Luke 18:19

THE YOUNG RULER

‘Why callest thou me good? none is good, save One, that is, God.’

Luke 18:19

It was near the end of our Lord’s ministry, and the clouds were darkening down. To join or to confess Him would cost something, and this ruler hesitated until his opportunity was almost gone, until Christ was in the act of leaving the district, which was the tract beyond the Jordan, for the last time. But he could not let Him actually go; at the last moment he came running and kneeling to Him. For in his bosom a great desire was burning. He has not attained, too well he knows, the inward balance, the peace and self-control, the life that is life indeed—eternal life.

I. He Who possessed the secret.—And here (more and more he felt it as he watched), here was One Who possessed the secret. He could pity and help all men, because He was Himself above all pity. Poor? Yes, and persecuted; but dwelling in the light of God, Who was with Him. One, therefore, however His life might be vexed and thwarted, Whose spirit remained serene, calm, benignant. Ah, yes, and all through His life there were souls who recognised and did homage, and hearts that loved Him well. Such men, asked would they also go away, answered frankly that they could not do without Him: the farm and the fishing-boat could never again replace that most human, most Divine communion. ‘Lord, to whom should we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.’ Why, these are the very words the ruler craves; and he has reached the point of discerning that Christ can speak them. But yet his notion of what he needs is pitiably, miserably unworthy. A little information is all he asks from Christ, Who is only a ‘good Teacher’; some one good deed, of which he feels himself capable, will suffice to float him, like a ship that crosses the bar from a wild ocean into inland seas, into smooth waters for the remaining voyage.

II. A man requires renewal, not instruction.—But it was the doctrine of Jesus (and it was spoken first to one who resembled this ruler in confessing Him to be good, but only on the level of a teacher, ‘a teacher sent from God’) that man requires, not instruction, but renewal—to be born again—because what is born of the flesh is flesh, and therefore, as St. Paul discovered with agony, will ‘fulfil the desires of the flesh.’ Perhaps one objects that Jesus elsewhere invites good works, and lavishes great rewards upon them. ‘There is no man who has left houses or lands, or anything dear to him, for My sake and the Gospel’s, but shall receive a hundredfold more in this life, and in the world to come life everlasting.’ Now this is exactly what the ruler asks—to inherit everlasting life. Yes; but this is also the explanation of his failure. Eternal life is not promised to those who make sacrifices, however great, for the sake of eternal life. From a vital and unselfish principle, for love, for My sake and the Gospel, comes the work that is rewarded. The prize does not purchase what it encourages and crowns. But his proposal is to work for himself, that he may inherit eternal life. What good thing could be done thus? Alas! none. Life is not to be had on such terms.

III. The true parallel.—The true parallel for the question, ‘Why callest thou Me good? None is good but one, God,’ and the true commentary also, is such a verse as this, ‘The Son can do nothing of Himself,’ ‘The living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father.’ He could not accept any confession, any praise, which implied the existence of a second and independent source of goodness in the universe. Therefore, when the ruler brings to Him the shallow profession, ‘Thou, Teacher, art good, and I, with a little guidance, am about to become good, and to attain to the supreme inheritance also,’ the position is disavowed at once, and disavowed for both of them. Matthew is quite right as to the spirit and meaning, though in words he differs greatly from the other two: ‘Wherefore dost thou question Me about the good? The good is one, God.’ But Jesus proceeds to convict him by a challenge, and the nature of this challenge could have been foretold by any one who remembers the functions of the law. By the law is the knowledge of sin. The law entered that sin might abound. To the law, therefore, is the appeal, ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the Commandments.’ The path of duty for him was the lowly path of all men—‘The trivial round, the common task.’ But the challenge of the law, superficially restricted, is unfathomably deep and high, and he who sets himself to fulfil the law promptly discovers his need of grace. His claim of obedience is uttered in the same breath with the cry of his discontent, the exceeding bitter cry of a tortured spirit, always eluded by the righteousness which he thought to be all but grasped. ‘All these things have I kept from my youth up; what lack I yet?’ It was then that Jesus, looking on his earnest face, reading his agitated spirit, loved him. All the more He would deal faithfully with him. Devotion, He practically answers, devotion to God and man—that is what he lacks. Will he follow Him? Will he give his riches to the poor? Then and there the unhappy man felt that it was so. He could not surrender all; he could not follow the Man of Sorrows. He went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. I think that he was thenceforward a haunted man; that his self-satisfaction was spoiled for ever; that his couch of silk could not make his sleep sweet to him; that the alms which he offered, as every conscientious Jew did, could but remind him of the larger demand he had repudiated.

IV. The ghost of dead ideals.—There is no ghost at midnight, when desolate winds are wailing, so persistently haunting and so terrible as the ghost of one’s dead ideals, the possibilities now become impossible, one’s self as one might have been, but never again can be. Yet it may be that in this dejected solitude he discerned the meaning of this great word of Christ—discerned it all the more because the broken cistern of his own righteousness had so soon gone dry, that he said within himself, ‘Yes; this indeed is what I lack; the disquiet within me is thirst for God, for the living God.’

—Bishop G. A. Chadwick.

Illustration

‘What must the ruler have understood by the reply of Christ? And what are we to understand by it? Can we wonder when the Socinian claims it as almost an explicit adoption of his position? When Christ says “only God is good,” as a reason for demanding “Why callest thou Me good?” does He not almost formally disavow for Himself that place in the Godhead to which the Church exalts Him? But if this were so, it would utterly differentiate the story from anything else in all the gospels. Elsewhere there is no form of homage offered to Him by any one which He refuses. In the act of teaching others to reject the name of Master and of Lord, He claims those titles as His own. If ten lepers are cleansed, and one returns to glorify God where Jesus is, while nine go to the Temple, whither He had sent them, all His praise is for the tenth. If the Socinian has found the real meaning of this passage, there is no reason on the strength of which any school rejects anything as an interpolation half as strong as the reason why we should reject this. But when we look at it again, we discern this verse does not refute His Deity, unless we suppose it refutes His goodness also. But it is only the most reckless unbelief which doubts for one moment that our Lord was filled with a quite unique consciousness of unsullied and snow-white innocence. It is a small thing that in this consciousness He confronted men: “Which of you convicteth Me of sin?” “The prince of this world hath nothing in Me.” It is a great thing that in this consciousness He confronted God in prayer. “I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished (perfected) the work which Thou gavest Me to do.” ’