It is a striking principle which meets us here-the relationships of nature
(as God has Himself created them at the beginning) re-established in their
original authority, while the heart is judged, and the cross the sole means
of drawing nigh to the God who was their creative source. On earth Christ
could offer nothing but the cross to those who followed Him. The glory to
which the cross would lead has been shewn to some of them; but as to
Himself He took the place of servant. It was the knowledge of God by Him
that should form them for this glory and lead them to it; for in fact that
was life eternal. All other intermediate ways had, in the hands of men,
become hostile to the God who had granted them, and therefore to His
manifestation in the Person of Christ.
We find then (v. 1-12), the original relationship of man and wife as formed
by the creative hand of God; in verses 13-16 the interest which Jesus took
in young children, their place in the compassionate eye of God, the moral
value of that which they represented before men. In verse 17 we come to the
law, to the world, and to the heart of man in presence of the two. But at
the same time we see that Jesus takes pleasure in that which is amiable in
the creature as a creature-a principle of deep interest unfolded in this
chapter-while still applying the touchstone morally to his heart. With
respect to the law, as the natural heart can see it (that is, the outward
action it requires), the young man had kept it; and with a natural
sincerity, and uprightness, that Jesus could appreciate as a creature
quality, and which we ought always to recognise where it exists. It is
important to remember, that He who as man was perfectly separated unto
God-and that, because He had the thoughts of God-could recognise the
unchangeable obligations of the relationships established by God Himself;
and also, whatever there was amiable and attractive in the creature of God
as such. Having the thoughts of God-being God manifest in the flesh, how
could He but recognise that which was of God in His creature? And while
doing this, He must establish the obligations of the relationships in which
He has placed him, and exhibit the tenderness He felt for the infant
representatives of the spirit which He prized. He must love the natural
uprightness that may be developed in the creature. But He must judge the
true condition of man fully brought out, and the affections that rested on
objects raised up by Satan, and the will that rejected and turned away from
the manifestation of God that called him to forsake these vanities and
follow Him, thus putting his heart morally to the proof.
Jesus exhibits the absolute perfection of God in yet another manner. The
young man saw the exterior of Christ's perfection, and, trusting to the
power of man to perform that which is good, and seeing its practical
fulfilment in Jesus, applies to Him-and, humanly speaking, with
sincerity-to learn, from One in whom he saw so much perfection, though
viewing Him merely as a Rabbi, the rule of eternal life. This thought is
expressed in his sincere and cordial salutation. He runs, he kneels, to the
Teacher who, morally, stood so high in his estimation, saying, "Good
Master." The human limit of his ideas of this goodness, and his confidence
in the powers of man, are manifested by the words, "What shall I do that I
may inherit eternal life?" The Lord, taking up the whole import of his
word, replies, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that
is God." What God has created he who knows God will respect, when it
presents itself as such in its true place. But God alone is good. Man, if
intelligent, will not make himself out good before God, nor dream of human
goodness. This young man had at least the hope of becoming good by the law,
[see note #11]
and he believed that Jesus was so as a man. But the greatest advantages
which the flesh could recognise, and which answered to its nature, did but
the more effectually shut the door of life and heaven to man. The flesh
used the law for self-righteousness, man being not good but a sinner. And,
in fact, if we have to seek for righteousness, it is because we have it not
(that is to say, because we are sinners and cannot attain this
righteousness in ourselves). Moreover worldly advantages, which appeared to
render man more capable of doing good, bound his heart to perishing things,
and strengthened selfishness, and made him attach little value to the image
of God.
But the instructions of this chapter carry on still farther the subject of
man's condition before God. The ideas of the flesh accompany and give their
form to the heart's affections, in one who is already quickened by the
Spirit of grace acting through the attraction of Christ, until the Holy
Ghost Himself communicates to those affections the strength of His
presence, by giving them the glory of Christ in heaven for their object;
and at the same time causing the light of that glory to shine (for the
believer's heart) upon the cross, investing it with all the value of the
redemption it accomplished, and of the divine grace that was its source,
and producing conformity to Christ in every one that bears it with Him.
Peter did not understand how any one could be saved, if such advantages as
the Jews possessed in their relationship to God (and which were specially
present in the case of this young man) only barred up the way to the
kingdom of God. The Lord meets him upon this very ground; for man in the
presence of God was now the question As far as man was concerned, it was
impossible-a second profound truth-with respect to his condition. Not only
was there none good excepting God, but no one could be saved, according to
what man was. Whatever advantages he might have as means, they would avail
him nothing in his state of sin. But the Lord introduces another source of
hope-"with God all things are possible." The whole of this, indeed all this
part of the Gospel, while it sets aside the Jewish system, does so,
because, while that was founded on testing the possibility by the
possession of divinely given ordinances of acquiring righteousness, and a
standing before God as yet unrevealed, this revealed God and brought man
and man's heart face to face, as a present thing, with Him; in grace, but
still face to face as he was. The disciples, not having yet received the
Holy Ghost, are still under the influence of the old system, and only see
men as trees walking; and this is fully developed in this chapter. The
kingdom indeed they could think of, but still with fleshly thoughts.
But the flesh, the carnal mind, enters yet farther into the career of the
life of grace. Peter reminds the Lord that the disciples had forsaken all
to follow Him. The Lord replies, that every one
[see note #12]
who had done so should have everything that would make him happy in his
social affections, as God had formed him, and all this world could give as
to the real enjoyment of it and a hundredfold, together with the opposition
that He Himself met with in this world; but in the world to come (Peter was
not thinking of that) not some private individual advantage, but
everlasting life. He went beyond the sphere of promise connected with the
Messiah on earth, to enter, and to make others enter, into that which was
eternal. As to individual reward, that could not be judged of according to
appearances.
