You Know the Law
How could such correction take place? Ideally, it ought to have taken place by means of the law. Here, again, was the divinely appointed schoolmaster whose role was to lead men to Christ. By the law one could normally acquire the knowledge of his sin.2
Jesus says, therefore:
You know the commandments: "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not bear false witness," "Do not defraud," "Honor your father and your mother" (Mark 10:19).
To this list Matthew reports that Jesus even added, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt. 19:19).
It ought to have been convicting. But it wasn't! Indeed, it actually elicits one of the most sanguine replies in all of religious history. The young man says:
Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth (Mark 10:20).
Had he? Of course not! What child is there who has always honored his father and mother? Where is the man who loves his neighbor as himself from his youth and upwardly?3 Even if he had avoided the grosser sins on the list, he had certainly not avoided them all.
He was not good of course. But he was self-righteous! And like all self-righteous people he had lowered the standard of good to the level of his own imagined attainments. His darkness seems impenetrable.
Go on to One Thing You Lack
Return to the THE RICH YOUNG RULER Menu