Chapter # 10 Paragraph # 3 Study # 5
September 12, 2023
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
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Thesis: The impossibility of salvation, in the context of Jesus' dealings with the wealthy, is very real.
Introduction: In our last study we zeroed in on Jesus' "cryptic" answer to the question of inheriting eternal life. We saw that He put His focus upon the rich man's ludicrous claim that he had kept all of the commandments that God gave relating to the treatment of others "from his youth". In the text, Jesus changed the "thou shalt not covet" to "thou shalt not defraud" and He move the fifth commandment to the end of the list. Both of these details point to Jesus' subtle implications that the man had both cheated others in his financial dealings and had dishonored his parents in some way or ways.
This evening we are going to focus upon the disciples' "shock" at Jesus' demand that the man sell his possessions and give the proceeds away in order to possess treasure in heaven.
- I. Round Two: The Attitude That Prevents Entrance Into The Kingdom Of The God.
- A. The initial indicators of this "attitude" (the running and kneeling).
- B. The first words out of his mouth were "Good Teacher".
- C. The "burning question" that was actually designed to appear to be reason for the "running" and "kneeling".
- D. The "difficulty" of having many possessions.
- 1. Jesus' "is saying to His disciples".
- a. The issue of "difficulty".
- 1) The word used is only found in Matthew 19:23; Mark 10:23; and Luke 18:24 and all of these uses are in the text/context of the same issue: the difficulty the rich face in light of "entering" the Kingdom of the God.
- a) The issue of "entering" is rooted in "eiserchomai", a word that is used in 189 texts of the New Testament and in 29 of Mark's verses.
- b) The verb is an intensified form of the more general "erchomai", which is used in 599 texts of the NASB.
- c) In respect to Mark's usage, the verb seems only to mean "to go into" and only occasionally gives any indication that the "entrance" has opposition attached.
- i. It is this verb that is used in 10:15, 23, 24, and 25.
- ii. In this larger context, all of these uses have "difficulties" attached.
- 2) The word causes the disciples to be "astonished" (Mark 1:27; 10:24 and 32), and in 10:26 another word is used that means "to be really astonished/amazed".
- b. That there exists this "difficulty", especially in the light of the New Testament explanation of the teaching of the New Testament that "entrance into the Kingdom" is rooted in "faith into Jesus", means that we need to evaluate our understanding of the Gospel in light of Jesus' words regarding "how hard it is to enter the Kingdom".
- 1) This difficulty is established by a three-fold repetition of the fact of it (10:23, 24, and 25).
- 2) This difficulty is better understood when we also understand the words of Jesus to Peter in Matthew 16:17 and the words of Paul to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 12:3.
- 3) At issue here is the fact that "right understanding" is never "automatic to the minds of men". We have often tried to make "believing" a relatively easy thing for a person to do, in spite of Jesus' words to the contrary, but Paul made it as clear as it can be in 1 Corinthians 2:14. It is not a matter of simply "willing" oneself to "believe", or "choosing Christ".
- 4) In our present text, this difficulty is deliberately exalted by Jesus in respect to "those who are rich", but that does not lessen the "difficulty"; it simply reveals one reason that it is so.
- i. Wealthy people are often deeply affected, at the root levels of "love" and "faith in truth", by the actual reality of the nature of their "faith in Jesus".
- ii. This is even a greater "difficulty" because the true root of "faith" is its utter abandonment of any "self"-righteousness as that is an issue of the abandonment of any recognition of the true self-interest that lies at the root of every man's values. Selfishness is the actual root of all sin and no one escapes its clutches without divine intervention.
- iii. The Gospel is not about "abandoning one's self-interest" (without self-interest, from whence would the motivation come for turning to God?), but it is about the problem all have when it is highlighted. If a person denies his selfishness, he cannot come to "faith" because his resistance is too deeply held. At the root, then, of divine intervention unto understanding will be an attending awareness of one's actual "plight" in respect to his/her standing before God.
- 2. The "amazement" of the disciples.
- a. Was caused by their cultural immersion in a right standing before God as rooted in one's performance and God's reactive pleasure.
- b. Was also caused by their recognition that Jesus was teaching "an impossibility" that they had not considered an "impossibility".
- 1) They asked "Who then can be saved?"
- 2) Jesus responded by making it "impossible with men". This is the heart of the biblical illustrations of "faith" as demonstrated by Abraham when "all hope in the flesh" was forced to crash. Only when there is no hope can hope arise.
- 3) In contradiction to this is man's absolute insistence that "salvation can arise from something in them".
