The poor old slave.

Luke 18:18
A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

A certain man came to Jesus with a simple question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”. It’s a question I’m sure that we’ve all asked at some point in our lives, and hopefully have come to the realization that confessing Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior is the correct answer. That’s not the answer this man was looking for, however.

It seems that this passage is often misinterpreted and used as an excuse to get people to give up their money. Because Jesus told the man that he must sell everything and give it to the poor, we think that He was laying the foundation for capital campaigns and sacrificial giving sermon lessons, but that’s simply not the truth. Jesus knew far more about this man’s life than we’ll ever be able to understand, but He gave us clues in this story as to the heart of this man.

Being brought up under the Law, this man was a slave to religion. He was raised to believe that by rigidly following the Commandments he would be granted passage into eternity. So when he came to Jesus with his question, he was already under the assumption that he was good enough for God. Jesus used his arrogance to show the man that he had not followed all of the Commandments; he was guilty of breaking the Law.

Jesus then goes on to tell the man that he must keep the commandments, but He specifically leaves out the first few. Jesus lists them out for him: don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t dishonor your parents, don’t murder. (Matthew also adds love your neighbor as yourself.) The man quickly responds to Jesus by saying he’s kept all of those commandments since he was a boy. Then Jesus lays it on him. “Sell everything you have and give to the poor.....” (Luke 18:22) When the man heard this he went away sad.

Why did he go away sad? Jesus pointed out that he had not kept all of the commandments. He showed the man that he had made wealth his god, and broken the first commandment. He showed him that his possessions had become an image of his god and that he’d broken the second commandment. He had even shown him that he used the Lord’s name in vain, calling Him (Jesus) “Good teacher”, breaking the third commandment. Jesus had already confronted the man with that, but his eyes were not opened to the teaching. (Luke 18:19)

You see, the moral of this story is that no matter how good we are, or think that we are, we’re still not keepers of the law. Jesus is the only keeper of the law, because He is the fulfillment and author of the law. We are law breakers! This man went away sad, not because Jesus said that he needed to become poor, but because he looked at the face of grace and asked for the law!