Fifth, Matthew 19[:21]: “If you would be perfect, go and sell everything.”
Fifth, Matthew 19[:21]: “If you would be perfect, go and sell everything.”
§ 97. (V) He finds his fifth testimony in the same chapter, where Christ says to the young man: “If you would be perfect, go, sell everything that you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven” (Matt. 19:21). Bellarmine explains this as follows: “If you are not content with the eternal life to which you can aspire through keeping the Commandments, but desire a more excellent degree in eternal life: go, sell everything.”
We respond. As concerns evangelical poverty and also the rejection of possessions without a vocation and outside the case of necessity, Dr. Chemnitz treats them in detail (Loci, part 2, ch. De paupertate). He fully instructs the reader regarding this entire subject.
At this point we respond that the young man had been attending the school of the Pharisees and had been fascinated with this idea that he could fulfill God’s Law with an external obedience. That is why he boasts that from his youth he had observed all of God’s Commandments [Matt. 19:20]. But since he was still a youth and was erring not out of arrogance but out of ignorance, Christ deals with him lovingly and gently. In an indirect way He does His best to lead him to the true knowledge of his error and to the way of salvation. This is the strategy of teaching which Christ used quite often among those who were swollen with error because of a belief in their own righteousness (Luke 10:29; Mark 12:34). Therefore in order that the young man might see by the light of experience and acknowledge what a perfect fulfillment of the Law he was arrogating to himself, He sets before him the mark by which to test and prove how far he is from the fulfillment of God’s Commandments, about which he had boasted. In fact, Christ’s response is tentative and hypothetically accommodated to the person who asked the question. “If what you boast of is true, that you have kept God’s Law from your youth: go, sell all that you have, and give it to the poor. The sum of the Law consists in love for God and for your neighbor. But now, the love of God is to do His Commandments with a prompt and ready heart. So that, therefore, you may test yourself as to whether you love God with all your heart, behold, I am the Son of God, and I impose upon you a special command: that for God’s sake you give up all your possessions and give them to the poor. Follow the example of My disciples and enter My school. Learn by this mark whether or not you truly love God and your neighbor.”
** “Come, follow Me,” that is, “Become My disciple, and then as a result you will announce the kingdom of God just as My disciples have left everything, have followed Me, and have announced to others the kingdom of heaven.” This is similar to what happened in Luke 9:48 concerning someone who was called specially to follow Him and announce the kingdom of God. This explanation is confirmed by the fact that Peter adds: “Behold, we have followed You” [Matt. 19:27]. **
Irenaeus (bk. 4, toward the end of ch. 26): “Perhaps he had not done that, for certainly ‘Keep My Commandments’ would not be spoken to him [had he done so], for the Lord rebukes his greed and tells him: ‘If you would be perfect: go, sell,’ etc.”
Origen (from the Evangelium secundum Hebraeos) explains this passage thus: “When the young man had heard Christ’s statement and was scratching his head, Christ said: ‘How have you kept the Law and the prophets, because it is written in the Law: You shall love your neighbor as yourself? Yet many of Abraham’s children are covered with filth and are starving to death while your house is filled with many good things, and not a bit of that is going out to them.’ ” Origen adds that the meaning is this: “If you sell everything, it will be clear that you are keeping the commandment of love.”
Hilary (commentary on this passage): “Christ sends this man, who is proud because of the Law and concerned about salvation, back to the Law so that in the very thing of which he was boasting he may learn that he has done no upright work. The Lord responds to him in the words of the Law. But the young man, just as the people, is proud and boastful and trusts in the Law; yet he obeys it in nothing.”
Augustine (Conf., bk. 13, ch. 19): “The young man says, ‘I have done all these things’ [Matt. 19:20]. Then from where do such great thorns grow if the land is so productive? Go, uproot the thick hedges of greed. Sell what you own, and fill yourself with produce by giving to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, etc. But how sad is the barren ground! But how the thorns choke out the Word!”
