Although the story of the rich young man is told only in 10:17-22, the next section (10:23-31) will have to be read in connection with it: Jesus links the meeting with the rich person, who because of his wealth cannot decide to follow him, to the dangers of riches (23-27) and the blessing of following (28-31). Wohlenberg¹ treats only the section 10:17-27 as a unity (dealing with “possessions and the heavenly kingdom”). His way of dividing is determined by the idea that three successive subjects are being discussed (marriage, 10:1-12; children, 10:13-16; possessions, 10:17-27). In the discussion of 10:13-16 it already appeared that this approach is incorrect, and it now even causes difficulties, because in 10:28 Peter clearly reacts to the instruction they have just received, so that no line of division can be drawn between 27 and 28. Although Haenchen² strongly disagrees with the entire exegesis of Wohlenberg, on this point he makes the same mistake. He lets his exegesis of the story of the rich young man be determined by the verses that directly follow (23-27, which deal with possessions), so that also for Haenchen the perspective is limited to the selling of all possessions (“ascetic Jewish-Christian”) while leaving out the positive call “to follow” (cf. 28-31). An unprejudiced examination of the total exegetical unity (17-31) teaches us in fact that the story of the rich young man cannot be explained as a general condemnation of riches, but must be read as proof of the position that wealth can make the following of Jesus more difficult. And the following of Jesus is the primary issue here!

How concretely this following is intended appears from the beginning of the story. 10:17 tells us that Jesus was setting out to leave the house (cf. 10:10) in order to go on a journey (eis hodon, “to a way, a journey”). The goal of the journey is not mentioned. If the preceding history already took place in Bethany (near Jerusalem), this departure has as goal a temporary retreat in Ephraim before Jesus openly goes up to Jerusalem (John 11:54; Mark 10:32). In any case, he leaves with his disciples and without the crowd. The one man who then still runs up to him in the early morning draws attention, all the more because he kneels before Jesus, acknowledging him as powerful and as his superior. He asks Jesus a question: “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” This time it is not a question “to test”: that is clear from his attitude. The fact that the man comes with this question specifically to Jesus shows that he sees Jesus as the person who knows the answer he needs. Apparently he has heard about the preaching of John the Baptist and Jesus (the kingdom of heaven that they announce is eternal life) and he has also understood that one does not “merit,” but inherits this kingdom and this life (by grace, from God). He wants to enter this kingdom and receive this life with Jesus. He knows that Jesus is the Teacher who leads people there. For this question Jesus is the good Teacher. This address is more than a flattering word in order to earn Jesus’ favour. The kneeling posture, which is unusual with respect to a rabbi, and the nature of the question, which is very personal, compel us to hear in the address “Good Teacher” an acknowledgement of Jesus as the Leader to life eternal. His word for the rich young man here is decisive.

In 10:18 Jesus reacts first to this address: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” We cannot explain this reaction as a rejection. Then Jesus would have said, “Do not call me ‘good.’” Now, however, he asks if the man is really reflecting properly when he is speaking: “good” in the sense of “leading into eternal life” is God alone. Therefore, Jesus also follows with God’s commandments. From God’s commandments one may expect the answer. Yet Jesus does not conclude with this. In the end he himself also gives a commandment (sell and follow), and by doing so Jesus acts as a divine lawgiver for the rich young man. In light of this it appears the more significant that at the start he only asks, “Why do you call me ‘good?’” Jesus takes an address, of which the speaker himself only barely realized the meaning, and shows that it was more important than the speaker thought or meant. The Good Teacher for eternal life is God alone. Yet Jesus wants to be the Good Teacher. Implicitly this shows how God is in our midst: Immanuel. Finding the way means following Jesus: eternal life is with and in him.

