Deeper Commentary

10:1 And he left there and went into the regions of Judea on the other side of the Jordan. Crowds gathered around him again, and as was his custom he taught them- The significance is that this was the beginning of His journey to Jerusalem and death. The emphasis is upon the location of these mass healings- “there”, in Judea “beyond Jordan” (Mt. 19:1), a semi-Gentile area. The suggestion grows stronger and stronger that the future of His work is with the Gentiles.

10:2 And there came to him Pharisees, who asked him- Presumably “there”, beyond Jordan. They had maybe heard that He was there because of the rumors of great miracles, and yet they made the effort to go to Him there with their legalistic questions. Their petty legalism contrasts sharply with the wonder of His teaching and extent of His miracles. They tagged along with the crowds, for they “also” came unto Him.

Is it lawful for a man to send away his wife?- The parallel record in Matthew 18 has the material arranged according to a chiasmic structure [see note there]. Within that structure, this teaching about divorce is parallel with the Lord’s teaching about not despising little ones but rather unconditionally forgiving them (see notes on Matthew 18). It cannot therefore be accidental that there is a word play in the usage of the word apoluo, to “put away”, because the word is also used concerning forgiveness, the sending away of the sin of another, and releasing them from debt to us. The word has just been used in Mt. 18:27, where the gracious Lord “loosed” the wicked servant from his huge debt without repentance. And so the question here is whether a man could put away / forgive / release his wife “for every cause”. In a sense, the man was indeed to release / forgive his wife for every cause, for everything. But of course the Pharisees had in view the sense of sending away in divorce, and not forgiveness. The Lord surely means them to understand that they should send her away- in forgiveness.

For any cause?- The standard interpretation is that the Pharisees were seeking to draw the Lord into taking a position behind  either the school of Hillel (that a man might divorce his wife for any reason) or that of Shammai (divorce was allowable only for unfaithfulness). The Hillel school had justified Herod Antipas recent marriage on this basis, and he was likely to crack down on anyone teaching otherwise- this was obviously one reason they sought to lead the Lord into this whole minefield. But if so, the question arises as to why they should raise this issue with Him so apparently ‘out of the blue’. If the question was simply as to which rabbinic school the Lord supported on this issue, then it would seem that He quite clearly came down on the side of Shammai- ‘for unfaithfulness’. But whenever the Lord was given such questions, He always avoided giving such direct answers but rather elevated the issues to a much higher and yet more essential level. I suggest that what they found so shocking was His teaching about unconditional forgiveness regardless of the sincerity of repentance, and so they came to Him with the case of adultery in marriage- where surely, so they thought, there could be no forgiveness for adultery and in fact Moses commanded that a man divorce his wife in this case. Whichever rabbinic school the Lord supported, He would surely have to admit that there were some sins which could not just be forgiven but must be acted upon in terms of divorce and exclusion from the marriage. Their use of apoluo, to “put away”, was therefore a conscious allusion to the Lord’s usage of the word in 18:27, where the gracious Lord “loosed” [s.w.] the wicked servant from his huge debt without repentance. So I would read the Pharisees here as implying: ‘You claim a man must forgive his brother anything without checking out his repentance; but OK, can a man really forgive his wife “every cause”? And Moses surely did sanction divorce for some reasons, whether you go with Hillel [‘every or any cause’] or Shammai [for adultery]”. In terms of connection with the Lord’s previous teaching, the Lord had taught that if someone sins against you, i.e. a personal offence, then you can drag them through the synagogue discipline system [“tell it to the ekklesia / assembled meeting”]- although the higher level was unconditional forgiveness. For many listeners and readers, that teaching begs the very same question: “OK, so far so good, Jesus… but really, literally, for every cause, in every case…?”. The Pharisees are asking this question, assuming that they have the Lord trapped because Moses teaches divorce for some things. Of course, Moses doesn’t ‘teach divorce’- there was a higher level. If your wife sinned against you, you could do as Hosea did, and simply forgive her, rather than making use of Mosaic concessions. Hence the Lord’s answer is basically that any verses in the Law which might appear to teach divorce are in fact concessions to human weakness and not the ideal standard.

They asked this to test him- Another hint that the source of ‘testing’ in the wilderness which returned to the Lord later in His ministry was from the Jewish satan / adversary.

10:3 And he answered and said to them: What did Moses command you?- As noted on :4, the emphasis may be on "command"; they were citing a concession for human weakness, "for the hardness of your hearts"; but the Lord is perhaps arguing that a concession is not a command in the legalistic sense they wished to interpret it. Their legalism is reflected in how they don’t simply say that Moses ‘commanded’ divorce, but rather than Moses commanded a bill of divorce and then divorce. The legal aspect was all important to them.

10:4 And they said: Moses permitted a man to write a bill of divorcement and to send her away- They had missed the point, that a concession ["for the hardness of your hearts"] is not a command. Their legalism required that if something was in the teaching of Moses, then this must be done. But they missed the point that there were actually levels of response within the Mosaic law. Adultery could be simply forgiven, dealt with through the trial of jealousy in Numbers 5, become the basis for divorce, or result in the woman being killed. Such a position is very hard for legalists to cope with, desiring as they do clear definition for every situation in life. Hence the Lord emphasized twice in this dialogue that divorce was a concession for their hard hearts.

"A bill of divorcement", Gk. Biblion apostasion, literally this could be understood as ‘A Bible / writing of apostasy’. The ‘lower level’ option of divorce for adultery was all part of a law which was “holy, just and good”, but it could so easily be misused and thus lead people into moral apostasy.

10:5- see on Dt. 31:9.

But Jesus said to them: For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment- Moses allowed divorce for the hardness of Israel's hearts and yet Moses himself appears to have divorced his wife (Ex. 18:2)- for the hardness of his heart? See Dt. 20:14. This appears to be the second time in this discourse that the Lord talks about the way Moses had made a concession to their weakness- see on Mt. 19:4 Have you not read?

10:6 But from the beginning of the creation: Male and female made He them- It was Moses who wrote Genesis, under Divine inspiration. So the Lord was saying that actually, Moses within his own writings laid down a principle and yet also recorded a concession to weakness. This idea is so hard for the legalistic mind to accept- that within Divine law there are different levels, all is not black and white. 

10:7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cling to his wife- The cleaving or clinging spoken of in Genesis is a process; this is an example of how God can work directly upon the heart and psychology of persons to unite them. To give up on the process is therefore to go against what is potentially possible. And those who seek to interfere in and block that intended process, be they parents or extramarital lovers, are equally guilty. The clinging together is part of how God joins married, believing couples together (:9).

10:8 And the two shall become one flesh; so that they are no more two but one flesh- This appears to be a status, referring to marriage rather than solely to the sexual act. Because it is paralleled with “what God has joined together” and is not to be sundered. 

10:9 What therefore God has joined together- As a couple "cleave" to one another, so they become one flesh (Gen. 2:24). But this becoming one flesh is interpreted by the Lord Jesus as meaning that God actively joins the couple together; as they cleave to each other in the process of their relationship, so God joins them together. Clearly the Lord understood Gen. 2:24 as speaking of the process of marriage, rather than simply the ceremony of a wedding. In passing, note that the Hebrew idea of two becoming one had already been used in Genesis- the morning and evening, the day and night, were fused by God into one day (Gen. 1:5- the same Hebrew phrase is used). Similarly we read of the waters becoming, or being made one, by God (Gen. 1:9). It's as if the immense power of God in creation is unleashed in His bonding of man and wife together. To put that asunder is to fight against the very creative power of God.

 

Do not let man- By sundering relationships, we are pitting ourselves against the intentions and processes of God’s Spirit and His actions amongst men. But of course we can indeed put asunder what God joined. He does not force His ways and processes upon people. The parallel [see on :1] is with how we can refuse acceptance to the ‘little ones’ by despising and not forgiving them. God’s processes intend to create unity between His people as well as between marriage partners; but we can chose to disallow the effect of His work, both in our own lives and those of others. By rejecting people, the Lord had taught in the previous section of the chiasmus, we make them stumble and damage the “little ones”. And those same principles apply in marriage- the little ones are made to stumble, and the rejection of a marriage partner often leads them into sin, i.e. they are made to stumble. This I think is the sense of Mt. 5:32, that divorcing a partner causes her to commit adultery- i.e. we will lead her to a sinful life.

Divide- See on :7. The dividing can be by other parties in addition to the two parties to the marriage. We are not to "let" them do that. The same Greek word is used in 1 Cor. 7:10,11,15 of how Paul allows for a wife to “depart” or ‘sunder’ from her husband. Clearly, therefore, the Lord is presenting here an ideal state. But that presentation doesn’t mean that God will not tolerate lower levels of living before Him. Man can put asunder what God has joined not simply in our own marriage. It can just as much be done by parents seeking to keep their children within the sphere of the family of origin, not letting go; by pressurizing one side of a marriage to adopt a position against their partner, etc. Especially is this true of those who demand that a believing husband or wife not have fellowship with their believing partner because of theological or ‘fellowship’ differences.

10:10 And in the house the disciples asked him about this matter- We have recently read how again "in the house" the Lord had explained things further to His disciples (9:28,29, 33-37). This was His style; to provide deeper teaching to those who really wanted it.

