You will notice how this passage begins. We are told that Jesus ‘was setting out on his journey’ (v. 17). And we know where that journey will lead. It will take Jesus to Jerusalem, where a cross awaits Him. He has already foretold His death twice in recent days, and He will speak of it again—in this chapter, to be exact. Everything in this passage, then, must be read so that we see it taking place under the looming shadow of the cross.
So, it’s with that in mind that we see this ‘man’ running up to Jesus, kneeling before Him, and posing his question. ‘Good Teacher,’ he says. And Jesus corrects the man. ‘No one is good except God alone’ (v. 18). And it’s a corrective the man needs, because, as we shall see, this man is under the illusion that he himself is in some way good. He asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. That’s his first mistake—thinking, as most people do, that there is something to be done to win God’s grace. Jesus, as we said, is on his way to Jerusalem to do the deed that must be done if any of us is to enter the kingdom of God. But, of course, this man does not know that, so he asks his question.
And what does Jesus do? He proclaims the Law, and then He proclaims the gospel. It really is the best route to effective evangelism. ‘The letter kills,’ Paul writes—by which he means the Law kills—‘but the Spirit gives life’ (2 Cor. 3:6). Life is the aim—the ‘eternal life’ that the man says he wants—but the sinner must be ‘killed’ first, so to speak. The Law must slay its victim before the gospel offers ‘the light of life’ to him (John 8:12).
So, Jesus says to the man, ‘You know the commandments: Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother’ (Mark 10:19). You will recognize this list to be from the second tablet of the Law, those commandments that have to do with our relationship to our neighbor. You may ask, ‘Who could ever be so presumptuous as to claim to have kept these commandments, not to mention those of the first tablet of the Law, the ones having to do with our relationship to God?’
But that’s exactly what this man does. Jesus lists the commandments. Any person with the slightest degree of self-awareness, having heard this litany of imperatives, would falter beneath the weight of his failure, for, as Paul says, ‘through the law comes knowledge of sin’ (Rom. 3:20)—but not this man. ‘All these I have kept from my youth,’ he says (Mark 10:20). See how good he thinks he is!
So Jesus, for the man’s sake, strikes yet another blow—intended, of course, to knock some sense into him. ‘You lack one thing,’ Jesus says: ‘go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me’ (v. 22). And we see here the grave calamity that afflicts a great many who desire what this man desired, who want to be assured of eternal life. The problem so many, many face is that, as much as they desire ‘treasure in heaven,’ they desire what treasure they have on earth more.
Actually, this is true of us all—until and unless God plants in our hearts a greater desire for heaven. Paul tells us that ‘the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned’ (1 Cor. 2:14). Again, he says that people ‘walk…in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them…’ (Eph. 4:17, 18). Only God can break through that. Only God can change our hearts so that we forsake earthly treasure for a heavenly inheritance.
And that’s exactly what we must do if we are to enter God’s kingdom. We must forsake whatever blocks us from embracing grace—the faith we put in earthly hopes—to receive eternal life. So, how does that happen? If it is to happen at all, we must come to see three realities. We must see our need for treasure in heaven. We must see our inability to meet our need. And we must see God’s ability alone to meet that need.
10:17-22 | Our Need for Treasure in Heaven
Something We May Want (17-20)—So, first, we must see our need for treasure in heaven. The man in this passage certainly qualifies on this account. We read in verse 17 that he ‘ran up and knelt before [Jesus] and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life.”’ Treasure in heaven is something he wanted. There is no doubt about that.
And who wouldn’t want it…if they could have it on their own terms? As we have said, this man certainly thought he had something to offer in exchange for it. Keep the commandments? Oh, if that’s all it takes, I’m in. ‘All these I have kept from my youth.’ This man was blind to his own folly.
So Jesus drilled down harder in order to break open this man’s confidence in his treasure on earth. He brought up the matter of the man’s wealth. ‘Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.’
Is that what you and I must do to gain eternal life? Sell our belongings and give the proceeds to the poor? Not unless ‘all that [we] have’ is blocking us from following Jesus. What Jesus is getting at here is not that I must part with all my belongings. What He is saying is that I must relinquish whatever it is that is keeping me from true affection for God. ‘Wealth’ comes in many forms. It is whatever I value more than God. It is the mix of disordered desires and inordinate affections to which I cling. It is my golden calf, my pantheon of idols. It is my attachments. These I must abandon, release, and leave behind. Because, in the end, they will let me down. If I have them but have not God, in the end I will have nothing.
For most of us, our treasure on earth isn’t ‘great possessions,’ although it may be for some. It is more likely that our treasure on earth is something different. And whatever it is, it is something other than God in which we place our confidence.
I certainly cannot say that I have kept all the commandments. I haven’t. I have broken every one of them in some fashion. But I sometimes labor under the illusion that I could kept them, that I could have been good, or at least that, if I had just been better at being good, I would be more acceptable to God. I wrongly assume (I know better in my head, but in my gut I still think) that I could have been good enough, and that, if I had just not violated God’s law in such-and-such a way, I would be more acceptable to Him. But it isn’t so. It’s not how good I am, you see, that will gain heaven, right? It’s how good Jesus is. ‘No one is good except God alone’ (Mark 10:18). Can I give up my longing for a lost innocence and believe that Jesus has done for me what I cannot do for myself? That’s the difference between gaining eternal life and forfeiting it. It’s all of grace or it’s nothing at all.
Something Many Don’t Want Enough—So, treasure in heaven is something many want, but it’s something many don’t want enough. When Jesus told the man in our account to sell everything, the man became ‘disheartened’ and ‘went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions’ (v. 22).
