Matthew 19:20

Matthew sets this meeting on Jesus’ last journey to Jerusalem, while he is passing through Perea, east of the Jordan. Just before it, Jesus has taught on marriage and divorce (Matthew 19:1–12) and has welcomed and blessed little children (Matthew 19:13–15). The children came with nothing to offer, and this man comes asking what he can do. The meeting and what Jesus says about it afterwards fill Matthew 19:16–30. As soon as the man leaves, Jesus teaches how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom (Matthew 19:23–26), and then answers Peter’s question about what the disciples will receive for leaving everything to follow him (Matthew 19:27–30).

“And, behold” translates idoú, a word that calls attention to what comes next. Matthew calls the man simply “one”, heîs, and later “the young man”. Mark and Luke tell the same encounter (Mark 10:21–22, Luke 18:23), and he has come to be known as the rich young ruler from the details the Gospels give. He “came”, prosérchomai, the word for coming near to someone, so he sought Jesus out himself.

He calls Jesus “Good Master”. Didáskalos is the ordinary word for a teacher, and here it is a respectful way to address one. Agathós is the common word for good, used of moral goodness, and the young man uses it as a courteous compliment.

His question is “what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” The verb poiéō is the everyday word for making or doing. Taken as a whole, the question asks for a deed, some one good work that would make eternal life his. In his day wealth was often taken as a sign of God’s favour, and careful keeping of the Law was widely held to be the way to righteousness and to the blessings of the age to come. His question comes from that way of thinking, and it is how the human heart naturally reasons about God: tell me what to do, and I will do it. The whole conversation leads toward the answer Paul gives, that we are saved by grace through faith, as the gift of God, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8–9), and that eternal life is God’s gift (Romans 6:23).

“Why callest thou me good?” Jesus takes the man’s word seriously. Goodness in the full sense belongs to God alone: “there is none good but one, that is, God.” This rests on Israel’s confession that the LORD our God is one LORD, who is to be loved with all the heart, soul and might (Deuteronomy 6:4–5). By asking why he is called good, Jesus moves the man from a polite title to the standard by which everything is measured, which is God himself.

“But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” Entolḗ means a charge or command, what has been authoritatively commanded, and here it means God’s commandments in the Law of Moses. Jesus answers the man on his own terms. He asked what to do, and the commandments are what God has told his people to do.

People ask whether Jesus is teaching here that keeping the commandments earns eternal life. He is setting God’s own standard before a man who hopes to earn it, and the rest of the conversation shows him falling short of it. Paul writes, “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20), and he says that a man is justified by the faith of Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:16). The law shows us our sin (Romans 7:7), and James says that whoever keeps the whole law and stumbles in one point is guilty of all (James 2:10). So Jesus’ command works like a mirror. It holds up the goodness of God, and in its light the young man is about to see himself.

“Which?” the man asks. He wants a definite list, as though righteousness could be ticked off item by item. Jesus answers from the second table of the Ten Commandments, the commands about our duty to the people around us: “Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness” (Exodus 20:13–16, Deuteronomy 5:17–20), and “Honour thy father and thy mother” (Exodus 20:12, Deuteronomy 5:16). Then he adds “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”, from Leviticus 19:18, which gathers up all the rest.

Each of the words carries the commandment behind it. Phoneúō means to kill or do murder, and it renders the Hebrew ratsach of the sixth commandment, the unlawful taking of a human life that God has made. Adultery is the seventh commandment. Kléptō, to steal, is the eighth, taking what belongs to someone else, which breaks the trust a community lives on. Pseudomartyréō means to be a false witness, to give false evidence, which is the ninth commandment. It forbids lying, above all in court, where a false word can rob a person of name, property or life.

The young man is a neanískos, a young man or youth. He answers, “All these things have I kept from my youth up.” His verb, phylássō, is probably from phylḗ, and means to watch or guard, and so to keep and obey. He says he has guarded these commands with care. “From my youth up” is ek, from or out of, with moû, of me, and neótēs, youth: his obedience goes back to his boyhood.

