My entire life I have been taught this passage, and the way I have always heard it expounded is that when Jesus tells the rich young ruler to sell all he has and follow him, that this is what we must do to be saved. Not litterally sell all of our possessions but give up everything for Jesus Christ.

I have been listening to the archived editions of Sinners and Saints podcasts lately and they gave John MacArthur the Bonehead of the week award for presenting this passage this way. They said that Jesus was not telling the man what he must do to be justified, rather he was telling the rich young ruler what he must do to fulfill the law, in order to earn his own salvation.

Both expositions of this passage to seem to make some sense to me, and I am curious as to what the reformed position has typically been in understanding this passage? Is Jesus expounding on the Law in order to convict this man, or presenting him with the Repent and Believe that is necessary to enter into the new Covenant??

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Bryan Riddle
1689 London Baptist Confession
Bethel Baptist Church Owasso, Oklahoma

As we've read in other parts of Scripture, Jesus knew this man's heart. He reiterated the commandments of man's responsibility to fellow man, but the ruler's stumbling block was his unwillingness to put God first thereby breaking the first commandment. So I would say Jesus was showing the man that he was unable to truly keep all the commandments.

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Michael Masztal
H.S. Science Teacher at Community Christian School, Melbourne, FL
Member, Chapel By The Sea, ARP
Melbourne Beach, FL

Perhaps one thing the Lord is doing here is pointing out this man's lack of keeping the first commandment by idolizing possessions. Last time I read through this, one thing that stuck out to me was that Jesus quotes the commandments that have to do with our duty towards other men, and doesn't quote any of the first four commandments.

I wonder if Jesus is trying to point out that while this young man may have been "moral" towards others, he has not loved God.

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Taylor Otwell
Member -- Oak Cliff Baptist Church
Fort Smith, Arkansas, USA

Did we ever hear any cry out on their deathbed that they have been too holy, that they have prayed too much, or walked with God too much? – Thomas Watson, The Godly Man’s Picture

The passage is interesting in light of the Sermon on the Mount where Christ demonstrates the impossibility of keeping the Law in comparison to the Law that had been fenced by the traditions of the Rabbis. A person with a Biblical theology would realize that the rich young ruler is incredibly deluded to think he's kept all of those commandments since his youth. He hasn't kept one of them. Christ could have pointed that out and there is a bit of irony to the idea that Christ tells him "One thing you lack...."

I agree with Taylor that he hits him in his love of his possessions above all things. This is sort of evidenced by the fact that he speaks about how difficult it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God.

BTW, I don't know how a "bonehead" could miss the fact that Christ was not telling the man how he could earn his salvation by keeping the Law when, if that was His intent, He would have confronted him with his failure on the few commandments He had challenged the ruler with.

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Rich
Northern VA
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The historically reformed approach to the passage (Boston for example), was that Jesus specifically answered the man's question, "what must I DO to inherit eternal life?" Jesus then referred him back to the covenant of works to show him not only that perfect obedience was required to inherit eternal life on his own, but also that the man had failed to do so because he violated at least the first commandment in idolizing his wealth. Jesus referred him back to the law to teach him his need for a Savior not a "good teacher."

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Patrick
OPC
MDiv, RTS Jackson.

"He does well, that discourses of Christ; but he does infinitely better, that by experimental knowledge, feeds and lives on Christ." Thomas Brooks.

I also tend to think that there might be something else going on here. Since the Law was to "point to Christ the Messiah", and since Christ was the "end of the Law for righteousness", I think Jesus could be telling him that what he was lacking was the leaving of the law for Christ.

The rich, young ruler was content with abiding in the Law for his righteousness, and was missing the Law's entire purpose. He was truly lacking the righteousness that the law pointed to, and was rather trusting in his own. So, when Christ told him to "sell all of his possessions and follow him, and he shall have treasure in heaven", he was saying at least three things: first, that Christ was the culmination or apex or end of the law for righteousness, for He was to be followed from then on; second, that he actually needed to abandon the law as his righteousness and begin following Christ, for he was told that he still lacked something by following the law, and third, that Christ was worth abandoning everything and every possession he had in order to obtain Him, and that He must be valued as such and sought after at as the pearl of great price over and above his riches.

The guy didn't see the law pointing to any Messiah for whom to trust in for righteousness. He didn't desire to abandon the law for an external righteousness, by which to obtain eternal life. And, he didn't value Christ as worth giving away his possessions for. He would rather have his riches and his false righteousness rather than the external righteousness of Christ. When he was told that eternal life was only found in following Christ, he didn't believe it to be worth him trading his every possession for it.

Even if he would have sold his possessions and had given the money to the poor and followed Christ around Galilee and Judea, that still would not have merited eternal life for him, and that would not have fulfilled what Jesus meant by "follow me". The command to "follow him" meant much more, for it meant to abandon the law and what he was hoping in for his righteousness, and forsaking it all, and resting entirely on that "alien righteousness" that is found in Christ. So, Christ went on to say that it is "hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God", for they tend to be the ones with the most distorted vision of what is valuable. They value possessions over Christ.

That's what I think for now.

Blessings!

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Charles Plauger
Member/Grace Reformed Church
Oakland, MD

I think the understanding of the passage that Puritan Sailor represents is the way that the Sinners and Saints said it should be understood, in fact it does a better job of representing their teaching then I did having listened to it. They were teaching that Jesus was not teaching him the gospel by saying what he tells him, but that Jesus was showing the man where he failed to uphold the Law.

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Bryan Riddle
1689 London Baptist Confession
Bethel Baptist Church Owasso, Oklahoma

For one of the best treatments of the incident, get yourself the short book: Today's Gospel: Authentic or Synthetic? by Walt Chantry (Banner of Truth). He covers the whole of it in 5-7 chapters (which were probably sermon-outlines to begin with).

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Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


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