The interpretation of Jesus’ reaction to being called “good teacher” is quite frequently influenced by the fact that some manuscripts offer in Matthew 19:16-17 a different statement (“‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?’ And he said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good’”). A larger number of manuscripts, however, read also in Matthew about the same as Mark and Luke. This leads first of all to a text-critical question: are the majority of the manuscripts in Matthew then not strongly harmonizing? It certainly seems so. Yet Wenham³ has disputed the idea of a harmonizing of the text in this case. It is striking that for the rest, the text of Matthew has not been equalized (harmonized) with that in the other Gospels (1. Matthew has more dialogue. 2. Matthew gives in 19:19 love for the neighbour as an extra commandment. 3. Matthew is the only one who speaks about the rich young man’s wish “to be perfect.” 4. Only Matthew calls the rich man a “young man.” 5. There is quite a large number of small differences in wording with respect to Mark/Luke.) All this leads to another question, which is situated in the area of the interdependence of the Gospels. Does not the textual situation prove that Mark is the oldest Gospel and that Matthew has made use of it, while adapting it, and that also Luke had it, in a shortened form, as source? For Stonehouse⁴ the passage about the rich young man is the strongest proof for Mark’s priority. This leads us to a third question: what editorial motivations led Matthew and Luke in their adaptation of Mark? Boer⁵ defends the idea that Matthew, in a later phase of Christological development, took offence at Mark’s text. According to Mark, Jesus would have objected to the name “God,” and Matthew disagrees with this. Therefore, he has changed the wording (“Why do you ask me about what is good?”). From this view of Matthew’s text and editing one comes to explain Mark’s text as indicating a rejection by Jesus of what he was called by the rich young man. But in fact this exegesis is not at all necessary: why then would later copiers have “accommodated” the text of Matthew to Mark? They apparently have had no trouble with this text and have definitely not read it as a denial of Jesus’ divine nature. But then it is also very much to be questioned whether Mark has read it as such. Moreover, it is an extra-textual hypothetical idea that Matthew should have used the Gospel of Mark as a source. We don’t inquire further into the textual question in Matthew and limit ourselves to the observation that in both readings we have to think of an attempt by Jesus to cause the man to think further about the consequences of his question (“There is only one Good Teacher: God”; “The question about what is good can be answered by God alone”).

In 10:19 Jesus sums up God’s commandments; after all, the rich young man knows them! Does he not ask what he is already familiar with? Jesus’ enumeration focuses on the second table of the law (commandments concerning the neighbour; Matthew then adds by way of summary the command to love the neighbour). The sequence of the commands against adultery and murder changes in the manuscripts. In the various manuscripts of the Greek translation of the Old Testament this also happens. An exact repetition of the sequence as followed in Exodus 20 is not intended (the fifth commandment comes last in the enumeration). Mark is the only evangelist who adds the commandment, “Do not defraud.” According to some this is a reflection of the 10th commandment (do not covet); according to others it is reference to Deuteronomy 24:14 (not to keep from the hired servant his wages), while still others defend the idea that this is not a direct quotation but rather a free summary of all sorts of positively formulated commandments, that one gives to every person what is his. The somewhat loose summary of a handful of commandments places all emphasis on the connecting element: love for the neighbour. Wohlenberg⁶ thinks that the rich young man interrupts Jesus and so prevents him from pointing to the first table of the law. The text however does not give any reason for this (and certainly not if one gives attention to Matt. 19:19b). Since the commands of love for the neighbour form the conclusion to the commands to serve God, it is also not correct to say that the commands of the first table are ignored. Reverence for the commands of the second table fulfils the requirement of the first table of the law. Since the rich young man asked what he had to do, Jesus points particularly to the “to do” commandments of the law, those that teach us to do or avoid doing something with respect to each other in this world.

The reply of the rich young man in 10:20 acknowledges God’s commands and indicates that he has kept all this “from my youth.” The expression “from my youth” in Mark and Luke does not have to conflict with the fact that Matthew speaks of the man as a “young man.” The Greek word neaniskos points to the period of life of the young man (sometimes specified as the age of twenty-on to twenty-eight years). The expression ek neotetos compares the period of youth with the later time of life: it can go back to the earliest youth. In short, the young man will have been about twenty-five years old and has kept the commandments from his youth (twelve/thirteen years). It is to be noted that this morally upright believer still comes to Jesus. It shows that he has advanced much further than many Pharisees. His reverential attitude toward the law does not prevent him from acknowledging Jesus as the Teacher sent by God for eternal life.

And so we read in 10:21 that Jesus looked at the man and loved him. His answer was upright and his love for the teacher Jesus appeared to be pure. So all of righteous Israel should lie before him on their knees, but there is only this one. Him Jesus gives his love. This love is visible from the election: the man receives an answer and is allowed to become a follower. Jesus is willing to add him to his closest followers. He may receive a late call to become a disciple. The call is special: many believers were sent home. The order to believe in Jesus is general, but it is very special if one is allowed to follow and accompany the good Master.

