Mark 10:15-40

15 See Mat_18:2-3:17-22

17-20 Compare Mat_19:16-22; Luk_18:18 - Luke 23:19

19 See Exo_20:12-16:21

21 See Mat_6:19-21; Luk_12:33-34; Luk_16:9:22-27

22-27 Compare Mat_19:23-26; Luk_18:24-27.

23 All human kingdoms have a high place for those who have wealth. They have no difficulty in entering. Indeed, it has come to the point where the wealth of the world is the controlling factor in government. Policies are dictated, laws are passed, treaties are made, wars are fought, all to protect invested capital or to promote the accumulation of wealth. The majority of mankind have become the slaves of the minority, who hold them by bonds of gold. There is no human remedy. In God's kingdom all this will be reversed. No rich man, as such, will enter, for his riches will have been destroyed in the previous judgment era, or will not be recognized. But the greatest hindrance is the lack of confidence in Christ.

24 See Job_31:24; Psa_49:6-9; 1Ti_6:17-19.

27 See Jer_32:17; Luk_1:37.

28-31 Compare Mat_19:27-30; Luk_18:28-30.

30 This has proven a stumbling block to many, who seek to apply it to the present grace. They have left all, but do not receive either a hundred fold or indeed a hundredth part of what they have lost. The reference is strictly confined to the Jewish disciples in the era in which the kingdom was proclaimed. Alter Pentecost the disciples had all things in common, so that all had an interest in and enjoyment of hundreds of houses and fields (Act_2:44; Act_4:32), being bound by more than natural ties to thousands of fellow believers, who cared for their welfare, so that there were none indigent among them (Act_4:34). There was a daily dispensation which took in all, even the widows who might have been in sore straits under any other dispensation. But today there is no temporal profit in standing true. Our greatest privilege is to suffer. Our reward is in the heavens. It is most mischievous to "appropriate" such promises, for they cannot be fulfilled. The motive that underlies them is utterly foreign to the truth for today. Present advantage is not a bait to catch the unbeliever now, and future reward is not in lands, but in the celestial realms.

31 See Luk_13:30

31 Those who forsook all their worldly properties and prospects were the poorest and last, yet these are the ones who will become first in the kingdom. Even in the Pentecostal era this was true. Peter could truly say "Silver and gold I do not possess" (Act_3:6). No one had less of wealth. The high priests controlled great stores of treasure beside their personal fortunes. Yet who was lower than they? Material and spiritual values are usually in inverse ratio.

32-34 Compare Mat_20:17-19; Luk_18:31-34

35-41 Compare Mat_20:20-24.

35 There were only two places of great honor next to the king in an eastern monarchy. One was at his right and the other at his left. But among our Lord's apostles three were foremost and privileged. These were Peter, James, and John. This is evidently a piece of petty diplomacy on the part of John and James, intended to prevent Peter from getting the first place. Such selfish insistence completely dissipates the usual conception of the "sons of thunder", as our Lord called them. John was not at all the meek, mild, gentle, amiable character he is popularly supposed to be. He was loud, egotistic, selfish. His writings do not reveal his natural characteristics, but rather the power of grace to counteract them. Would the apostle of love seek to supplant Peter? Yet the exquisiteness of that same grace is seen when it takes the boastings of the flesh and makes them good. They were not able to drink the cup which He was drinking. Yet the spirit later made them able. James was assassinated by Herod (Act_12:2). It is quite possible that this passage supports the tradition that John also was killed by the Jews. The fact that his written ministry applies to the time of the Lord's return does not allow of a record of his death in the Scriptures. See Joh_21:20. What makes this request so terribly atrocious is its utter antagonism to the Spirit of Christ,

at this time.