"And, behold, one came and said unto Him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And He said unto him, Why do you call me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if you will enter into life, keep the commandments. He said unto Him, Which? Jesus said, You shall do no murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and your mother; and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The young man said unto Him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what do I lack yet? Jesus said unto him, If you will be perfect, go and sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions." (Matthew 19:16-22)
Seeking Eternal Life
The question asked by the young ruler is one that has been asked by thousands, and one that should interest every person. Life is a boon of inestimable value; men will spend the earnings of years, and travel to the utmost limits of the globe, in order to prolong their lives for a few years. How eagerly, then, should they grasp anything which will lengthen out their lives to all eternity.
It is indeed a wonder that so few manifest an interest in that which pertains to their eternal welfare, while they are so zealous for life and happiness for a short time. In this the majority of mankind manifest only the wisdom of the infant who seizes the glittering toy, and rejects the infinitely more valuable bag of treasure.
But there are some who are anxiously inquiring, "What must I do to be saved?"
And to such the words of our Lord himself on this subject must be of all-absorbing interest.
Christ's Divinity is Life
The reader will notice that Jesus did not at once answer the young man's question, but asked him one on another subject. "Why do you call me good? there is none good but one, that is God." (Matthew 19:17)
Our Saviour did not mean to intimate by this that He was not good. He himself said that it was His meat "to do the will of the Father;" (John 4:34) and again He said to His disciples: "If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love." (John 15:10)
To the Jews, He said, "Which of you convinces me of sin?" (John 8:46)
Thus He demanded the closest scrutiny of His life. Paul says that: "[He] knew no sin;" (2 Corinthians 5:21) Peter says of Him that: "[He] did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth;" (1 Peter 2:22) and even the devils acknowledged Him to be "the Holy One of God." (Mark 1:24)
His character on earth was the same that it is now as our High Priest, "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." (Hebrews 7:26)
He was absolutely good; the perfection and embodiment of goodness. This being the case, we can understand His words, "there is none good but one, that is God," (Matthew 19:17) as nothing but a statement of the fact that He himself was entitled to be called God. If there is but one that is good, viz., God, and Christ is good, then Christ must be God. And this agrees with what the prophet had said of Christ: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." (Isaiah 9:6)
John also said: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)
Since He is the Son of God, He partakes of the divine attributes; and so Paul says that He occupies a more exalted position than the angels because "He has by inheritance a more excellent name than they." (Hebrews 1:4)
He was never on probation, as a candidate for life, as are all created beings, but has "life in himself," (John 5:26) being the creator of all things. "All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made." (John 1:3) "For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him." (Colossians 1:16)
The Father and the Son are one. "I and my Father are one." (John 10:30)
Both are worthy of worship. God alone may be worshiped, "And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things. Then he said unto me, See you do it not: for I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God." (Revelation 22:8-9) but Christ did not refuse the adoration of His disciples. "And they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy." (Luke 24:52)
We are not called upon to explain the mystery of godliness, nor expected to understand it, but Christ has explained to us how He and the Father are one. In His memorable prayer for His disciples, He said: "Holy Father, keep through your own name those whom You have given me, that they may be one, as we are one. ... And the glory which You gave me I have given them; that they may be one even as we are one." (John 17:11,22)
This oneness, then, is that of two distinct individuals having the same thoughts, the same purposes, the same attributes. The Father and the Son were one in creating the earth, and one in the devising and carrying out of the plan of salvation. They never worked at cross purposes.
And in harmony with Christ's prayer that union may exist among His disciples, Paul exhorts us to "all speak the same thing, and...[to] be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." (1 Corinthians 1:10)
We understand, therefore, that when Christ addressed to the young man the words found in Matthew 19:17, it was because He saw that this ruler, like Nicodemus, did not appreciate the divine character of Jesus, but thought Him to be a mere man. Christ penetrated the young man's thoughts, and by this question and reply revealed to him his own true nature.
Obedience is the Condition
Having incidentally settled this point, our Lord immediately answers the question, "What good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?" (Matthew 19:16)
He did not say, "You must not do anything," but said plainly, "If you will enter into life, keep the commandments." (Matthew 19:17)
The young man, greatly surprised, asked, "Which?" (Matthew 19:18)
Being a ruler of the Jews, he had, of course, kept the law, and prided himself on the strictness with which he had heeded all its requirements. The strictness of the Pharisees, extending even to the minutest forms and ceremonies, is proverbial. The young man, doubtless, like Paul, lived under the "straitest sect" of the Jew's religion. We can therefore imagine the astonishment and assurance with which he uttered the word, "Which?" As much as to say, "Why, are there any other commandments? Have you some new ones that are not written in the law? If so, tell me what they are."
Jesus calmly quotes a portion of the ten commandments, as showing that the law to which He has reference.
The fact that He did not quote all of them is no proof that He did not design that all should be kept. He did not quote the first nor the third, yet no one would argue from this that Christ meant to indicate to the young man that he could worship idols or indulge in profanity and still be saved. He simply quoted enough to show that He referred to that which was regarded by all as the law, and that He had no new commandment to offer.
Which Commandments?
Before commenting further on the observance of the commandments as the condition of eternal life, or the truth of the young man's reply in verse 20, we wish to briefly notice what this law is. In a matter of life and death it will not do to make a mistake. If the commandments are to be the test of our fitness for eternal life, we must have those commandments so clearly defined that there can be no doubt.
Fortunately, this is not a difficult thing to do. In the third month after the children of Israel left Egypt, they came to the wilderness of Sinai. The Lord told them to make certain preparations, for within three days He would come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. "And the Lord said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes, And be ready against the third day: for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai." (Exodus 19:10-11)
Nehemiah tells us why He thus came down: "You came down also upon mount Sinai, and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments." (Nehemiah 9:13)
His object, then, in coming down was to give the people laws of truth, good statutes. Besides this, Nehemiah says, "and commanded them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses your servant." (Nehemiah 9:14)
If now we can distinguish between the statutes given by the Lord himself and those given to Moses, we shall have discovered that which we seek--the condition of eternal life.
Returning to Exodus, we find that when the necessary preparations had been completed, the Lord did come down upon Mount Sinai, with fire and smoke, thunders and lightnings, and an earthquake. "And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that therewere thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly." (Exodus 19:16-18)
In the 20th chapter, verses 3-17, we find the words which the Lord spoke from the mount. In Deuteronomy 4:11-13, Moses rehearses the scenes of Sinai and plainly says that the words which God spoke are the ten commandments.
But may it not be that there is something besides these? Let us see. In the 5th chapter of Deuteronomy, Moses, in the course of his last charge to the people, repeated in substance these ten commandments as recorded in Exodus 20:3-17. When he had finished the recital, he said: "These words the Lord spoke unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and He added no more. And He wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me." (Deuteronomy 5:22)
Of these commandments, Moses said, "And you shall teach them diligently unto your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes." (Deuteronomy 6:7-8)
That these are the commandments, the keeping of which is the condition of eternal life, is proved by: "And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us." (Deuteronomy 6:25)
We have now found the commandments to which our Lord referred. We are not now concerned with the particulars of the other laws given to Moses, since the keeping of them is not required. "What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" (Matthew 19:16)
This is the question in which we are now interested, and those things not pertaining to this may be passed by. We now know what the law is.
Next we will consider the "Nature of the Law," to see why the keeping of it should be able to confer immortality.--Signs of the Times, June 19, 1884