We have seen what the flesh was in an upright young man whom Jesus loved,
and in His disciples who knew not how to take the true position of Christ.
The contrast of this with the full triumph of the Holy Ghost is remarkable,
as we find it in the comparison of this chapter with Philippians 3.
We have in Saul a man outwardly blameless, according to the law, like the
young man in the gospel; but he has seen Christ in glory, and, by the
teaching of the Holy Ghost, the righteousness according to which Christ
entered into the glory in which He revealed Himself to Saul. All that had
been gain to him was loss for Christ. Would he have a carnal righteousness,
a human righteousness, even if he could have accomplished it, when he had
seen a righteousness bright with the glory of Christ? He possessed the
righteousness which was of God by faith. What was that righteousness worth
for which he had laboured, now that he possessed the all-perfect
righteousness which God gave by faith? Not sins alone were put away: human
righteousness was made worthless by it. But his eyes had been opened to
this by the Holy Ghost, and by seeing Christ. The things that engaged the
heart of the young man and retained him in the world which Christ forsook,
and which in Him had rejected God-could these things retain one who had
seen Christ in the other world? They were but as dung to him. He had
forsaken everything in order to possess this Christ. He considered them as
utterly worthless. The Holy Ghost, in revealing Christ, had completely
delivered him.
But this manifestation to the heart of Christ glorified goes yet farther.
He who thus breaks with the world must follow the One whose glory he would
reach; and this is to put himself under the cross. The disciples had
forsaken all to follow Him. Grace had attached them to Christ that they
might follow Him. The Holy Ghost had not yet linked them with His glory. He
goes up to Jerusalem. They are amazed at it; and, in following Him
(although He goes before them, and they have His guidance and His
presence), they are afraid. Paul seeks to know the power of His
resurrection: he desires to have fellowship with His sufferings, and to be
conformed unto His death. Instead of amazement and fear, there is full
spiritual intelligence and the desire of conformity to that death which the
disciples feared; because he found Christ morally in it, and it was the
pathway to the glory he had seen.
Moreover this sight of Christ purifies the desires of the heart with
respect even to the glory. John and James desire for themselves the best
place in the kingdom-a desire that availed itself (with a carnal and
selfish object) of the intelligence of faith-a half-sighted intelligence
that sought the kingdom at once, and not the glory and the world to come.
Paul had seen Christ: his only desire in the glory was to possess Him-"that
I may win Christ," and a new state conformed to it; not a good place near
Him in the kingdom, but Himself. This is deliverance-the effect of the
presence of the Holy Ghost revealing a glorified Christ.
We may remark, that in every case the Lord brings in the cross. It was the
only passage from this world of nature, to the world of glory and of
eternal life.
[see note #13]
To the young man He exhibits the cross; to the disciples that follow Him He
exhibits the cross; to John and James, who sought a good place in the
kingdom, He exhibits the cup they would have to drink in following Him.
Eternal life, although received now, was, in possession and enjoyment
according to God's purpose, on the other side of the cross.
Observe also, that the Lord was so perfectly, divinely, above the sin in
which nature lay, that He could recognise all that was of God in nature,
and shew at the same time the impossibility of any relation between God and
man on the ground of what man is. Advantages were but hindrances. That
which is death to the flesh must be gone through: we must have divine
righteousness, and enter in spirit (hereafter in fact) into another world,
in order to follow Him and to be with Him-to "win Christ." Solemn lesson!
In result, God alone is good, and-sin having come in-it is impossible, if
He be manifested, that man can be in relationship with God; but with Him
all is possible. The cross is the only path to God. Christ leads to it, and
we must follow Him in this path, which is that of eternal life. A
child-like spirit enters into it by grace; the spirit of service and of
self-renunciation walks in it. Christ walked in it, giving His life a
ransom for many. This part of the Lord's instruction ends here. Lowliness
of service is the place into which Christ brings us; in such He had walked.
This chapter is worthy of all the attention which the Christian through
grace can devote to it. It speaks of the ground man can stand upon, how far
God owns what is natural, and the disciples' path down here.
At verse 46 another subject begins. The Lord enters on the path of His
final relationship with Israel, presenting Himself as King, Emmanuel,
rather than as the prophet who was to be sent. As the Prophet, His ministry
had been accomplished. He had been sent (He told His disciples) to preach.
This had led Him to the cross, as we have seen. He must needs announce it
as the result to those that followed Him. He now resumes His connection
with Israel, but as the Son of David. He draws near to Jerusalem, from
which He had departed and where He was to be rejected, and the power of God
manifests itself in Him. By the way of Jericho, the city of the curse,
enters the One who brings blessing at the price of the gift of Himself. The
poor blind man
[see note #14]
(and such indeed was the nation of itself) acknowledges Jesus of Nazareth
to be the Son of David. The grace of Jesus replies in power to the need of
His people, that expressed itself by faith, and that persevered in, in
spite of the obstacles put in its way by the multitude who did not feel
this need, and who followed Jesus, attracted by the manifestation of His
power, without being attached to Him by the faith of the heart. That faith
has the sense of need. Jesus stands still and calls him, and before all the
people manifests the divine power which responded in the midst of Israel to
the faith that recognised in Jesus of Nazareth the true Son of David, the
Messiah. The poor man's faith had healed him, and he followed Jesus in the
way without dissimulation or fear. For the faith which then confessed Jesus
to be the Christ was divine faith, although it might perhaps know nothing
of the cross which He had just announced to His disciples as the result of
His faithfulness and service, and in which faith must follow when genuine.