 10:11 And he said to them: Whoever shall send away his wife and marry another, commits adultery against her- The parallel in Matthew 19 includes the exception "for porneia", adding that not all can accept His standards here. The Lord here seems to have in view a situation where a man proactively takes the decision to send his wife away. The implication could be that if he has to send her away, then she actually wishes to remain with him. The language of sending away surely implies she was still living with him. Therefore what is in view is a situation of unforgiveness on the part of the husband, and that is the entire context of this section of teaching which began in Matthew 18. The adultery was therefore a temporary situation and didn't involve the wife moving in with another man. In such a case, this whole passage is not directly relevant. The more general idea in Matthew 18 of dealing with personal sins against us is now focused down to the classic personal offence, the sin against us of a partner committing adultery. And let us note that the whole passage beginning in Matthew 18 is speaking of ideal standards, whilst the Lord is prepared to accept lower standards. Let's remember that in 1 Cor. 7 we are challenged that the single life of devotion to the Lord is the highest level, and marriage in itself is a concession to human weakness which most of us have made use of. And overarching all our thinking about this matter, especially in terms of our response to those who may divorce for not very solid reasons, we have the parable at the end of chapter 18. We are to see ourselves as chief of sinners, with an unpayable and huge debt to the Lord, compared to which all sin against us is of small account. We also need to remember that others' behaviour to each other is not a sin against us. The teaching here is very personal- about how we are to respond to personal sin against us, and here the specific example of adultery within marriage is raised. This teaching is not really about how we should respond to the sins of others (e.g. divorce for the wrong reasons) which we observe from a distance.

10:12 And if she herself shall send away her husband and marry another, she commits adultery- The Rabbis in the Lord’s time were split into two schools on the question of divorce. One school taught that divorce was available for any reason, whilst the other said that it was only for sexual impurity. The question was put to Jesus as to when He thought divorce was possible. It seemed that He was going to be forced to take sides with one of the two contemporary attitudes. But He cut clean through the whole thinking of first century Israel by basing his argument on the principles of Eden: God created man and woman, and joined them together; therefore, He reasoned, the ideal standard is that there should be no divorce for any reason, including adultery. This is typical of His teaching; through radical and fundamental recourse to the Old Testament, His teachings cut right through all the conceptions and expectations which were present in the mind of first century Jewry as a result of their cultural conditioning. We too must cut through the cultural conditioning of our era. In the time of Jesus, Roman law allowed women to divorce their husbands; some of the women of Herod’s family got divorces like this. The Lord was aware of this, and commented upon this local social attitude, roundly condemning it: “If a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she commits adultery”. If the Lord was so unafraid to challenge local cultural attitudes towards women, why should we think that He merely went along with those local contemporary attitudes?

10:13 And they were bringing to him little children- This continues the connection with the beginning of this section in Matthew 18, which began with a little child being brought to the Lord and Him making the disciples open their closed circle in order to accept the one whom they considered so far beneath them spiritually. He taught then, and teaches again here, that they were to see in the children symbols of themselves, in all their weakness and misunderstanding. In the same way as here the children are “brought” to Jesus, so we often read in the Gospels of people [including the disciples] being “brought” to Him. Their [and our] salvation depends partly upon others having brought us to Him.  

That he should touch them- The Lord agrees to the request, blessing little ones for the sake of the efforts of third parties who bring them to Him (as in Mk. 2:5 and so often in the work of saving and curing men). As the children ‘received’ this blessing, so the Lord urges the disciples to ‘receive’ the things of the Kingdom- for Mk. 10:15 records the Lord’s further comment that “whoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no way enter into it”. Those children receiving His grace and blessing, all the more gracious because they received it thanks to others bringing them to it, represent each disciple who receives the grace and blessing of the Kingdom.

And the disciples rebuked them- This is such a theme, of the disciples barring those who wanted to come to the Lord. We think of the Syro-Phoenician woman and other children, and the "little ones" of John's disciples. Such attitudes provoke the Lord's anger with us (:14).  And they were doing this yet again despite the Lord’s sober warning that turning away little ones is making them stumble, and will lead to eternal rejection from God’s Kingdom. The disciples in their preaching, of which the Gospels are transcripts, were stressing how they had so failed to grasp this vital teaching. 

10:14 But when Jesus saw it, he was moved with indignation, and said to them: Permit the little children to come to me; forbid them not. For to such belongs the kingdom of God-

The Lord rebuked the disciples for 'forbidding' John's disciples and the little ones to come to Him (Mk. 9:38); and yet He uses the same word to describe how the lawyers hindered [s.w. 'forbad'] people to enter the Kingdom. There's a very clear parallel here between the disciples and their Jewish teachers who had so influenced their thinking. But they finally got there- for Peter insisted that Gentiles should not be forbidden [s.w. 'hinder'] baptism (Acts 10:47); and he uses the same word again when he says that now, he will not "withstand [s.w. 'hinder'] God in hindering people to come to Him (Acts 11:17). The awfulness of the disciples' attitude is brought out by the use of the word in 1 Thess. 2:16, where Paul says that the way the Jews 'forbad' or hindered the preaching of the Gospel was cause for the wrath of God to come upon them "to the uppermost". And the disciples initially followed their Jewish elders in this kind of behaviour. In passing, there is a sober warning here to those who would likewise 'forbid' baptism to those who sincerely seek it, and who will not allow ‘little ones’ to the Lord’s table.

Mk. 10:15 adds: “Whoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no way enter into it”. This is exactly how the whole section began in Matthew (18:3). The Greek for “receive” is often used about people accepting the Gospel. The implication is that one can receive the Gospel of the Kingdom of God- and yet not enter it, because we didn’t receive it as a child. We didn’t accept that we are the ‘little ones’, accepting we know so little, and just marvelling at the special grace being shown us which we accept in awed wonder. The language of ‘entering the Kingdom’ is used both of our final entry into the Kingdom when Christ returns (Mt. 25:10,21; Jn. 3:5), and of our current entering the Kingdom. The rich man can enter the Kingdom right now if he sheds the load of his wealth (Mt. 19:23,24). The Scribes stopped and hindered those who were entering the Kingdom from entering, locking the door through which the Kingdom could now be entered, all because they chose not to enter themselves (Mt. 23:13; Lk. 11:52). So it’s a case of ‘Now but not yet’. We do now enter into God’s rest, and yet we are promised that we will enter that rest at Christ’s return (Heb. 4:1-11). The Lord had warned that our righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes, or we will likewise not enter the Kingdom (Mt. 5:20); but that righteousness is in accepting the blessing of righteousness as a little child; for without that we shall not enter the kingdom. Those who do the will of the Father will enter the Kingdom (Mt. 7:21)- and that will is to be as little children and accept gifts without seeking to justify ourselves or earn them.

The value of persons felt by the Lord is made very obvious when we notice His attention to women, children, Gentiles and the mentally ill / deformed. These three groups often occur together in the Rabbis’ teaching. The very people who were not counted as persons, the Lord went out of His way to express value for. And in this He sets us an example. Children were counted as of little value- but the Lord spoke about salvation for children (Mk. 10:14), and of the need to become like a child if we are to enter His Kingdom (Mt. 18:3). This purposeful recognition of the value of all human persons was a radical and difficult thing in His surrounding culture. And so it can be in ours too.

10:15 Truly I say to you, whoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no way enter into it- The Greek word for "receive" is different to that used in Mt. 19:12, where the Lord bids those able to "receive" the highest standard concerning remarriage to do so. But the idea is surely the same. How do we 'receive' His high standards and challenges in personal decision making? By receiving them as those children received His blessings, not arguing back, accepting whatever comes from His hand, not considering that we are in any position to do anything other than receive what He gives us. Note that the children receiving His blessings become, therefore, the pattern for our receiving His demands upon our personal living, our forgiveness even of adulterous partners, our rejection of legitimate options of remarriage [in some cases] in order to follow His higher standards. This is nothing less than profound. 

10:16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them- His blessing was and is mediated without physical contact. The need for physical contact in order to receive blessing was embedded in the religious mentality of the time, and is seen to this day in so many rituals and traditions of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The sick woman thought to herself that if she could only touch Jesus, she would be made whole; but He responded that He made her whole because of her faith (Mt. 9:21,22). He was gently correcting her mistaken understanding of the power of touch. And yet the Lord made a concession to this misunderstanding by indeed touching the children as requested.

10:17 And as he was proceeding along the road, a man ran to him and kneeled before him, and asked him: Good Teacher, what shall I do- This young man (Mt. 19:20) was a "ruler" (Lk. 18:18). To come to Jesus in a public place ["in the way"] and running- when rulers were supposed to never run in public but maintain decorum- all positively indicates a genuine belief in Jesus. Kneeling before Him was also a public sign of acceptance of Jesus as Lord. But he failed as so many do with respect to his wealth. He was a yuppy, a high flier, a rich young man who was also a "ruler". And he wasn't going to give that up; his 'sincerity' is shown by his sadness [RV "his countenance fell"] and his going away "grieved" (:22). This walking away is an anticlimax, not the expected outcome of all the devotion displayed. But the account is structured in this unexpected way to highlight the extraordinary significance of a person's attitude to wealth, and how this can make all their other devotion meaningless.

The man was clearly influenced by the Jewish idea that one supreme good deed (Mt. "good thing") could assure the doer of salvation. This was particularly popular amongst the zealots, who considered that suicidal attacks on the Romans could assure them of salvation; the same mentality is to be found in Islamic suicide bombers today. But in His typical manner, the Lord doesn’t address the misunderstanding but rather works with it. He ends up telling the man that if he sells all he has and gives to the poor, then he will have “treasure in Heaven”. This, therefore, isn’t a global command to every Christian. It was designed especially for this young man who thought that just one great act of obedience would secure salvation. The Lord went along with this by giving him such an example; but added: “And come and follow Me”, thus gently correcting the idea that one great act is enough for salvation. 

