Commentary - Luke 18:18-30

Bird's-eye view

In this famous encounter, a rich young ruler comes to Jesus with the most important question anyone can ask, but he asks it in entirely the wrong way. He is a moral, upright, and influential man who believes his ticket to eternal life is a matter of performance, of doing the right "thing." Jesus, in His masterful way, does not immediately rebuke the premise but rather presses it to its logical and ultimate conclusion. He engages the man on the ground of the law to show him that the law's true demand is not just external conformity but total heart-level allegiance to God. The man's wealth is not the problem in itself; his trust in it is. It is his god. Jesus exposes this idolatry by commanding him to abandon his true master, money, and to follow the true Master, Christ. The man's sorrowful departure reveals his heart, and Jesus uses the moment to teach His disciples a foundational lesson about salvation: it is impossible for man, who is tangled in his idolatries, but entirely possible for God, who alone can grant the grace of repentance and faith.

The passage then pivots to Peter, who rightly contrasts the ruler's refusal with the disciples' own sacrifice. They left everything to follow Jesus. This provides the Lord with the opportunity to give a glorious promise. No one who gives up anything for the sake of the kingdom will fail to receive a massive return on that investment, both in this life and in the age to come. This is not a transactional salvation, but rather the overflowing blessing that comes from being rightly related to the King, for whom no sacrifice is ever a net loss.

Outline

Context In Luke

This story comes on the heels of Jesus teaching about the kingdom of God, particularly the need for childlike faith (Luke 18:15-17). The ruler stands in stark contrast to the child. The child has nothing and can do nothing to inherit the kingdom, and so receives it as a pure gift. The ruler has everything and believes he can do something to earn it. This encounter is a practical, street-level demonstration of the principle Jesus just taught. It serves as a crucial hinge in Luke's travel narrative as Jesus continues His determined journey to Jerusalem and the cross (Luke 9:51), where the only "thing" that can be "done" to inherit eternal life will, in fact, be done, but by Christ alone.

Verse by Verse Commentary

v. 18 And a ruler questioned Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

Here we have a man of standing, a ruler, coming to Jesus with a question that is, on the surface, the best question in the world. But the way he frames it is shot through with a works-righteousness mindset. Notice the key verbs: "what shall I do to inherit." He thinks of eternal life as an inheritance you qualify for by performance. It's a transaction. He sees it as a task to be completed, a final box to be checked on his spiritual resume. He approaches Jesus as a "Good Teacher," a sort of expert consultant on religious duties who can give him the final piece of the puzzle. He is polite, respectful, and utterly lost.

v. 19 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.”

Jesus immediately deflects the casual honorific. He is not being modest; He is forcing the central issue. The ruler is using "good" as a form of flattery, the way you might compliment a skilled rabbi. Jesus challenges this superficial use of the word. He is saying, in effect, "Do you have any idea what you are saying when you use that word? Goodness, true goodness, is an attribute of God alone. If you are calling me good, are you prepared to deal with Me as God?" This is a direct challenge to the ruler's entire worldview. He thinks in terms of human goodness and achievement, while Jesus points him to the absolute, holy goodness of God, a standard no man can meet. This is the essential first step: you cannot understand salvation until you understand who God is.

v. 20 You know the commandments, ‘DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, DO NOT MURDER, DO NOT STEAL, DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.’

Jesus knows the man wants a to-do list, so He gives him one. He points him straight to the second table of the law, the commandments dealing with one's neighbor. This is a brilliant move. The man is confident in his external righteousness, and these are the laws that are most easily measured by external conformity. He hasn't killed anyone, he hasn't been caught in bed with another man's wife, and so on. Jesus meets him on his own turf. If you want to talk about doing, let's talk about what God has commanded you to do.

v. 21 And he said, “All these things I have kept from my youth.”

And here is the response of every moralist who has ever lived. He believes he has a clean record. From his perspective, he's telling the truth. He has been a fine, upstanding citizen and a credit to his community. But he has kept the law in the same way a man who has never been to sea can claim he has never drowned. He has kept the letter of the law, but has no concept of its spirit. He does not understand that the law against murder condemns the hateful heart, and the law against adultery condemns the lustful eye. His righteousness is a mile wide and an inch deep.

v. 22 And when Jesus heard this, He said to him, “One thing you still lack: sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven. And come, follow Me.”

This is the heart of the passage. Jesus puts His finger on the man's idol. He says, "You claim to have kept all the commandments regarding your neighbor. Here is the test. Love your neighbor in a radical way. Liquidate your assets and give them to the poor." This command is not a new law for gaining salvation for everyone. It is a specific, diagnostic command for this man. His wealth was his functional god. It was the source of his security, his identity, and his trust. Jesus is essentially telling him to break the first commandment: "You shall have no other gods before me." The command to sell everything is the negative side; the positive side is "And come, follow Me." He must abandon his false god and follow the true God. Salvation is not found in a transaction, but in a person.

v. 23 But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.

