think this was a sharp question, but actually it was a naive and needless one, for every Jewish boy was taught in the synagogue school to memorize the Ten Commandments—that is, the Decalogue—which God had inscribed on stone tablets for Israel at Sinai. Jesus took the question in stride, citing commandments five to nine—no murder, no adultery, no theft, no lies, no disrespect to parents—along with what elsewhere he called the second great commandment, active neighbor-love (Mark 10:19; Matthew 19:18–19). Then he paused, waiting to see what the young man’s response would be.
And here I pause to ask my readers: do you know the Ten Commandments? My guess is that if you are over forty you do, but if you are under forty you don’t. About half a century ago churches generally ceased teaching the Commandments, either from the pulpit or in Sunday school or anywhere else. I do not mean that none of the moral and spiritual principles of the Decalogue were taught in any way at all (though it is beyond dispute that churches that have remained strong on the gospel have been comparatively week on ethics). I mean only that as a unified code of conduct and a grid for behavior the Decalogue dropped out. So I ask: could you repeat the Ten Commandments from memory? Were you ever made to memorize them, as long ago I was, and as the rich young ruler had been? I hope this little book will help you get up to speed at this point. But back now to the rich young ruler.
“All these I have kept from my youth,” said he (Mark 10:20)—and clearly he thought he had. But, like so many, he was living on the surface and was largely out of touch with what was going on inside him. He had not yet become aware that God’s law condemns not only lawless acts but also lawless desires and dreams and fantasies of law-breaking. Nor had he realized that real neighbor-love will not depend on whether one likes one’s neighbor or not, and grows out of humility and gratitude Godward, and must enlist the imagination and become purposeful and passionate up to the limits of what one is capable of. Anything less falls short of keeping the Commandments as God’s servants are all called to do. Jesus himself is in fact the embodiment of the Ten Commandments, and living below the standard of service that his life sets is, quite simply, falling short in neighbor-love. But the ruler had not yet grasped all this, and his claim to have kept all the commandments that Jesus mentioned reveals his ignorance both of real law-keeping and of his own real, wayward self. Here are truths that bear on our lives, no less than they did on that of Jesus’ questioner.
“What do I still lack?” asked the ruler (Matthew 19:20). Jesus gave him a double-barreled answer. He must dispose of his wealth that was the idol currently holding his heart captive (“sell what you possess and give to the poor,” v. 21), and he must follow Jesus in the most literal sense, not just learning to live by his teaching but actually joining the little band of disciples (followers!) who walked with him in his itinerant ministry, owning nothing and depending on others’ generosity for each day’s food and each night’s shelter (“come, follow me,” v. 21).
This would mean for the young plutocrat a totally new way of life externally, and by cleaving to Jesus he would experience change inwardly as well, for he would find his heart reoriented in love and loyalty to Jesus and the Father, and then among other things to the Ten Commandments them-selves, now viewed as a gratitude program, a prescription for honoring, pleasing, and glorifying God, a highway to the holy joy of obedience. Thus the reality of repentance, faith, and regeneration (new birth) would be played out in his ex-rich, post-political new life.
Sadly, this did not happen. “When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions” (Matthew 19:22). He could not contemplate so radical a change; so he ended up forfeiting the eternal life that he had thought he was seeking.
Living the Ten Commandments is the theme of this book, and the truth we must learn from the story of the rich young ruler is that only through life-wide repenting for one’s self-serving lifestyle to date and through humbly receiving and trusting Jesus Christ as one’s living Lord and Savior and through heart-changing regeneration by the Holy Spirit will Commandment-keeping ever pass beyond formal outward role-play to become the substantial concern of one’s inward life, stemming from a truly God-fearing, God-honoring heart. We need to be very clear on this before we begin exploring the values, visions, and virtues that living the Commandments involves. The only way into such a life is the way of faith and repentance, according to the New Testament gospel. Let us never forget that.
FURTHER BIBLE STUDY
A comparative study:
• Compare the three parallel accounts of the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-30; Mark 10:17-31; Luke 18:18-30), and note Jesus' comments on wealth and salvation.
QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
• Do you think Christ calls all rich persons to abandon their wealth as a condition of discipleship? If not, what should their attitude toward their wealth be?
• Do you think that people today deceive themselves as to whether they are keeping Gods Commandments or not?
• What does following Jesus require of us today? Should more stress be placed on keeping the Commandments or not?
You shall love the LORD your God
with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your might.
DEUTERONOMY 6 : 5