Rom. 7:19 is Paul’s allusion here, where he laments that like the young man, the good that he would do [same Greek words] he finds himself unable to do because of the sin that dwells within him. But instead of walking away from the Lord as this man did, Paul threw himself upon the Lord’s grace. This zealous young man was also understood by Peter as representative of us all; for he clearly alludes to him in 1 Pet. 3:10,11: “He who would love life and see good days [cp. the young man wanting to “have eternal life”]… let him… do good” (same Greek words). 

That I may inherit eternal life?- But Jesus had taught that the Kingdom of God on earth would be 'inherited' by the poor and meek (Mt. 5:5). If the man had thought that one through, he would've known the answer ahead of time. If he was rich and young, the chances are he had inherited his wealth- and he wanted to know how he could inherit eternity as well. He likely figured that money can buy everything- and in a strange way, the Lord was saying that the giving of wealth and inheriting eternity are in fact related, although actually ultimate 'goodness' and acceptance with God can't come from any such work of obedience.

 “Inherit” eternal life suggests he considered eternity a right that he must receive if he does only one great deed. The disciples heard the Lord assuring His people that those who follow Him will “have eternal life”, enter the Kingdom, enter into life, etc. But having heard all that, Peter asked: “We have left all… what shall we have?” (Mt. 19:27). The irony of it all is tragic. They’d just been promised they would “have” eternal life. But that wasn’t enough. Their focus was very much on this life; what shall we have here and now? They couldn’t see very much beyond the present, past the curvature of their earth.  Ruth’s unnamed relative could have been her redeemer; but when he realized he would have to marry her and have children, and split up his fields into more strips so as to give those children an inheritance along with that of his existing children- he pulled out. He wouldn’t ‘mar his inheritance’. He saw ahead to his death, to the next generation. His horizon was 20 years at most. But Boaz who didn’t think like this established his spiritual inheritance eternally, and is therefore mentioned in the Lord’s genealogy. Whilst the short sighted man passed off the page of history anonymously; his name wasn’t preserved.

10:18 And Jesus said to him: Why do you call me good? None is good save one- God- The extent to which this man from Nazareth, who sneezed and slept and thirsted as we do, was really God manifest in the flesh... this needs sustained personal meditation. That from the larynx of a Palestinian Jew really came forth the words of Almighty God; to the extent that it had to be said that never man spake like this man; and He Himself could assure us that heaven and earth would pass, but not His words (note the links with Ps. 102:25-27; Heb. 1:10-12)... that this man died for us... rose again, ascended... and now works His saving work for us, hour by hour. Mark records how a man once in an offhand way addressed the Lord Jesus as “good master". The Lord’s response was to say that if the man really accepted Him as ‘good’ he ought to share His cross, and sell what he had and give to the poor. The real extent of Jesus’ goodness will move us to deep personal response, if we truly perceive it.
10:20 "From my youth"- but he was a "young man" (Mt. 19:20). Note the Lord's grace- instead of being turned away by the man's youthful arrogance, instead the Lord perceives the positive in him and loves him for it (:21). See on Mk. 10:40.

The Greek of the subsequent sentence may not mean that the Lord was implying ‘Only God is good- I am not good’. Translators have added a number of words to try to flesh out the meaning of the words. The sense could just as well be ‘None is as good as the one God’- and therefore, we should keep His commandments. In other words, the Lord is not so much saying that He Himself is not ‘good’ but rather refocusing the man’s direction away from Himself towards the Father. For the man had come running to Him asking what he should do in order to inherit or rightfully have eternal life. And the Lord is refocusing the man upon the Father and the Father’s commandments. The Lord may therefore have a rhetorical sense in His question ‘why do you call Me good?’. His sense would have been: ‘Why are you so keen to call me “good”, setting me on a level with God? Instead, focus on obeying God’s commandments and tackle your hardest challenge- to give away your wealth, and then follow Me in the itinerant life towards the cross’. The man’s overly high and unrealistic view of Jesus, as if He were God Himself, was really an excuse for his own refusal to face the challenge of living the Christian life. Every false doctrine has a psychological basis, and the idea that Jesus is God and the Trinity are no different. To accept Jesus as less than God, as totally human, is a far deeper challenge to our living than accepting Jesus as being God Himself. If Jesus was human, sharing our own flesh, in which there dwells no good thing (Rom. 7:18), and yet was able to be perfect- this lays down a huge challenge to each of us. It’s far less challenging to accept Jesus as God and therefore good and perfect by nature. This is why I suggest the Lord is probing why the man called Him “good”- and redirected him towards the need for keeping the commandments and living the committed life in practice. So we have here a passage of deep significance for discussions about the Trinity. The Lord cites the unity of God as meaning that He alone is ultimately ‘good’, and challenges the man who wanted to treat Him as God as to whether this was not just an excuse for not doing the hard work of following Him in practice.

 

10:19 You know the commandments- The question of course is why the Lord chose to repeat the last six commandments of the ten commandments. Perhaps He perceived that they had special relevance to this rich young ruler. Harry Whittaker makes an interesting but not totally convincing case that the rich young man here was Barnabas and these commands were very relevant to him as a Levite- see Studies in the Gospels chapter 148.

Do not kill. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honour your father and mother- Paul's references to the Gospels suggests that he had carefully meditated upon the passages to which he consciously alludes. The fact and  way in which he alludes rather than quotes verbatim reflects the fact he had thought through and absorbed the teaching of the passages rather than learning them parrot fashion. Here the Lord Jesus combines two quotations from the Law: Ex. 20:12-16 followed by Lev. 19:18. Paul, in a different context, to prove a different point, combines those same two passages, although separating them by a brief comment (Rom. 13:9). This surely indicates that he had meditated upon how his Lord was using the Law, and mastered it so that he could use it himself.

10:20 And he said to him: Teacher, all these things have I observed from my youth- The record stresses the incongruity and inappropriacy of the young man’s self-righteousness: “The youth answered, all these have I kept from my youth up” (Mt.). He was young- and he says that since a young man he had kept all the commands. Now the Lord doesn’t lecture him about self-righteousness, nor does He point out that the young man is way over rating his own spirituality and obedience. Instead, the Master focuses on the positive- as if to say ‘You are zealous for perfection? Great! So, sell what you have and give to the poor. Go on, rise up to the challenge!’.

10:21 And Jesus observing him, loved him; and said to him: One thing you lack. Go, sell whatever you have and give it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven. And come [AV: "take up the cross and"] follow me- "You lack" is s.w. to be destitute of. In response to the man's question "What do I still lack?" (Mt. 19:20). He lacked nothing materially, but therefore he lacked the important thing- treasure in Heaven. The word play involving 'lacking' suggests that spiritual wealth and material wealth are opposites; likewise to give away treasure on earth is to as it were transfer it to Heaven. All this underscores the point that we can't have both. All our material wealth is to be given away in order to get spiritual treasure (Mt. 13:44). "What you lack" is parallel to the phrase Mt. 19:21 records: "If you will be perfect / complete". The man could still have had a relationship with the Lord if he hadn't sold all; but he wanted perfection and went away from Jesus because he couldn't face up to the fact that he wasn't perfect, would be saved by grace and now by his own obedience. And so many 'perfectionists' have done likewise. It's perhaps because of the man's tendency to perfectionism that the Lord prefaced His answer to the question by saying that even He wasn't completely "good" as God alone is "good" (10:18). The humanity of Jesus is therefore, in a way, an answer to 'perfectionism'. Not that there is ultimately any such thing as 'perfectionism', for it cannot be in man to be perfect. Perfectionism is merely an arrogant illusion. The record in Mt. 19:16,17 brings this out clearer- "Good Master, what good thing shall I do... why do you call me "good"? There is none "good" but one, that is, God". The man thought that by his "good" deeds he could become as "good" as God, the only "good" One. And He walked away from Jesus because he was unable to accept that this is not in fact the case, and that even Jesus Himself stood as 'not good' compared to God; He stood 'perfect' with God by reason of the relationship He had with God, not solely on the basis of His good works. However, even total generosity and giving away of wealth will not bring total completeness. 'You lack one thing' appears to be an allusion to Ps. 23:1 LXX: "The Lord is my shepherd; not one thing is lacking to me". To take up the cross and follow the Lord Jesus as our shepherd, with the loss of material wealth this implies, is the essence of lacking nothing. For walking with Him is perfection, completeness, our everything.

The very fact that we want to rise up to the heights commends us to God. When the rich young man, in his zeal for righteousness, claimed: "Master, all these have I observed from my youth", the Lord didn't rebuke him for self-righteousness; instead, He beheld Him (with His head cocked to one side?), He took a long wistful look at Him,  and loved him (Mk. 10:21). The Lord had a wave of warmth come over Him for that arrogant young man, simply because He appreciated the evident spiritual ambition which was within him. It was for this reason that the Father so loved the Son. God caused the Lord Jesus to approach unto Him; "for who would dare of himself to approach unto me?" (Jer. 30:21 RSV). The Father confirmed the Son in His spiritual ambition, recognizing that very few men would rise up to the honour of truly approaching unto God.

The “one thing” lacking was to distribute his wealth, and to follow the crucified Christ. The two things seem therefore related; it was the wealth which was stopping the following of Christ. The man had come to the Lord asking what great deed he must do to obtain eternal life, and so he was aware of his obedience to the commandments. He obviously felt that obedience to Mosaic law was not going to be the basis of eternal life, and he sensed that there was some great deed he must yet achieve. Therefore “What do I still lack?” shouldn’t be read as an arrogant statement that he lacked nothing because he had been legally obedient. Rather is it a genuine question, seeking a concrete, clear and achievable answer.  