The invitation to follow is preceded by a charge to sell his possessions. The proceeds are not for Jesus, but for the poor. And it is not lost money: the young man knows as a believing Jew that all that one gives to the poor is entered in heaven as a credit on one’s account. Since the man is very rich he will, by giving his possessions to the poor, invest also a large sum of money in heaven. Many exegetes place exclusive emphasis on the selling of all possessions, as if this was the only thing lacking in the man. Then the question immediately arises whether this applies to all people (get rid of all possessions when becoming a Christian) and whether we must spiritualize it (there is no humility and this is shown by the command that will not be followed). The one thing lacking, however, is not that the man keeps his money, but that he does not yet follow Jesus in his poverty and suffering. According to the majority of manuscripts Jesus says also that the man, in following, “must take up the cross.” Even if one should be unwilling to consider these words as original, the fact remains that Jesus calls the man to follow at a very special moment: he is on the way to die (the rich man as a “ruler” (Luke 18:18) must certainly have known that the Sanhedrin is already planning his death). At this moment Jesus leaves the house to set out on a journey. It is a journey whereby he leaves everything behind and those who follow him become fellow travellers of a poor and suffering Mediator. That is how one has to be willing to accept the good Teacher — not only as one before whom the young man kneels down, but as one for whom humiliation unto poverty is necessary in order to reach life. The emphasis is not on the giving to the poor, but on the willingness to be poor with Jesus oneself. As Paul writes later, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).

In 10:22 we read that the man was disheartened when he heard this and that he went away sorrowful, for he had many possessions. Wohlenberg⁷ thinks that stugnasas indicates that the man’s face turned red with shame and adds to this the meditative suggestion that this blush of shame may perhaps have become the morning-red of his conversion. This suggestion can better be connected, however, with the information about the man’s “sorrow.” He does not leave angry, but powerless and sad. Jesus has made him feel with how many ties he is bound to his earthly possessions and he can now begin to realize what it means that the good Teacher from God leaves everything behind and soon takes up a cross. It is not impossible that after Pentecost this young man has joined the congregation and that Jesus’ death on the cross has moved him also to give much of his wealth to the poor (Acts 2:45; 4:34). We are supported in this hopeful expectation by the fact that Jesus himself has said on this occasion that all things are possible with God (10:27). But during his humiliation he had to experience that such a believing and seeking young man went away from him because the riches of this world attracted more strongly than the poverty of Jesus. God the Father could at this same moment have moved the rich young man toward that one thing that was now required, but he makes Jesus lonely and causes him to suffer by now still withholding this harvest from him.

The rest of the New Testament does not show that the order to the rich young man is a general order, applying to all rich people at all times. It does, however, imply for everyone that faith in a crucified Jesus must lead to a “possessing as if we did not possess” (1 Cor. 7:29-31), and to the doing good to all (1 Tim. 6:17-19).

In 10:23 Jesus connects instruction of the disciples with the departure of the rich young man. He looks around himself: the man moves away (cf. Luke 18:24). Now everyone sees how difficult it will be for those who have possessions to enter the kingdom of God! The disciples are filled with amazement at these words (10:24): for them wealth is a positive good, a means of prosperity, power, and culture. Disciples who shrink from the gospel of suffering also get confused when entering the kingdom is explained as a matter of sheer poverty. Jesus then repeats his statement and makes it more precise: the sting is in trusting in riches. Often without realizing it, the heart finds its support in the possessions of this earth and then it is difficult truly to really expect everything from the poor Jesus.

In fact (10:25) it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. The camel stands high on its legs and is therefore an animal that often cannot enter through the city gates and therefore gets stationed before the gates. How much harder would it be for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle: absolutely impossible.

With reference to this picture people keep coming with a plea for the idea of “ship cable” (kamilon instead of kamelon). Köbert⁸ assumes that a type of ship’s rope was sometimes referred to as “the camel” and that in this way the word “camel” got a double meaning (1. camel, 2. (shipping term) cable rope). Yet it is better to think of the camel as an animal. This animal really “goes” through openings, whereas a ship’s cable usually does not stick through openings and that it is being done by others (and not the “camel”).

In 10:26 the disciples appear to be dismayed. If a rich man is so far removed from the kingdom as a camel is from entering through the eye of a needle, that means that also the less wealthy have no chance whatsoever. Trusting in what they possess may not be quite as strong among people with few possessions, but also a small donkey, even a mouse, cannot go through the eye of a needle! And they say among themselves, “If that is the case we may as well forget it. Who can then be saved?”