Jerome (commentary on Matthew 19) and, from him, Thomas ([ST,] 2.2., q. 189, art. 1): “The young man is lying, for if he with his work had fulfilled what is set down in the commandments: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself ’—how is it that he went away sadly after he heard: ‘Go and sell what you have’?”
Ambrose (commentary on Luke 8): “The young man was boasting in the Law to the effect that he had observed everything in it from his youth. In order to expose his empty boasting, Christ shows that he still lacks what the substance of the Law is and leads him, now sad, to the commandment of mercy so that he may have a form of the natural meaning [of the Law] within himself.”
Therefore if the words of Christ “Go and sell everything” were to prescribe a counsel of perfection, it would follow: (1) That Christ would have approved the boasting of this young man. Yet this boasting was very false not only on the basis of Scripture’s statement which teaches that we cannot perfectly fulfill the Law of God in this life but also on the basis of the very opinion of the Papists, who indeed admit that the Law cannot be fulfilled without faith and knowledge of Christ. Yet this young man lacked the knowledge of Christ.
(2) That the young man would not have sinned by not obeying this commandment, for Bellarmine himself (De monach., bk. 2, ch. 7) describes this counsel as follows: “A counsel of perfection is a good work which has not been ordered by Christ but shown; not commanded, but commended.” And a little later: “A commandment obligates by its own power; a counsel is set in man’s choice.” But this young man had sinned very seriously by not obeying Christ’s words, as is clear from the fact that, after he left, Christ said, “How difficult it will be for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven!” [Matt. 19:23]. Whoever loves his riches more than Christ sins very seriously. When this young man refused to follow Christ, he loved his wealth more than Christ Himself. Therefore he sinned very seriously.
(3) That selling everything and giving it to the poor would be above charity. The apostle teaches the contrary (1 Cor. 13:3): “If I give away to the poor all that I have and have not charity, I am nothing.”
Bellarmine opposes our explanation: (a) “The Lord looked on this young man and loved him [Mark 10:21]. But Christ does not love liars. Therefore he indeed fulfilled all the Commandments.”
We respond. The fathers explicitly testify that this young man boasted falsely about fulfilling the divine Commandments. Bellarmine is rash in departing from them here, for he is compelled to admit that one cannot fulfill the Law without faith and the knowledge of Christ. A fallacy of cause2 stands in his argument. Christ loved this young man not because he approved of his boasting but because he was erring out of ignorance rather than out of malice, and because he was concerned about the way to eternal life.
(b) [Bellarmine argues:] “Just as keeping the Commandments is the means to eternal life for everyone, so also selling everything is a means to perfection for all people.”
We respond. God’s Law includes the rule of perfect righteousness (Deut. 4:2; 12:32; Prov. 30:6); but not even the reborn themselves render a perfect obedience to it. Nor do they aspire to that perfection which consists of the full keeping of the Commandments. How much less will they be able to attain a perfection greater than that which is necessary for salvation (as Bellarmine says)! More on this subject in its own place [On Good Works (Commonplace XX), §§ 62–81; On the Law of God (Commonplace XV), §§ 181–202].
(c) [Bellarmine argues:] “When Peter saw the young man go away in sadness, he said: ‘Behold, we have left everything and followed You. What will happen to us?’ [Matt. 19:27]. Christ responds to this question: ‘In the regeneration you who have followed Me will sit,’ etc. [v. 28]. Therefore the commandment concerning the abdication of possessions is not a special one.”
We respond. In Mark 10:29 it is clearly added: “for the sake of the Gospel”; and in Matt. 19:29: “for My name’s sake.” Therefore Christ approves of the desertion of possessions when possessions are taken away because of the confession of the Gospel in a time of persecution, or when the apostles gave up everything for the sake of the ministry of going about all the world and preaching the Gospel. In the same place the giving up of wife, children, parents, etc., is added to the giving up of possessions. And yet if the forsaking of wife, children, and parents occurs without a vocation, it must not be approved. But it is certain that Peter and the apostles had this special vocation, not to mention the fact that a promise of this life has also been given to the forsaking about which Christ is speaking, that he will receive a hundredfold in this life. Therefore the rash giving up of all things in perpetuity cannot be meant.