We note that the Lord treated each person differently. Jesus approved Zacchaeus' distribution of only half of his possessions- whilst demanding that the rich young man give away literally all. And He never seems to have demanded that those of His followers who owned houses should sell them.  See on Mt. 19:16 What good thing. The same principle is seen in His preceding teaching about divorce and remarriage- His ideal standard is not ‘given’ to everyone, just as it is not a requirement of everyone that they sell and they have and give to the poor. The Lord taught that we receive the Lord's goods [s.w. "what you have"] on conversion to Him (Mt. 25:14). We resign all, but receive all. By giving away our earthly wealth, we directly receive wealth in Heaven. Lk. 12:15,33,44 make a sustained play on this Greek word: "A man's life doesn't consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses [s.w.]... sell what you have [s.w.] and give alms... [the Lord] will make [such a man] ruler over all that he has [s.w.]". Whilst the specific command to the young man to sell all he had and give it to the poor was not in one sense universal, i.e. not a command to every believer, yet the spirit of it (according to Luke 12) is indeed to be followed by us all. We must at least "forsake ['to bid farewell to'] all that [we] have [s.w.]" (Lk. 14:33). The early believers did not 'say' that anything they possessed [s.w.] was their own (Acts 4:32)- Luke surely intends us to connect this with his earlier record of how the Lord had taught that our attitude, at very least, must be that we do not really 'own' those things which we apparently 'have'.  

The rich young man would fain have followed Jesus. But he was told that he must sell all that he had, give to the poor, and take up the cross to follow Christ (Mk. 10:21). Notice how the ideas of following Christ and taking up the cross are linked. The man went away, unable to carry that cross, that sacrifice of those material things that were dearest to him. Peter responds with the strong implication that he had done all these things, he was following the Master, and by implication he felt he was carrying the cross. Notice the parallels between the Lord’s demand of the young man, and Peter’s comment (Lk. 18:22 cp. 28; Mk. 10:21 cp. 28): 

 

Peter seems to have subconsciously bypassed the thing about taking up the cross. But he was sure that he was really following the Lord. He blinded himself to the inevitable link between following Christ and self-crucifixion; for the path of the man Jesus lead to Golgotha. We have this same tendency, in that we can break bread week after week, read the records of the crucifixion at several times / year, and yet not let ourselves grasp the most basic message: that we as followers of this man must likewise follow in our self-sacrifice to that same end.

"Take up the cross, and follow me" is inviting us to carry Christ's cross with Him- He speaks of "the cross" rather than 'a cross'. The Greek translated “take up" is that translated 'to take away' in the context of Christ taking away our sins. Strong says that it implies "expiation" (of sins). This connection, between our taking away / up the cross, and Christ's taking away our sins, suggests that the efficacy of His cross for us depends upon our daily 'taking up the cross'. It is vital therefore that we “take up the cross" if our sins are to be taken away by Him. Of course we cannot literally take up the Lord's cross. Taking up the cross must therefore refer to an attitude of mind; it is paralleled with forsaking all that we have (Lk. 14:27,33), which is surely a command to be obeyed in our attitudes. "Take up" is translated 'take on' when we read of 'taking on' the yoke of Christ, i.e. learning of Him (Mt. 11:29). To take up the Lord's cross, to take on His yoke, is to learn of Him, to come to know Him. Yet do we sense any pain in our coming to know Christ? We should do, because the cross was the ultimate symbol of pain, and to take it up is to take on the yoke, the knowledge, of Christ. Consider the contexts in which the Lord spoke of taking up His cross:

(1) In Luke 9:23-26 He tells the crowds that they have come to His meetings because of the intriguing miracles of the loaves and fishes. The Lord is saying: 'Don't follow me because of the loaves and fishes; take up my cross'!
(2) The rich young man was willing to be obedient in everything apart from parting with his wealth. In this context, of asking the most difficult thing for him to do, Christ spoke of taking up His cross - in the man's case, giving up his wealth.
(3) The command to take up the cross in Matt. 10:38 is in the context of Christ's description of the family problems which would be caused by responding to His word. Presumably some were willing to follow Christ if they didn't have to break with their families; but Christ asks them to take up the cross in this sense.

In all of these cases people were willing to follow Christ- but only insofar as it didn't hurt them. They were unwilling to take on board the idea of consciously deciding to do something against the grain of their natures and immediate surroundings. Yet this is what taking up the cross is all about, and it is vital for our identification with the Lord. It is very easy to serve God in ways which reinforce the lifestyles we choose to have anyway; it is easy to obey Divine principles only insofar as they compound our own personality. By doing so we can deceive ourselves into thinking that we are spiritually active when, in reality, we have never walked out against the wind, never picked up the cross of Christ. Israel were an empty vine, without fruit in God's eyes- because the spiritual fruit they appeared to bring forth was in fact fruit to themselves (Hos. 10:1).

10:22 But this teaching saddened him, and he went away sorrowful- Walking away from Jesus in sorrow is a picture from the scenes of the final judgment. In this case, the man rejected himself, he chose to walk away- just because he couldn't accept that he wasn't perfect. Literally the Greek means that he became overcast, as the sky clouding over. His joy, therefore, was because he had wrongly assumed that he could do some simple dramatic act well within his comfort zone, and thus attain an assurance of salvation. But his face clouded over when he realized that he was being called outside of his comfort zone. This is an exact picture of the disillusion which clouds so many once they perceive that the call of Christ is not to a mere social club or to surface level religion. 

"He went away" is significant because the entire section starting from Mt. 18:1 is purposefully framed so that the incidents connect with each other. The Lord had welcomed the little children to come to Him, and rebuked the disciples for forbidding them. This young man- also a 'little one'- went away from the Lord. The implication is that the little children had more spirituality and devotion to Christ than this man. The exhortation to become like little children therefore meant that whatever stops us coming to Him must be jettisoned- and for this 'young one', it was his wealth.  

The man walked away, whereas if he had cast himself upon the Lord's grace, or better still, sold what he had and given to the poor, then he could have right then begun to enter into the Kingdom. We begin entering the Kingdom right now; we are, according to another teaching, walking on the road to the judgment, and must get right with our brother who walks on the way there with us. The parable of the camel (i.e. the rich would-be believer) being unloaded of its wealth before it enters the city (Mt. 19:23,24) represents a rich man entering the Kingdom (the city = the Kingdom, as in Rev.22:14; 21:2; Heb.13:14; 11:16; a city can also represent believers). If he sheds his riches now, it follows he is then able in some sense to enter the Kingdom now. This mini parable is in the context of Mt. 19:21: "Sell that thou hast... and thou shalt have (now) treasures in (the Kingdom of) Heaven". This is the same idea as in Mt. 18:4: "Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child (which necessitates parting with riches etc.), the same is (now) greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven". In these few words is our highest challenge.  

For he was one that had great possessions- Again Luke's record of the early church alludes here, speaking of how possessions were sold and the money distributed to the poorer believers (Acts 2:45; 5:1 s.w.).  

10:23 And Jesus looked around, and said to his disciples: How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!- "Have wealth" is paralleled, or expanded, in 10:24, with "them that trust in riches". To have wealth is to trust in it. Hence the danger of it- wealth militates against faith. Hence Paul warned "them that are rich in this world that they... trust not in uncertain riches but in the living God" (1 Tim. 6:9,10).

The sense is not simply that it is hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom, but that he shall enter with difficulty. The Lord goes on to say that such shall enter the Kingdom only by God's grace and possibility of saving those who do not rise up to the higher levels that He bids us to (Mt. 19:26). In what, then, is the hardness or difficulty- if God is willing to accept our living on lower levels? The difficulty is in not walking away from Christ as the young man did, because of our pride; what is hard is to be like a child, the model throughout this entire discourse, and simply accept God's grace in Christ.

10:24 And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus continued and said to them: Children! How hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!- The disciples were so immature that they thought wealth was a sign of Divine blessing. And were astonished to hear that it's really hard for wealthy people to be saved. Hence, in loving pity at their immaturity, the Lord addresses them as "Children...". See on Lk. 18:24.

10:25 It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God- I go with the old explanation that this is an allusion to a loaded camel needing to be unloaded of its 'wealth' so that it could squeeze through the pedestrian gate- a call to become human, to realize we are naked before God, and our wealth adds nothing to us. Mark's record uses a term for "the eye of a needle" which the Septuagint always uses for "the holes of the rocks" (e.g. Jud. 6:2; 15:8,11; Jer. 13:4; 16:16), from whence we see the idea of a hole in the rocky city walls.

This is such a powerful lesson. And it's so simple. It doesn't need any great expositional gymnastics to understand it. Like me, you can probably remember a few things very vividly from your very early childhood. I remember my dear dad showing me this as a very young child, with a toy camel and a gate drawn on a piece of paper. And I saw the point, at four, five, maybe six. It is so clear. But what of our bank balances now, now we're old and brave? It's easier for a camel, the Lord said. Why? Surely because someone else unloads the camel, he (or she) has no say in it. But in the story, surely we must be the camel who unloads himself, who shakes it all off his humps, as an act of the will. And as we've seen, the spirit of all this applies to every one of us, including those without bank accounts.