But there’s something before that I want you to see. It may be my favorite one-liner in the Bible. It’s in verse 21, where Mark says, ‘And Jesus, looking at him [that is, looking at the man], loved him.’ As thick-headed as this man was—as pretentious as he was with all his talk of keeping God’s commandments, as foolish as must have appeared to our Lord—Jesus nevertheless ‘loved him.’ And it was out of love that Jesus turned the screws tighter. Oh, if we are ever to see our need for grace, grace will first have to break our death grip on our idols, our precious attachments. Hosea says of the Lord, ‘He has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up’ (Hos. 6:1). That’s what Jesus is doing here. He is striking this man down. He is delivering a blow to his pretentions.
But in the end, sad as it makes me to say it, many who want heaven do not want it enough. And, like this man in Mark’s Gospel, they turn away, disheartened, because they think what they have is better, surer, more reliable than what Jesus offers them.
I pray that’s not you, dear friend. Whatever it is you think you need, you need nothing more than you need grace. You must see this. You must see your need for treasure in heaven.
10:23-26 | Our Inability to Meet Our Need
And not only that, you must also see your inability to meet your need. Will it be easy to enter God’s kingdom? No, because we will be tempted to think there is a way other than that of grace. Jesus said on another occasion, ‘Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few’ (Matt. 7:13f.).
We Must Know How Difficult (vv. 23, 24b-25)—That’s in Matthew, and here in Mark we find the same thing. Jesus tells us how difficult it will be to enter the kingdom. This is something we must know. This must register with us. Jesus starts off talking about how difficult it will be for those who are rich to enter the kingdom, and His disciples are ‘amazed.’ So he says, this time more broadly, ‘Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God!’ (Mark 10:24). This is where He uses the metaphor of the camel passing through the eye of a needle. That would be easier than entering the kingdom of God!
We May Not Want to Hear How Difficult (v. 24a, 26)—And now, the disciples were not simply ‘amazed,’ they were ‘astonished.’ Exceedingly so, Mark says. We’re no different from them, are we? We don’t want to hear how difficult this business of kingdom entry is, and we may find ourselves saying with Jesus’ first disciples, ‘Then who can be saved?’ (v. 26).
10:27-31 | God’s Ability Alone to Meet Our Need
And that brings us to the third necessary truth we must see. First, we must see our need for treasure in heaven. Second, we must see our inability to meet our need. And now, third, we must see God’s ability alone to meet this need.
Impossible for Us (v. 27)—The truth is, no matter what we do, it is impossible for us to attain treasure in heaven. Check out verse 27. We read that ‘Jesus looked at them.’ Now, remember: that is exactly what Jesus did with the man who turned away earlier. ‘Jesus, looking at him, loved him.’ Remember? And now, ‘Jesus looked at them’ (emphasis added), ‘and [He] said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”’
Thomas Boston, the great Scots theologian, said this. He said: ‘We are born spiritually blind, and cannot be restored without a miracle of grace... There is, in the unrenewed will, an utter inability for what is truly good and acceptable in God's sight.’ It is impossible for us to attain treasure in heaven.
But not for God. ‘For all things are possible with God.’ Salvation is all of God. We contribute nothing to it. ‘Nothing in my hand I bring,’ wrote Augustus Toplady. ‘Simply to Thy cross I cling.’
Receive (vv. 28-31)—This truth makes Peter’s reaction all the more puzzling. Verse 28 tells us that ‘Peter began to say to [Jesus], “See, we have left everything and followed you.”’ It’s as if Peter—and perhaps the rest of the disciples—did not yet comprehend what Jesus was telling them. The great apostle seems to be holding on to some remnant of confidence in human ability to press God into our debt. ‘See, we have left everything and followed you.’ We are not like the man who wouldn’t leave it all behind to come after You. No, we have laid it all down. Now, doesn’t that entitle us to heaven?
Oh, blessed Peter, how could you have gotten it so wrong? No matter what we do, treasure in heaven is received! Jesus’ answer to Peter confirms this. He said to Peter, ‘Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive’—note that word, who will not receive—‘a hundredfold now in this time…and in the age to come eternal life’ (vv. 29f.). The kingdom is ‘received,’ you see. Eternal life is received. Treasure in heaven is received. It is a gift—both ‘now in this time’ and ‘in the age to come.’ Did we give up our house for Jesus? We receive tens of thousands of houses where His name is lifted up. Did we give up family? We receive brothers and sisters, even precious children, in God’s family. Did we give up lands? We shall ‘inherit the earth’ (Matt. 5:5). The whole world is ours, a field ripe unto harvest for the gospel.
And ‘in the age to come,’ Jesus says, eternal life will be ours. Not because we exchanged for it some goodness to which we may lay claim. ‘No one is good except God alone.’ Not because we gave up something dear to get it. ‘Let goods and kindred go,’ Luther wrote, ‘this mortal life also.’ And if it should come to that, you and I will still be unable to avoid the truth that God ‘has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’ (Eph. 1:3). You and I are always on the receiving end of grace. ‘What do you have,’ Paul asks, ‘that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?’ (1 Cor. 4:7).
So, would you have treasure in heaven? You must know your need of it. And you must know your inability to meet that need. And that’s good news really, because God is able to meet that need, God alone. So, whatever your treasure in this world is—if it’s keeping you from Jesus, if it’s keeping you from grace, if it’s keeping you from God, let it go. Lay it aside. And receive Him. Trust Him. He is your real treasure.
