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We
mortals are marvelously generous to ourselves when it comes to assessing how
well we keep God's commandments. Jesus
had an encounter which demonstrated this.
A
young man wanted to do some good thing
in order to possess eternal life. Jesus brought up the commandments. The man
asked for specifics. When Jesus referred to the love-your-neighbor side of the Sovereign
Commandments, the man claimed he had those covered.
Here
we must understand an important feature of the encounter. The man had called Jesus “Good Master.” Jesus challenged that. Some want to say he did this so the
man would not mistake him as being God. In fact, Jesus intended exactly the
opposite. He did not challenge the man’s naiveté. Rather, he let him take the
love-your-neighbor commands off the table. Then he said, “You lack one thing?”
That
one thing was a complete devotion to… (watch this) …to Jesus himself. Far from
denying his deity, Jesus camped on it. If God is good, then the young man should love him
with all his heart. And that love should be expressed in giving that whole heart
to Jesus himself. “Sell what you have, give to the poor, wait for heavenly treasure,
and… FOLLOW ME.”
No,
salvation does not entail selling all and becoming a monk. What
Jesus did looks like this:
“You call me good.”
“You do realize that only God is good,
right?”
“How are you coming in the second
part of the Sovereign Commands?”
“Ok, now, since only God is good,
and you called me good, show me the devotion called for in the first of the Sovereign Commands.”
Bingo!
The man got the message both as to who Jesus claimed to be and the fact he loved something
more than him. Rather than confession, a plea for mercy and forgiveness, and
the opportunity to hear Jesus tell him more, he walked away sorrowing but
unrepentant.
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