The camel must shed its load of riches and goods, so that it can pass through the gate into the Kingdom. But we are doing that right now! We will pass through the gate into the Kingdom when the Lord returns (Rev. 22:14), and yet through shedding our materialism, we do it now. John puts it more bluntly and yet more absolutely: now, through the life of faith, we have the eternal life, in that we begin to live now the type of life which we will eternally live. We receive the Kingdom of God here and now, in that we receive the Gospel of the Kingdom; and if we accept it as a little child, we begin to enter it, now- in that the lives we live determine whether or not we will enter it at the Lord’s coming. We are on our way into life! We have received the Kingdom, our names were written from the foundation of the world, and only our falling from grace can take that away. This is almost too good news to believe.  

10:26 And they were astonished exceedingly, saying to him: Then who can be saved?-

They were really so shocked that wealth made it hard to enter the Kingdom, implying they were strongly persuaded that wealth was a gift from God and a sign of His approval of a man. This of course was quite foreign to the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and other teaching of the Lord, and Matthew uses this strong term to highlight how far they had been from understanding His most basic teachings.

"Who can be saved?" translates the same word the Lord uses in the next verse to say that with God, even the saving of the wealthy who don't quit their wealth is "possible"- on the basis, therefore, of His willingness to accept a lower standard of achievement to that He ideally requires. And this is in the context of His offering a lower standard to unconditional forgiveness in Mt. 18 (you can not do this if your brother sins against you, and instead drag him through the synagogue disciplinary process), and His demand for forgiveness of adultery (although if you fail in this you can take the lower level and divorce your partner- if it is not 'given' to you to accept that standard).

10:27 Jesus, observing them, said- The Lord maintained eye-contact with His listeners: Mt. 19:26; Mk. 3:5,34; 5:32; 8:33; 10:21, 23,27; Lk. 6:10; 20:17; 22:61; Jn. 1:42. These are all separate occurrences; the fact is really being emphasized. This paying appropriate attention with eye contact is also a good strategy for matching the silences that occur from time to time in any serious conversation.  Most of us can tell when another is thinking by observing the eyes, and when they are not their eyes will tell you. The way the Lord Jesus had of lifting up His eyes was something which evidently struck the Gospel writers (Lk. 6:20; Jn. 6:5; 11:41; 17:1 cp. the emphasis upon the eyes of the risen Lord in Rev. 1:14; 2:18; 5:6; 19:12).

With men it is impossible, but not with God- The status of para God is often applied to the Lord Jesus (Lk. 2:52; Jn. 6:46; 8:40; 16:27; Acts 2:33). The suggestion could be that because of the status of the Lord Jesus with the Father, such gracious salvation is possible which would be impossible if men simply had to have the steel will to obey the Father’s ideal principles.

For all things are possible with God- Lifted from the Septuagint of the word to Sarah about the birth of Isaac (Gen. 18:14). Those Old Testament heroes were not merely stained glass figures- our own belief in salvation regardless of wealth is as dramatic as the belief of an old woman that she could have a child. The context here, however, is talking of how those who choose a lower level- in this case, not selling their wealth and giving to the poor- can still be saved by God’s gracious possibility. This harmonizes with the whole theme of :12, that to some is ‘given’ the possibility of living on the idea level regarding divorce and remarriage, but if that cannot be attained to, then God will still accept us.

There are at least two instances in the Gospels where the Lord Jesus is quarrying his language from the book of Job, and shows a certain identification of himself with Job. Here the Lord explains the irrelevance of riches to the spiritual good of entering the Kingdom, saying that "with God all things are possible"- without money. This is almost quoting Job 42:2, where Job comes to the conclusion that all human strength is meaningless: "I know that You can do everything". It may be that Jesus is even implying that through the tribulation of his life he had come to the same conclusion as Job. See too Mt. 5:27-30.

Having said that it is so hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom- as hard as for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle- the Lord comments that ‘what is impossible with man, is possible with God’ (Mk. 10:27). In first century Palestinian Judaism, this saying was a kind of figure of speech for describing a miracle. If any rich person gets into the Kingdom- it will be a miracle. That’s what the Lord is saying. And He says it to us today. Generosity alone, of course, won’t bring us into the Kingdom. It’s not as if we can buy our way in. But there are major implications that our attitude to wealth is in fact a crucial indicator of whether or not we will be there.
Having explained “how hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom”, the Lord went on to comment: “With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible” (Mk. 10:25,27). It is impossible for a rich man to be saved, He seems to be saying. And as we seek to convert the rich and self-satisfied in the societies in which we live, this does indeed seem the case. But although on one hand it is an impossibility, yet not with God: for He desires to seek and save the rich too. And indeed He does, achieving what with men is impossible. And the Father seeks to impress His positive attitude upon us.

10:28 Peter began to say to him: We have left all- The family based structure of the first century is hard to fully empathize with from our distance. Family was all. Peter comments that the disciples had “left our own homes” (Lk. 18:28 RVmg.), and the parallel here says “left all”. Your home was your all. To have to leave it for the sake of Christ was the most fundamental thing you could do. Hence the real meaning in the first century of the Lord’s response that such converts would receive families in this life, i.e. in their relationships in the ecclesia. And yet the radical call of Christ is no less demanding and intrusive as men and women meet it today, the only difference being that the starkness of the choices is less pronounced today- but just as essentially real.

I have repeatedly mentioned that the material here is strongly related to that in Mt. 18. The Greek here for “left / forsook all” is identical to that in Mt. 18:32: “I forgave you all”. Peter had balked at the idea of ‘forgiving all’. It is easier to ‘forsake’ [s.w. ‘forgive’] all material things than to forgive all. This explains why the incident of the rich young man follows the teaching about the need to forgive all. He would not forsake all, just as some would not forgive all. Peter claims to have forsaken all, and yet it’s apparent that he struggled with the idea of forgiving all, thinking that seven times / day was more than generous enough of him. Likewise one wonders whether Peter had really forsaken all materially- he still had a wife, and apparently his fishing boats back in Galilee, to which he returned after the Lord’s resurrection.

Was Peter really correct to say that he had really “left all”? He evidently had in mind how he had left his nets and walked away, following Jesus (Mk. 1:18). Then he thought he was following Jesus in the way the Lord demanded. For some time later, the Lord “entered into one of the ships, which was (i.e. still, at that time) Simon’s…” (Lk. 5:1). Peter had been fishing all night in Jn. 21:3- strange, for a man who had so dramatically left his nets to respond to the Lord’s call. But after the miraculous catch of fishes, Peter “forsook all, and followed him”. Note that Mark’s [Peter’s] Gospel omits many incidents, but also uses the device of repetition to stress what the writer considers significant. Thus in Mk. 1:16 Peter tells us twice that he was a fisherman [cp. 14:68]. By the time of Lk. 18 and the conversation with the rich young man, Peter was confident he had forsaken all. But “I go a fishing” (Jn. 21:3) would suggest that even this forsaking of all had not been so dramatic. The boats were still there. Peter still carried his fishing tackle round with him in his pack (Mt. 17:27). The Lord had taught that following Him meant not just leaving behind for a moment, but selling up and giving the money to the poor. This Peter had not done. But he assumed that because he was physically following Jesus, well therefore what the Lord demanded of the rich young man, he had as good as done; for that young man wouldn’t follow Jesus, but Peter would. It is easy to understand how Peter reasoned- for the fact we are  apparent followers of the Lord in a world which chooses to reject Him, can lead to an assumption that we must of course be following just as He asks of us.

And have followed You- Just as Peter’s claim to have “left all” was perhaps questionable, likewise Peter seems to have under-estimated what ‘following Christ’ really meant- for the idea of carrying the cross is strongly connected with following Christ (Mt. 10:38; 16:24). And Peter failed to carry that cross to the end, for he denied the Lord when the going got tough.

Peter had the impression that by forsaking all and following the Lord, he would somehow benefit. He still had to learn that the carrying of the cross is not to be motivated by any desire for personal benefit, spiritual or otherwise. We live in a world in which religion, like everything else, is seen as a means toward some personal benefit. If we love the Lord, we will follow Him, wherever the life in Him leads us; purely for love of Him, and recognition that His way is the way to glorifying the Father. Peter had left all, but expected something back. For the excellency of fellowshipping the sufferings of the future Saviour, Moses gave up all the riches of Egypt. The Lord responded by saying that nobody who had left all for His Name's sake would go unrewarded (Mt. 19:29). The riches, the surpassing excellence of Christ, all the things tied up in His Name, these were not appreciated at that time by Peter. They are enough, purely of themselves, to make a man count all things as dung. Later, he understood this. He told the lame man that the silver and gold which he had was the salvation possible in the Name of Jesus (Acts 3:6). Peter rejoiced that he was counted worthy to suffer shame for the Name, and he preached in that Name. There is quite some emphasis on this: Acts 2:21,28; 3:6,16; 4:10,12,30; 5:41. Now he had learnt his mistake, or rather he realized the poverty of his understanding of the Lord. He now found the excellency of the Lord's Name an imperative of itself to witness to it. Likewise "for his name's sake they went forth" in obedience to the great preaching commission (3 Jn. 7; Rev. 2:3).  

19:28 And Jesus said to them: Truly I say to you: You who have followed me- This is in response to Peter's claim that they had "left all and followed You" (:27). The Lord doesn't include Peter's claim that they had "left all", but rather focuses upon the 'following Me'. This may well have been because He knew that Peter had not in fact "left all" to the degree that Peter thought he had (see on :27). They hadn’t then grasped the idea of what really following involved; they hadn’t in one way or another laid down their lives with Christ. And then there is the problem of “twelve”. Judas didn’t follow to the end, and will not sit upon a throne in the Kingdom. The Lord surely means, therefore: “You who will have followed me…”. Or is that He spoke of “the twelve” as a title for the group of disciples, and what He meant was that even at that early stage He counted their desire to follow Him to the cross as if they had done it? We must see our failing, following brethren likewise. He counted His sheep as following Him (Jn. 10:27) even then, although he knew they were not then strong enough to follow Him to the end (Jn. 13:36). The risen Lord especially wanted the women to tell Peter that He was ‘going before him’ to Galilee (Mk. 16:7)- with the implication that even in his weakness and dejection, He wanted Peter to still try to follow Him and re-live the cross in his life.

