Luke 18:18-23

1 st. Luke 18:18-23. The Rich Young Man.

Luke gives this man the title ἄρχων, chief, which probably signifies here, president of the synagogue. Matthew and Mark simply say εἷς. Later, Matthew calls him a young man (Luke 18:20). His arrival is given with dramatic effect by Mark: He came running, and kneeled down before Him.

He sincerely desired salvation, and he imagined that some generous action, some great sacrifice, would secure this highest good; and this hope supposes that man has power of himself to do good; that therefore he is radically good. This is what is implied in his apostrophe to Jesus: Good Master; for it is the man in Him whom he thus salutes, knowing Him as yet in no other character. Jesus, by refusing this title in the false sense in which it is given Him, does not accuse Himself of sin, as has been alleged. If He had had a conscience burdened with some trespass, He would have avowed it explicitly. But Jesus reminds him that all goodness in man, as in every creature whatsoever, must flow from God. This axiom is the very foundation of Monotheism. Thereby He strikes directly at the young man's fundamental error. So far as Jesus is concerned, the question of His personal goodness depends solely on the consideration whether His inward dependence on that God, the only Good, is complete or partial. If it is complete, Jesus is good, but with a goodness which is that of God Himself operating in Him. His answer does not touch this personal side of the question. In Matthew, at least according to the Alex. reading, which is probably the true one, the word good is omitted in the young man's address, and the answer of Jesus is conceived in these terms: “ Why askest thou me about what is good? One only is good. ” Which may signify: “Good is being joined to God, the only Good;” or: “Good is fulfilling the commandments of God, the only good Being.” These two explanations are both unnatural. Even Bleek does not hesitate here to prefer the form of Luke and Mark. That of Matthew is perhaps a modification arising from the fear of inferences hostile to the purity of Jesus, which might be drawn from the form of His answer, as it has been transmitted to us by the two other Syn.

Jesus has just rectified the young man's radical mistake. Now He replies to his question. The work to be done is to love. Jesus quotes the second table, as bearing on works of a more external and palpable kind, and consequently more like one of those which the young man expected to be mentioned. This answer of Jesus is earnest; for to love is to live! (See at Luke 10:28.) The only question is how we can attain to it. But Jesus proceeds like a wise instructor. Far from arresting on their way those who believe in their own strength, He encourages them to prosecute it faithfully to the very end, knowing well that if they are sincere they shall by the law die to the law (Galatians 2:19). As Gess says: “To take the law in thorough earnest is the true way to come to Jesus Christ.”

The young man's reply (Luke 18:21) testifies, undoubtedly, great moral ignorance, but also noble sincerity. He knows not the spiritual meaning of the commandments, and thinks that he has really fulfilled them. Here occurs the inimitable stroke of Mark's pencil: “And Jesus, beholding him, loved him. ” When critics wish to make out Mark to be the compiler of the two other evangelists, they are obliged to say, with De Wette, that Mark himself, inventing this amiable answer, has ascribed to Jesus his own feelings. We see much rather in this saying, one of those strokes which reveal the source whence the narratives of Mark proceed, and which must have been one very near the person of Jesus. It was an apostle who was following the impressions of Jesus as they depicted themselves in His countenance, and who caught as it passed the look of tenderness which He cast on this person so sincere and so innocent.

This look of love was also a scrutinizing look (ἐμβλέψας αὐτῷ, Mark 5:21), by which Jesus discerned the good and bad qualities of the heart, and which dictated to Him the following saying. The δέ, with ἀκούσας (Luke 18:22), is adversative and progressive. It announces a new resolution taken by the Lord. He determines to call this man into the number of His permanent disciples. The real substance of His answer, indeed, is not the order to distribute his goods, but the call to follow Him. The giving away of his money is only the condition of entering upon that new career which is open to him (see at Luke 9:61; Luke 12:33). In the proposal which He makes to him, Jesus observes the character which best corresponds to the desire expressed by the young man. He asked of Him some work to do; and Jesus points out one, and that decisive, which perfectly corresponds to his object, inasmuch as it assures him of salvation. To disengage oneself from everything in order to follow Jesus conclusively, such is really salvation, life. The formal correspondence of this answer to the young man's thought appears in the expression, One thing thou lackest (Luke and Mark); and more clearly still in that of Matthew, If thou wilt be perfect, go...Undoubtedly, according to the view of Jesus, man cannot do more or better than fulfil the law (Matthew 5:17; Matthew 5:48). Only the law must be understood not in the letter, but in the spirit (Matthew 5). The perfection to which Jesus calls the young man is not the fulfilling of a law superior to the law strictly so called, but the real fulfilling, in opposition to that external, literal fulfilling which the young man already had (Luke 18:21). This one thing which he lacks is the spirit of the law, that is, love ready to give everything: this is the whole of the law (Luke 6). The words, Thou shalt have treasure in heaven, do not signify that this almsgiving will open heaven to him, but that, when he shall have entered into this abode, he will find there, as the result of his sacrifice, grateful beings, whose love shall be to him an inexhaustible treasure (see at Luke 16:9). The act, which is the real condition of entering heaven, is indicated by the last word, to which the whole converges, Follow me. The mode of following Jesus varies according to times. At that time, in order to be inwardly attached to Him, it was necessary for a man to follow Him externally, and consequently to abandon his earthly position. At the present day, when Jesus lives no more in the body here below, the only condition is the spiritual one, but with all those moral conditions which flow from our relation to Him, according to each one's character and place.

The sorrow which this answer occasions the young man is expressed by Mark in the most dramatic way: He heaved a deep sigh (στυγνάσας). The Gospel of the Hebrews thus described this scene: “Then the rich man began to scratch his head, for that was not to his mind. And the Lord said to him: How, then, canst thou say, I have kept the law; for it is written in the law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; and lo! many of thy brethren, children of Abraham, live in the gutter, and die of hunger, while thy table is loaded with good things, and nothing is sent out to them?” Such is the writing which some modern critics (e.g., Baur) allege to be the original of our Matthew, and the parent of our synoptical literature!