Then comes the question that gives him away: “what lack I yet?” Hysteréō means to fall short, to come behind, to be in want. A man who has kept everything still feels that something is missing. His careful obedience has left him without the assurance he came looking for, and he says so.

“If thou wilt be perfect” answers “what lack I yet?” directly. Téleios means complete, full grown, of full age. Since all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), the perfection Jesus speaks of here is wholeness, a devotion to God that is undivided and holds nothing back, with no rival allegiance beside it.

“Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.” Jesus puts his finger on the one thing that stands between this man and God. In a world that read wealth as a sign of blessing, the command was startling, and to sell an entire estate meant giving up security and standing along with the property. The verb for give, dídōmi, is the plain word for giving, and here the man’s goods are to become gifts to people in need. Jesus had already taught that no man can serve two masters, God and mammon (Matthew 6:24).

“And thou shalt have treasure in heaven.” In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells his hearers to lay up treasures in heaven, where moth and rust and thieves cannot reach them, because the heart goes where its treasure is (Matthew 6:19–21). Luke records the same teaching, sell what ye have and give alms, and provide a treasure in the heavens that does not fail (Luke 12:33–34). Paul counted all his gains as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ (Philippians 3:7–8). To gain the lasting treasure, the young man is asked to let go of the passing one.

“And come and follow me.” Akolouthéō means to accompany, and especially to go with someone as his disciple. This is the centre of Jesus’ answer. The man asked for a deed, and Jesus calls him to a person, to leave his old life and take up a new one as Jesus’ disciple. Jesus tells everyone who would come after him to deny himself, take up his cross and follow (Luke 9:23, Matthew 16:24).

“But when the young man heard that saying.” Akoúō is the ordinary word for hearing, and it can include taking in what is said. He understood what Jesus asked. “He went away sorrowful”: lypéō means to grieve or be made sorrowful, a heaviness of heart. He wanted eternal life, and he would not let go of his wealth to have it, and the sorrow shows the struggle between the two. The joy of following Jesus was in front of him, and he chose grief.

“For he had great possessions.” Ktēma means something acquired, property or an estate, and here it covers land and accumulated wealth, the base of a family’s security and standing. They were great, and they held his heart. Paul warns Timothy about the love of money (1 Timothy 6:10), and Proverbs warns against wearing oneself out to be rich, since riches make themselves wings and fly away (Proverbs 23:4–5). Possessions themselves are good gifts, and here they show how anything good can become an idol.

Jesus’ next words to his disciples are about this very man. It is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, and yet “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). What the young man could never do by his own effort, God can do.

Jesus himself did what the young man refused to do. “Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). He took the form of a servant and was obedient to death on a cross (Philippians 2:5–8). He is the one good God of verse 17 come in the flesh, and the only one who kept every commandment.

He kept the commands of this passage perfectly. He always did the things that pleased his Father (John 8:29), and from the cross he saw to the care of his mother (John 19:26–27). He loved his neighbour by laying down his life, the greatest love there is (John 15:13), as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Romans 10:4), and God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

So the young man’s “Good Master” was truer than he knew. The way, the truth and the life stood before him (John 14:6), and the treasure in heaven was Christ himself, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). To follow him is to be buried with him by baptism into death and to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4), to be crucified with Christ so that Christ lives in us (Galatians 2:20).

This passage shows us a God who is good, and whose goodness is the measure for every life. It shows the law he gave, holy and good, which tells us how to love him and our neighbour and shows us honestly where we fall short. And it shows a Saviour who looks at a sincere, well-behaved, unsatisfied man and names the one thing that holds him back, because he is offering him something far better.

The life the young man asked about is given freely through Christ, who is our life (Colossians 3:3–4). In him we have abundant life (John 10:10) and an inheritance kept in heaven that cannot perish or fade (1 Peter 1:3–4). The love the commandments ask of us is the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). Jesus promised that those who seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness will have all these things added to them (Matthew 6:33). The young man went away sorrowful over what he had, and the same call, “come and follow me”, still stands open, with Christ himself as the treasure.