The man was being sardonic.You're reading a whole lot into it that is not there. It is clear from the text that he wanted to know what Jesus would say he had to do to inherit eternal life, and probably thought he could impress Jesus and those around him with his righteousness. Jesus, though, knowing the hearts of men, took him up on it and said "obey these laws". When the man claimed to have done so all his life, Jesus simply exposed the idol hidden in the man's heart, his wealth, and told him to get rid of it. Remember the first of the Ten Commandments. Don't you get it? Jesus effortlessly pointed out that the man was breaking the very first of the laws he claimed he had always followed.And you are missing the point. Wealth is not evil and God sometimes uses it to bless His people. For this guy, however, it was more important than God, and that is what Jesus exposed. Sure, he was trying to follow the law and thought he was doing well, but Jesus revealed his true heart. Remember the first of the Ten Commandments. Following the law with a corrupted heart does no good whatsoever.How does one become worthy of heaven, eternal life?
By conforming to the laws demands.
'The man said he followed the law since he was a child.
Jesus taught that the literal application of the law was wrong., that there is hidden teaching and hidden subjects.
For the man to follow Jesus to have 'riches in heaven', the reward of the righteous, he would have to abandon the way he had been following the law since childhood and follow the teaching of Jesus.
This is what the story is about. If you think that having wealth excludes people from the kingdom of God, you really don't know what you are talking about. Its a dangerous and false teaching that can screw up a persons life for good with confusion and senseless suffering.
"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure lying buried in a field. The man who found it buried it again and for sheer joy went out and sold everything he had and bought that field.", Matthew 13:44
You have missed the point entirely. Having a yard sale is not the key to eternal life.
No, obedience to the law, not a desire for wealth, was the mans priority and expression of love and devotion to God.
What he had to face and what gave him a heavy heart was not that he had to have a yard sale but he had to accept that everything he had invested in since childhood by conforming to the literal application of the law was in error.
Remember the first of the Ten Commandments.
He already knew that his lifelong dedication to holiness through obedience to the literal letter of law would assure him a place in the world to come.
No one short of Jesus Himself has managed to keep the entire law their entire life. If that man had seriously done it, he would never have had to make a sin offering. Do you seriously think he lived his entire life without making even one such offering?
You keep acting like I'm saying there is such a law. I most clearly am not, so you can drop that particular line of argument. This man clearly broke the very first commandment, ie, to not have any other gods before God. His wealth was his idol, and Jesus exposed it.There is no commandment against wealth, in fact prosperity would have been seen as a sign of Gods approval.
No, the story is not about any idol.
I see the problem.
You do not even have an inkling that Jesus revealed a new way to conform to divine law that was hidden and buried in figurative language since the time of Moses.
You have been told that when Jesus appeared the law became obsolete, but I am telling you that the only thing about the law that became obsolete was the wrong way to follow it.
Thats what the man had to give up, the wrong way to follow the law, that was his problem, not wealth.
Its the same problem you are having accepting that everything you have been taught to believe about an edible triune mangod is false.
The man walked away with a heavy heart because the entire structure of his conscious mind, beliefs about God, ideas about right and wrong, and perception of reality had to be rebuilt from scratch.
Do you have that kind of faith?
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