10:29 Jesus said: Truly I say to you. Whoever leaves house, or brothers, or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands for my sake and for the gospel's sake- This list of things to be forsaken recalls the language of the Levites forsaking these things in order to serve God (Ex. 32:26-29; Dt. 33:8-10). The secular disciples again are encouraged to see themselves as the Levites of the new Israel the Lord was creating. Mt. 19:27-30 has a series of extended allusions to the fact that we are now the priesthood. The Lord speaks of how His followers will each have left mother, brother etc. to serve Him, referring to how Moses blessed Levi for forsaking these very things so as to God's service (Dt. 33:9). But He also spoke of how they would forsake houses and lands for His sake and the Gospel's- a reference to the way the Levites resigned their right to physical inheritance in the land for the sake of their relationship with God and the work they were called to. In the same way as Moses predicted that the Levites would be materially blessed even now as a result of their dedication (Dt. 33:11), so the Lord made the same promise. And there is no Christian who has heart and soul committed themselves to the Gospel's work, either in the world or amongst their brethren, who has not lived to see the truth of this definition of priesthood.

"For My Name’s sake" is parallel with “The kingdom of God’s sake” (Lk. 18:29). The things of the Name and the things of the Kingdom were therefore not two different things, rather were they different ways of referring to the same realities.

10:30 Will receive in return, in this present season, a hundredfold houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, and with them persecutions; but in the age to come, eternal life- The Lord’s prophecy that the believer receives fathers, mothers, houses, lands etc. only has its fulfillment insofar as the ecclesia is willing to share these things and relationships with its members. But the condition of the fulfillment was not explicitly stated. We forsake all human relationships to follow the Lord Jesus. And He promises to compensate for this even in this life. But it depends to what extent we are willing to accept and perceive it. Through meaningful fellowship with our brethren we will find those relationships which we have given up compensated for, even if we aren’t physically close to our brethren. In reference to Israel’s deliverance from Egypt we read: “God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains” (Ps. 68:6). To be set in a new family is paralleled with being brought out from slavery. Part of the process of our redemption is that we are set in a new ecclesial family. This must be a reference to how Israel were brought out on Passover night, where the families and lonely ones had to join together into households big enough to kill a lamb for. The implication of Ps. 68 could be that it was in these family groups that they travelled through the wilderness. The N.C.V. reads: “God is in his holy Temple. He is a father to orphans, and he defends the widows. God gives the lonely a home. He leads prisoners out with joy...”. The very house / family of God becomes the house / family of the lonely. Hence the ecclesia is the house of God (1 Cor. 3:16). We find true family in the new family of God. By baptism we are “added together” with those others who are likewise saved in Christ (Acts 2:47 RVmg.). We will live together eternally with the other members of this new body and community which we enter. The links between us within that new family are even stronger than those with our natural family; and hence any division amongst the family of God is the greatest tragedy. What this means in practice is that we must fellowship each other. Even if we are isolated from other believers, one can always write letters, make phone calls, invite others to visit them, attempt to meet others…

"Inherit eternal life" are the very words of the rich young man (Mk. 10:17). The answer to that man’s question was that we have to lose now, if we are to win eternally; we must forsake material things if we are to inherit the life eternal. As he was only a young man, it’s likely that his wealth had been inherited. He was being told that the greatest inheritance was of life eternal, but this didn’t come easily nor by good luck or circumstance, but in response to a lifetime of following Jesus. The things which were to be forsaken include [putting the records in Mark and Luke together with Matthew]: family, brothers, sisters, father, mother, lands, houses etc. These were all the things which the young man had received by inheritance, and to forsake association with his family, on behalf of whom he had received his wealth, would’ve been crazy and social suicide. It was as crazy as trashing a winning lottery ticket and walking away the same you were before you bought it. But this is the radical calling of those who must forsake materialism in order to inherit eternity. Therefore all seeking for material advantage in this life is surely inappropriate if in fact we are to forsake it even if it comes to us without our seeking it.

10:31 But many that are first shall be last and the last, first- The context is of the Lord having taught that a rich man must shed his wealth in order to enter the Kingdom, but God’s grace is such that He is prepared to save the rich who don't do that. With God this is “possible”. Chapters 18 and 19 have demonstrated the idea of living on different levels. The Lord had told the rich young man that if he “would be perfect”, then he should sell all he had and give it to the poor. In this amazing comment at the conclusion of the section, we learn that in fact “many” who are first in this life and choose to remain first shall still be saved, although they will be “last” in the Kingdom. The same word for “last” is used in the parable which speaks of believers having to take the “last” or ‘lowest’ place around the Lord’s table (Lk. 14:9,10). There are and will be gradations between the Lord’s people, both now and eternally. Those who are “first” in this brief life, retaining their wealth when they should not, shall be saved by grace but will be the least in the Kingdom. Whereas those who are the least in this life, or make themselves the least, will become the first in God’s Kingdom.

10:32 And they were on the road heading up to Jerusalem; and Jesus was walking ahead of them- This could refer to the uphill journey, but ‘going up’ was a technical term used for going up to Jerusalem, particularly to keep a feast- Passover, in this case. They were going "up" from Jericho, Mt. 19:15. Hence they went “up”, uphill to Jerusalem. These small details all support the position that the Gospels were written by eye witnesses and were not created many years later by people who were not present. They were going the opposite direction of man in the parable of the Good Samaritan, who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. We may be able to infer that the Lord intended us to read that man as one who was not going in the way of the cross, who was going away from Jerusalem rather than towards it- and who was still saved by the grace of the Samaritan / Jesus. 

And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve aside- The implication is that there were others travelling with them, and the Lord wished to explain the reality of the cross to the disciples alone.

He began to tell them what was to happen to him- Tragically He so often sought to explain to the disciples about the cross; and yet always they met His efforts either with silence, or with irrelevant changing of the subject, or even protest, in Peter’s case. The tragic mismatch between the Lord’s cross and the mind of the disciples is brought out in Mk. 10:32-40. Having set His face to go up to Jerusalem, the Lord “went before them: and they were amazed; and as they followed, they were afraid". The words imply that He took the lead and walked forcefully a few paces ahead of them in a startling manner. “If anything in the Gospels has the stamp of real and live recollection upon it, it is this". His mind was evidently dwelling in His forthcoming death, in which He may well have foreseen that He would be crucified with sinners on His right and left. But then two of the disciples respond to His prediction of the cross by asking that they should sit on His right and left hand in glory over the others. Here we see, on the Gospel writers own admission, the paucity of their effort to grasp the real message of the cross. May it not be so with us. May we at least strive to enter into His struggle, and be moved to a true and unpretended humility by it.

There was something in His body language during His last journey to Jerusalem which was nothing short of terrifying to the disciples: "They were amazed; and as they followed Him, they were afraid" (Mk. 10:32-34). All this came to a climax in His extreme sweating in Gethsemane as the great horror of darkness began to actually descend on Him (Mk. 14:33-42). Contrast this with the calmness of suicide bombers or other religiously persuaded zealots going to their death. The Lord- our Lord- was too sensitive to humanity, to us, to His own humanity, to His own sense of the possibility of failure which His humility pressed ever upon Him... than to be like that. See on Heb. 5:7,8.

10:33 We will go up to Jerusalem- This was stating the obvious, but He wanted them to perceive their part in the journey to the cross which He was making; for His path to death and resurrection was to be theirs, as it is ours too. Or perhaps we are to conclude that like Abraham, they were following their Lord not knowing where they were going.

And the Son of Man shall be delivered- The Greek means literally ‘to hand over’; the idea of betrayal was maybe implicit, but not as explicit as in the English word ‘betrayed’. The word is very common on the lips of the Lord, as if He saw the moment of ‘handing over’ as the quintessence of all His sufferings- the hand over from God’s Providential protection to the powers of darkness.

To the chief priests and the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death- Exactly fulfilled, using the same Greek words, in Mk. 14:64.  

And shall deliver him to the Gentiles- The Lord foresaw that the Jews would have to deliver Him to the Romans if their death sentence was going to be legally inflicted.

10:34 And they shall mock him and shall spit upon him and shall scourge him, and shall kill him; and after three days he shall rise again- The Lord's predictions of His sufferings are detailed. The question arises as to whether this knowledge was beamed into Him by Divine revelation, or whether He worked it all out from Old Testament anticipations and prophecies of Messiah's sufferings. All the details could indeed have been understood from the Old Testament. And yet the Lord gave His life, it was not taken from Him; He as the master psychologist and chess player knew the moves which His chosen actions would elicit, and that may have been why He could predict these particular events in such detail.

10:35 And there came near to him James and John, the sons of Zebedee, saying to him: Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we shall ask of you- So often, the Lord’s predictions of the cross are responded to in most unspiritual ways, as if the message really failed to penetrate. As with us today, people turned off at the message of the Lord’s death. Whenever this happens, we must enquire as to why we turn off; for it surely has a psychological basis. Why does out attention wander so easily when reading or hearing discussed the crucifixion passages? The psychological, subconscious reason may well be that we realize that whatever is true for the Lord is to be true for us; His death there is the pattern for our death to self today. And we would far rather not be reminded of that.