Just as Jesus once looked at the rich young man, he now looks penetratingly at his disciples (10:27). It is good that they for themselves have seen a road that comes to a dead end. That will teach them also as disciples to expect their entry into the kingdom from God alone. With man it is impossible (that anyone would be saved, 10:26), but not with God: all things are possible with him! Disciples who look at the retreating young man see themselves as in a mirror, but they now must look up to God. He can bring the rich and the less rich to the acceptance of the impoverished Jesus and to a relinquishing of their trust in all worldly possessions. The future of the New Testament church will prove this. And some of it can already be seen in the life of the disciples.

In 10:28 Peter points to that. He said what everyone thought: “See, we have left everything and followed you.” When he called the disciples Jesus did not ask them to sell everything. Their charge was to leave everything and to follow (Mark 1:16-20), and whereas the rich young man refused, they had obeyed Jesus’ call at the time. They mention this as a reaction to Jesus’ word that all things are possible with God: their own action shows that God can make it happen in the life of a human being (leaving everything and following Jesus). To this statement, however, the question is also connected whether they now will indeed partake in the kingdom of God and life eternal: is not that which is impossible for others their future? With so many words this is stated in Matthew 19:27: “What then will happen to us?”

Theissen⁹ wants to place this “leaving everything” into a sociological context: in first-century Palestine the time had come for many impoverished members of the middle class to break out in one way or another (asceticism; guerrilla; etc.) from the normal community setup. Younger people also were susceptible to this. But Theissen compares things that are not comparable. The religious root is with the disciples not just one of the roots, but the decisive one. Moreover, they did not belong to the impoverished middle class but to the middle class of tradespeople with sometimes flourishing businesses (e.g., the family business of Zebedee).

Jesus’ answer in 10:29-31 is two-edged. On the one hand he acknowledges that those who follow him will be rewarded; on the other he warns against false confidence (29-31). There is a reward for those who leave “house, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, wife (mentioned in most manuscripts), children or lands.” It is not a matter of asceticism here, and also not of a general command to isolate oneself. For the sake of Christ and the good news of the coming kingdom, however, one can be placed before a choice, whereby one either believes the news of the gospel or does not do so because of family or possessions. The twelve disciples are, because of their special task, very specially placed before such a choice. During the time when Christ gives his orders and the spread of the good news comes with its duties, when many do not believe and are even hostile, following also often means leaving things behind. This is not the detached leaving behind of the ascetic who lets go of the world, but the painful leaving behind by the believer who loves Jesus and the kingdom still more than his own loved ones and his possessions.

Jesus guarantees the reward (“Truly, I say to you…who will not receive”). The reward is manifold (a hundred times). It is given not only in the world to come (the kingdom of heaven brings eternal life), but also already at this time (when the believers still suffer persecution). They receive back houses, brothers and sisters, mothers, children and lands in the community of the church where nobody shields his possessions from the other and where a new community of love is found (see the picture of the early church in Acts and the demands for a life as it has to be lived within the body of Christ in the epistles). According to Grotius¹⁰ the mentioning of the “wife” is not repeated in the promise because this could lead to a slanderous misunderstanding. The question is, however, if this does not apply to “children” as well. Since “fathers” is also not repeated, it seems less correct to give special meaning to the abridgement of the list of verse 29 in verse 30.

False confidence is prevented when in 10:31 Jesus concludes with the words, “But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” The word “many” receives emphasis by coming first: Jesus’ statement does not apply to just a few. We cannot ignore the word as if it applied only to exceptional cases. It is said to the many disciples. This is not to say that God reverses the standards of the world (the rich stay behind, the poor have priority: Haenchen¹¹ ). Verse 31 does not begin with the word “for.” But the use of “but, however” indicates that verse 31 contains a type of warning for the disciples. They now think themselves to be far and away the first as early followers, but they must realize that the last (such as the rich young man) could come ahead of them. Compare Judas, one of the twelve, with Paul, a persecutor of the church. That Jesus opposes here complacency and confidence in one’s own situation in the church appears also in Matthew where the parable of the labourers in the vineyard follows directly upon the warning of verse 31. What seems impossible with man remains impossible also with disciples: it is possible only with God that the rich and the followers are saved. Leaving possessions behind and following may not become a new wealth wherein one trusts; how difficult, then, is it for the first to enter the kingdom!