Receiving Treasure In Heaven

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.