Matthew places these words on the lips of their mother, Salome. But effectively the words were those of James and John. Divine inspiration reflects how God understood that completely. They tried to manipulate the Lord through the use of a female. Here is a classic example of where reading the entire Bible gives us a wider and fuller perspective. But a caveat needs to be sounded about such intertextuality, as it is called- the practice of interpreting a text in the light of other Bible texts. Of course, to get the wider and truer picture, this is a quite necessary and legitimate way of studying the Bible. But remember that the vast majority of believers over history have been illiterate. They heard the Gospels read to them. The text as it stands spoke to them- there are no Divinely inspired footnotes which signpost us to one of the parallel Gospels for the fuller picture. The easy use of computer-assisted analysis of the Biblical text is unique to our age, but one downside of this is that it can too easily be assumed that such endless chasing of connections with other Scripture is in fact how the text was originally designed to be read. It clearly was not. The fact the text of the entire Bible stands up to such analysis and indeed glows with glory under it- doesn't mean that this is the only nor even the intended way to receive the text. The ability to perform such detailed intertextuality just wasn't there for the illiterate; they heard the text of the Gospels as it was read, and there was a message within the text as it stands which they were intended to perceive.

Mark records the brothers asking: "Master, we would that you should do for us whatsoever we shall desire"- presumably trying to tie the Lord to His words in Mt. 18:19 about the successful prayer of “two… who should agree as touching anything they should ask”. But of course the Lord’s context there was quite different. It was about restoring the lost to the way to the Kingdom. So often we likewise can seize hold of the Lord’s words and try to twist them to as it were manipulate God into response. This sort of thing goes on ad nauseam in many Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, taking Bible phrases out of context and aggressively holding God to words He never uttered in the context required of them by the audience.  They had the focus all wrong- they wanted to be in the Kingdom "for us". Our motive for wanting to be in the Kingdom needs to be analyzed. Is it for God manifestation, or mere human salvation from death that we are interested in [to paraphrase a well known quote from John Thomas]?

 10:36 And he said to them: What would you wish that I should do for you?- Matthew has: "What do you desire...". These are the very words the Lord goes on to use to the blind men in Mt. 20:32 as He left Jericho, and to the blind man He met as He approached Jericho (Lk. 18:41). The similarity in the stories of the blind men He spoke to is surely for the same reason as His repetition of "What do you want?" both to them and to Salome and again to her sons. It's all to build up the impression that He is asking people to focus upon what their dominant desire really is. And such an approach is not unknown in depth psychology today. The Lord uses the same word for "want" in asking the crippled man if he 'wanted' to be made whole (Jn. 5:6). Of course he did, and the Lord knew it. So His question was to elicit in the man a sense of what his dominant desire really was. The Lord raised him up, and went on to comment that as the Father raises up people, so His Son enlivens whom He wants [s.w.- Jn. 5:21]. The 'want' of the man and the 'want' of God's Son coincided, just as can happen for us all- if our dominant desires are His. Therefore later in Jn. 15:7 the Lord almost comments on the incident with Salome by saying that if His words abide in us, then we shall ask what we wish [s.w. "want"] and it shall be done [s.w. 'do']. There was no blank cheque promise, as Salome and her sons had wrongly implied. It was often His style to focus people on what they were asking for, encouraging them to verbalize and thus define their deepest desires. This is why He made as if He would go further on the way to Emmaus, why He appeared to be sleeping during the storm, and in another storm appeared to intend to walk past the disciples (Mk. 6:48). All this was to elicit from His people an awareness of their need for Him. He works the same today, through providential circumstance in our lives, to make us ask ourselves what we really and essentially want. He has just spoken in detail of His sufferings, and so His question was rhetorical. 'If I am going to do all that for you- what else could you ask for?'. The wonder of salvation for us as sinners is such that we should see all our other requests in that context. 

He had just been speaking of how He would die for them. James and John evidently didn't appreciate the wonder, the blessing, the honour of the fact that the Son of God would love them unto the end. All they wanted was the human blessing, in this life, of being able to tell their brethren that they would be the greatest in the Kingdom. "What would ye that I should do for you" - in addition to loving you unto the death, of loving you with a love greater than that of anyone else? Their minds were all too set on the present, the petty glory of here and now. But when they actually beheld the cross (Lk. 23:49 suggests James also did), they would have learnt their lesson. And so it was with Job. Throughout the core of the book, he consistently addresses God as 'Shaddai', the fruitful one, the provider of blessing. But in the prologue and epilogue, he calls God 'Yahweh'. It may be that He came to know the wonder of God's Name to the extent that he quit his perception of God as only the provider of material blessing.

10:37 And they said to him: Grant to us that we may sit, one on your right hand and one on your left hand, in your glory- This confirms that she had Mt. 19:28 in mind, where the Lord had promised a sitting on thrones when He sat "in the throne of His glory". The mother of James and John wanted them to have great reward in the Kingdom. The Lord’s basic answer was: ‘Take up my cross, follow my example, focused as it is on getting others to the Kingdom’ (Mt. 20:21,27,28). They were to be to others examples of selflessness. In the parable of the labourers, the hard, all day workers came expecting their pay; they were sent away, it could be, in rejection. But those whom the parable appears to commend worked having made no agreement nor mention of the reward they would receive. Thus when James and John clamoured for a reward in the Kingdom, they were told instead to go away and serve; this was what it was all about, being the minister of others, serving for nothing- not badgering the Lord for a reward in the Kingdom (Mt. 20:20-26).

When the Lord Jesus promised those who overcome that they would sit down with Him in His throne (Rev. 3:21), He was surely casting a glance back at the way His men had asked to sit at His right and left hand, in His glory (Mk. 10:37). He knew He was promising a future glory far above what to them must have been the heights of their spiritual ambition.

They surely had in mind the Lord's recent assurance that the twelve would sit upon twelve thrones judging the tribes of Israel (Mt. 19:28). But even that wasn't enough. She wanted even more. The record leaves us gasping at her: 'What? Even that promise, and the prediction of the Lord's death for you- still not enough for you??!'. This is intended to put all our requests and dominant desires in a different context. If we have been promised the Kingdom and the Lord has died for us- then what other dominant desires should we have? Surely none. For those things should be the dominant issues within us.

10:38 But Jesus said to them: You do not know what you ask- The statement that men 'know not' is usually and extensively on the Lord's lips in a negative sense. We can therefore read Him here as deeply disappointed in her. Note how the Lord uses the plural 'you'; He clearly saw that the question was being asked by the sons through their mother, and the parallel records show Him asking them directly what they really wanted. "We know not what we should pray for as we ought" (Rom. 8:26) seems to be some kind of allusion back to the mother of Zebedee's children asking Christ to get her two sons the best places in the Kingdom (Mt. 20:22). He basically replied 'You know not what you pray for', in the sense of 'you don't appreciate'. It may be that Paul in Rom. 8 is saying that in our desire for the Kingdom, in our groaning for it, we don't appreciate what we ask for as we ought, yet Christ nonetheless makes powerful intercession for us to this end.

Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?- The Lord's death was therefore His cup, and also His 'baptism'. He asks us to be baptized with His baptism and to regularly drink His cup in the memorial meeting. These things are easily performed, and yet they are an agreement to die His death. We too can far too easily say "I am able...", when like the disciples, we fail to perceive the horror of the cross and what is being asked of us. We therefore participate in these symbols, these metaphors, with bowed head, deeply aware of our likely failure to carry the cross to the end, but grateful for our participation in His cup and baptism, the One who did in fact die the death of the cross.

Or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?- Note the present tense compared to the future tense of "the cup that I [shall] drink of". And yet in Lk. 12:50 He speaks of the baptism that He must still be baptized with in crucifixion. His death on the cross was in essence lived and died by Him throughout His life. This is why the prophecy of His death in Isaiah 53 is also quoted about experiences during His life. And there is an ongoing element to baptism, just as Israel were baptized "in the cloud and in the sea" as they passed through the Red Sea (1 Cor. 10:1), and yet lived beneath the cloud throughout their wilderness journey- as if their baptism was ongoing. We likewise die and resurrect with Christ in an ongoing sense as we die to the flesh and progressively experience His new life breaking through into our mortal experience (2 Cor. 4:11). Note too how Paul speaks of baptism in the present tense in Rom. 6:4- we are buried with Him by baptism, although Paul has just said in Rom. 6:3 that we were baptized as a one-time past even. If Paul were simply referencing the point of their baptism in Rom. 6:4, he would have said 'We were buried with Him'. The sense of Col. 2:12 and 1 Cor. 12:13 may be similar- "By one Spirit we are all [present tense] baptized into one body". The whole language of baptism by the Spirit surely suggests a process rather than a one time event of immersion in water.

In Gethsemane He spoke of drinking the cup of His final death and suffering. But earlier He had spoken in the present tense: “the cup that I drink of... the baptism that I am baptized with" (Mk. 10:38). The drinking of the cup of death was ongoing. Likewise there are several verses in Psalms 22 and 69 which are evidently relevant to both the Lord's life and also His final hours on the cross. "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up" is in the context of the cross, but is applied to an earlier period of the Lord's life (Ps. 69:9 cp. Jn. 2:17). "I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children" is another example (Ps. 69:8); it is a prophecy about the final sufferings of the Lord in crucifixion, and yet it is elsewhere quoted about the experiences of His ministry.
James and John pestered the Lord to give them glory in His Kingdom. He didn't refuse their request; He simply turned the question round to them: 'Can you really carry my cross? Don't be so obsessed with getting salvation out of me. Concentrate instead on carrying my cross, being baptized with my baptism, and then the corollary of that- sharing my resurrection- will follow in its own time'.