His sadness is telling. He is not angry or argumentative. He is sad because he knows Jesus has seen right through him. He is being asked to give up the one thing he cannot bear to part with. The cost of discipleship is laid bare, and he finds it too high. His great wealth, which he likely saw as a sign of God's blessing, is revealed to be his great curse. It owns him. He came seeking to do something, and when he was told what to do, he found he could not do it. The law has done its work; it has shut his mouth and revealed his sin.

v. 24 And Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!

Jesus watches the man walk away, and He uses this as a teaching moment for His disciples. The difficulty is not with money itself, but with the spiritual dangers that invariably accompany it. Wealth provides a false sense of security. It makes a man feel self-sufficient. It whispers that he doesn't really need God. He can buy his way out of problems. This is why it is hard for the wealthy to enter the kingdom, because the first requirement of the kingdom is a recognition of your own spiritual bankruptcy, and the rich have a very hard time feeling bankrupt about anything.

v. 25 For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

This is a classic piece of Semitic hyperbole. Jesus is not talking about a small gate in Jerusalem called "the needle's eye" where a camel had to get on its knees. That's a pious fiction invented centuries later to soften the blow. The point is to create a ludicrous, impossible image. Take the largest animal common in that part of the world and the smallest opening in domestic life, and put them together. That is the level of impossibility we are dealing with when a man trusts in his riches. It cannot be done.

v. 26 And those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?”

The disciples are astonished. In their culture, like ours, wealth was often seen as a sign of God's favor. If this man, who was not just rich but also morally upright, could not be saved, then what hope was there for anyone? They understood the radical nature of what Jesus was saying. If the very best among them was excluded, then everyone must be. Their question is exactly the right one. They have moved from "what must I do?" to "who can possibly be saved?" They are beginning to grasp the true nature of the human predicament.

v. 27 But He said, “The things that are impossible with people are possible with God.”

This is the gospel in a nutshell. Salvation is a human impossibility. You cannot get a camel through a needle's eye. You cannot, by your own effort, will, or moral striving, enter the kingdom of God. But what is impossible for us is the very work God delights to do. He is the God of the impossible. He can part the Red Sea, He can raise the dead, and He can save a rich man by shattering his idolatrous trust in mammon and giving him a new heart that trusts in Christ alone. Salvation is a miracle of divine grace from beginning to end.

v. 28 And Peter said, “Behold, we have left all that is our own and followed You.”

Peter, ever the spokesman, draws the contrast. That man couldn't leave his possessions. But we did. We left our boats, our nets, our families. He is not boasting so much as he is seeking assurance. "We did what he couldn't do. What does that mean for us?" It is a fair question, and it sets up the Lord's magnificent promise.

v. 29 And He said to them, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God,

Jesus affirms their sacrifice. He lists the dearest things a person can leave behind: home, spouse, family. The key qualifier is the motive: "for the sake of the kingdom of God." This is not about asceticism for its own sake. It is about a reordering of loves. Christ and His kingdom must be supreme. Any earthly love or possession that stands in the way must be demoted, left behind in that sense.

v. 30 who will not receive many times more at this time and in the age to come, eternal life.”

Here is the glorious return on investment. God is no man's debtor. For everything you give up for Him, you will receive "many times more" or, as Mark's gospel puts it, a hundredfold. And notice the timing: "at this time," meaning right now, in this life. You give up one family, and you gain a new family in the church, a hundred brothers and sisters. You give up a house, and you have a hundred homes to welcome you. This is accompanied by persecutions, of course, but the blessing is real and present. And then, beyond all that, in the age to come, you receive the ultimate inheritance: eternal life. The rich ruler wanted to inherit eternal life by doing, but he walked away with nothing. The disciples inherited it by leaving, and they received everything.

Application

This passage forces every one of us to ask the same question Jesus put to the ruler: what is the one thing you lack? What is your idol? For him, it was money. For us, it might be comfort, reputation, security, family, or political power. Whatever it is that you would be "very sad" to give up for Christ is your functional god. The call of the gospel is a call to radical repentance, to turn from these idols and follow the true King.

We must also take to heart the impossibility of salvation by human effort. We are all the rich young ruler. We all come to God with our hands full of our own supposed righteousness, and we must be brought to a place of utter bankruptcy. We cannot save ourselves. But praise God, what is impossible for us is His specialty. He saves sinners. He takes hearts of stone that trust in riches and gives them hearts of flesh that trust in the blood of His Son.

Finally, we should be greatly encouraged by the promise to the disciples. No sacrifice made for the kingdom is ever wasted. When we give up things for Christ, we are not losing them; we are trading them for something infinitely better, both now and forever. The Christian life is not a life of grim subtraction, but one of glorious, joyful addition. We give up our trinkets and are given a treasure.