The Illustration of Self-Reliance: The Rich Man (18-30)

A certain ruler understood that eternal life was like the actual land-inheritance of Israel: it was a promise to be inherited. So, he asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life (18). It is important to make note here that when the ruler was referring to eternal life, he used the term of age or place beyond the limits of time, corruption, pain, death, and the age to come. We commonly use the term eternal life to mean life without end. The significance of the word was much fuller; it referred to an age beyond the limits of time, evil, and absent of God's immediate and loving rule. Jesus taught that this kind of age was invading the present age. Evil and death would yet exist until the age to come fully entered this age, and end when the new age was fully realized. 

When the ruler asked the question, he addressed Jesus as “Good Teacher.” Jesus asked the ruler why he had addressed Him as good, knowing only God was truly good, so only God should be addressed as good. Jesus obviously didn't have a problem with the address; He was pointing the man back to his heart, which was using empty flattery. Jesus knew those who used empty flattery were obsessed with their position and popularity around others, and He was going to target this in His answer (19). 

Jesus then asked the ruler if he knew the commandments, listing a few of them (20). The ruler not only was familiar with the commands, but had strictly been keeping them since his youth (21). Jesus then told the man one thing was still lacking in his life for him to enter into and inherit the age to come. The ruler had continued to embrace and trust the old symbols of law and law-keeping, which would not serve him in the age to come. The rules he had been keeping had, all along, been pointing to the coming of the Messiah, who was not devoted to keeping rules but fulfilling them. The Messiah was not focused on not killing someone but on loving everyone so deeply that anger was not even a possible response. 

Jesus told the ruler that he loved his business more than he loved souls, so he must sell, or better yet, barter what he had and use it to care for the poor. Jesus wasn't necessarily asking the ruler to sell all but to use his business for Kingdom purposes. Jesus knew the ruler was using law-keeping as a way to get God to owe him. Jesus made it clear that if, in all his law-keeping, he did not love the hurting, then law-keeping had not changed his heart. 

Jesus promised the ruler that if he bartered or exchanged his business wealth in such a way as to care for the poor, then he would be inheriting the new age to come, storing up treasure in heaven, and freeing himself to follow Jesus. For Jesus, killing the old affection for wealth and power was essential to really receiving the heart of the new age (22). The ruler, of course, was quite rich and became sad, for he felt he could not diminish his own life and make his business a resource for God, much less actually follow Jesus (24).  

Jesus, seeing the ruler’s sadness, used a word picture to describe how difficult it was for those with wealth to enter the Kingdom: it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to be saved (25). In Jerusalem, in one of the museums, a part of the old Jerusalem wall was reassembled. In that wall, a small hole was by the gate. The gate was considered the needle, and the small gate or hole was called the eye of a needle. Of course, it was believed the only way a camel could go through such a hole was to unpack—certainly not an impossibility.

Many have written about this “needle,” but this little hole in the wall is not likely what Jesus was referring to. It is far more likely that the word here for camel could also be the word for rope, thus meaning, easier to get a rope through a needle. Or, the word could just mean a camel, which would mean the only way to get it through the needle would be for the camel to die, turn to dust, run the dust through the needle, and then resurrect the camel on the other side. Whichever word picture Jesus meant here, He was meaning it would require a miracle—the impossible being made possible by God—for a rich man to enter the Kingdom (26-27).

Peter then chimed in that the disciples had not only turned their businesses into enterprises to fund the Kingdom but had actually left even their homes to follow Jesus. Jesus promised that such dedication to the Kingdom would not go unrewarded, but would be rewarded with a multiplication of what they had left behind when the age to come was fully realized (28-30).

Jesus Reviews the Purpose of Their Trip to Jerusalem (31-34)

Jesus clearly defined the purpose of their trip to Jerusalem. 

He was going up to:

• fulfill what the law and prophets said about the suffering Messiah

• be delivered over to the Gentiles

• be mocked

• be shamefully treated

• be spit upon

• be flogged

• be killed

• rise on the third day (31-33)

With all the specific detail, the disciples still had no clue what was happening (34).  

The Example of Persistent Faith (35-43)

As Jesus was making His way to Jerusalem, He traveled around Samaria and to Jericho. As Jesus came near the city, a blind man beside the road was listening to all the commotion, wondering and asking what was going on. He was told Jesus of Nazareth was passing by (35-37). At the top of his lungs and through the rebukes of the crowd, the blind man shamelessly cried out for mercy, calling Jesus the “Son of David” (38-39).  

Jesus stopped, had the man led to Him, and asked what he wanted. The blind man went for broke, skipped over the begging-for-money routine, and asked for his sight (40-41). The blind man was not only shamelessly persistent in asking for healing but also in wanting his sight back and believing that, in Jesus, the New Age of God had arrived. He also believed Jesus’ word that He had come to heal the blind (Luke 4:18). It had been some time prior when Jesus had read Isaiah the prophet, in His home-city, declaring Himself to be the anointed of God (Luke 4:18) to open the eyes of the blind (42). The man believed that word and received his sight and began to give glory to God, while the people who witnessed it began a celebration that would take Jesus triumphantly into Jerusalem (43).