10:39- see on Gal. 3:27.

And they said to him: We are able! And Jesus said to them: The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized-

The Lord surely remembered their childlike over confidence when He Himself prayed for that cup to be "able" (AV "may" s.w.) to pass from Him so that He didn't have to drink it (Mt. 26:42). Yet the Lord is so generous spirited to them. He says that they will indeed be "able" to drink His cup (:23)- but the places of honour in the Kingdom were solely for the Father to give. He alludes to this in telling Peter that he was not "able" (s.w.) to follow Him to death on the cross at that time, "but you shall follow Me afterwards" (Jn. 13:36). We would likely have told them to take more seriously the Lord's predictions of His death by crucifixion which He had just uttered, and be more realistic about their own failure to suffer and die like that. But He is so more positive and gracious.

The Lord Jesus Christ's sensitivity to our thinking that we really have borne His cross comes out here. Those men, with all their unspirituality, could quite coolly state that they wanted the highest place in the Kingdom, and could say with confidence that they could shoulder the cross of Christ. The Lord's reply was gracious and generous spirited indeed: "Ye shall indeed drink of my cup" - 'when you're a lot more spiritually mature', He could have added. We sense rather than are explicitly told His sensitivity to men thinking they can shoulder His cross; for He alone knows what the cross of Christ entailed and entails. And in speaking of our own sufferings, we too need to learn these lessons, and compare our sufferings against Christ's with the utmost caution, with the sensitivity to His feelings, recognizing that we must act as men and women who have been counted as if we shared His death, and not as those who have actually "resisted unto blood (in our) striving against sin". To confidently identify some of our brethren as tares is only one example of the way in which we can hurt our Lord's feelings, by acting and thinking in ways which are only appropriate for He who did actually carry the cross.

Seeing even the Lord baulked at drinking that cup in Gethsemane, saying that they would drink His cup is an incredibly positive comment to make. But none of us, including the twelve, die the death of the cross as Jesus did. He may have seen this as true insofar as by baptism into His death, His personal death and resurrection are counted to us, as if we have participated in it. As we reconstruct in our own minds His death, every fibre in our being cries out: 'I would not have endured that'. The wonder is that by baptism into Him, His death, that death, even the death of the cross, is counted to us. And with that we should be content, rather than seeking for grandeur in the resurrection age as the disciples were doing. When it came to actually giving the twelve His cup to drink, the Lord invited them: "You- drink all of it" (Mt. 26:27). The force of pas there appears to refer to all of the cup, the whole cup- rather than inviting all of the disciples to drink, because it was surely axiomatic that they were to all drink it. The Lord was saying that He counted them as having fully drunk His cup- a cup which He Himself flinched to take. This is the degree to which we are in Him and counted as participating in His death by reason of our status "in Him". Another possibility is that the Lord spoke these words specifically to the twelve and envisaged that each of them would die through crucifixion- although whether they did is not historically confirmable.

John's equivalent of this is the Lord's word that unless we drink His blood and eat His flesh, we can have no salvation (Jn. 6:53). This therefore has reference to our participation in His death, and our symbolic acceptance of this in the breaking of bread. To drink the Lord's cup is parallel with partaking at the Lord's memorial table in 1 Cor. 10:21. The breaking of bread means many things, and each time we do it we may likely focus on different aspects. But it is not easy for us, or it should not be easy for us. To drink that cup can never be done in a blasé spirit of 'Yes, we are able'. Rather with humbled hearts do we accept that our being counted as having participated in it is by grace alone. Peter was amongst those who thought he was able to drink the Lord's cup, and yet the Lord had to rebuke Peter for seeking to deter Him from drinking it- "Put up your sword... the cup which My Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?" (Jn. 18:11). Peter's desire for the Lord not to drink it was psychologically rooted in his recognition that the Lord's cup was to be his cup.

10:40 But to sit on my right hand or on my left hand- When the disciples foolishly sought to have what they thought were to be the favoured places at His right hand and His left, the Lord could have answered: ‘You foolish people! Those on my left hand will be condemned!’. But He graciously didn’t comment on their glaring error. He pushed a higher principle- that we should not seek for personal greatness, seeing that God is the judge of all (Mt. 20:23). Yet sadly, so much of our preaching has been solely concerned with pointing out the errors of others without being sensitive to what little faith and understanding they do have, and seeking to build on it.

Is not mine to give- A profound rebuttal of the primitive and mistaken equation of Jesus with God which is found in Trinitarian theology.

But it will be given to them for whom it has been prepared-

A specific future is being prepared for each of us in God's Kingdom (22:4; 25:34; 1 Cor. 2:9; Heb. 11:16 "He has prepared for them a city"), a unique place prepared in the Kingdom for us by the Lord's death (Jn. 14:2,3) and yet we are likewise being "prepared" (s.w. Lk. 1:17,76; 12:47; 2 Tim. 2:21; Rev. 19:7; 21:2 "His wife has prepared herself"). God is preparing a unique destiny and role for each of us in His Kingdom, but that preparation work is in terms of how we are being prepared in this life. Therefore all our present experiences are specifically intended to prepare us for the kind of person and role we shall eternally have. In this lies the ultimate significance and meaning to human experience if we are indeed Kingdom people. A huge amount of intense preparation is being packed into a very short space of time in this life. The lack of meaning and significance attached to even is what causes the depression which dogs each secular person, especially as they grow older. The Lord's point was that He was going to the cross to prepare places for them all in the Kingdom (Jn. 14:2,3 s.w.). He had just predicted His death. This was where their focus was to be, rather than seeking something for themselves.
It’s often been commented that God is beyond or even outside of our kind of time. God pre this present creation may have been like that, and He of course has the capacity and possibility to be like that. But it seems to me that particularly in connection with those with whom He is in relationship, He chooses to not exercise that possibility. Instead, God Almighty throws Himself into our experience, by limiting Himself to our kind of time- with all the suspense, hope, excitement, joy, disappointment which this involves. Time and again we read of how God says He is “shaping evil against you and devising a plan” against His enemies (Jer. 18:11; Jer. 26:3; Jer. 49:20,30; Jer. 50:45; Mic. 2:3; 4:12). For the faithful, He says that He is making plans for them for good and not for evil, “to give you a future” (Jer. 29:11). The Lord Jesus had this sort of thing in mind when He spoke of how the Kingdom will have been being prepared for the faithful from the beginning of the world (Mt. 25:34; Mt. 20:23).

John the Baptist was to “prepare” the way for the Lord’s coming- evidently a process- in reflection of how God had been working a long time to “prepare” [same Greek word] the way for His Son’s coming (Lk. 1:76; Lk. 2:31; Lk. 3:4). We likewise, in our preaching work in these last days, are working in tandem and in step with God. The idea of God 'preparing' implies that there is therefore a gap between the plan being made, and it being executed- hence “The Lord has both planned and done what He spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon” (Jer. 51:12; Jer. 4:28; Lam. 2:17; Is. 22:11; Is. 37:26; Zech. 1:6; Zech. 8:14).

The altogether lovely manner of the Lord is shown in how He dealt with immature understanding and ambition amongst others. James and John wanted to sit on either side of the Lord in His Kingdom glory. Instead of telling them to be more humble, the Lord gently went along with them- so far. He said that this great honour would be given to “them for whom it is prepared” (Mk. 10:40). And whom is this? All those redeemed in Christ have that place “prepared” (Mt. 25:34). The immediate context speaks of the cross (Mk. 10:33,45), and it is this which prepared the places in the Kingdom (Jn. 14:1,2). Thus the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world, and the Kingdom was prepared from the foundation of the world (Mt. 25:34). Actually, all those redeemed in Christ will sit down with Him in His very throne- not just on the right and left side of Him (Rev. 3:21). Indeed, the Lord’s subsequent parable about the places prepared in the Kingdom, and people being on the right and left hand of Him at judgment, with the rejected on the left hand, was perhaps His gentle corrective to James and John. But my point is that He was so gentle about the way He corrected their error. Actually twice before in Mark 10, the Lord had shown this spirit. The arrogant young man told Him that he’d kept all the commandments from his youth [and, get it, he was only a young guy anyway…]. And yet “Jesus beholding him, loved him” (Mk. 10:20). And then moments later in the record, Peter starts on about “Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee”- and the Lord so gently doesn’t disagree, even though Peter’s fishing business and family were still there for him to return to it seems, but promises reward for all who truly do leave all (Mk. 10:28-30). So just three times in one chapter, we see the gentle patience of the Lord with arrogant, small minded people, who thought they understood so much and were so righteous. They were nothing compared to Him. But the way He deals with them is indeed “altogether lovely”.

10:41 And when the ten heard it, they began to be moved with indignation concerning James and John- This suggests that the favour asked was asked secretly. The Lord sensed or overheard their anger, and called the group to Him (:42). The ebb and flow of the disciples to and from Jesus is noted especially in Matthew, probably another indication of their own weakness which formed such a major part of their witness. For the ideal was to abide in Him, to constantly follow Him, and not come to Him and then go from Him in squabbles and jealousies amongst ourselves.

10:42 And Jesus called them to him, and said to them: You know- This is in response to the anger of the ten against the self-seeking manipulation of the two. He now taught them the spirit of absolute servanthood as an answer to feeling resentful against the unspirituality of our brethren. Even if they are indeed so terribly wrong and simply 'don't get it', as the two brethren clearly didn't, our response should not be anger but rather servanthood towards them. 

That they who are considered rulers of the Gentiles- The archon, literally, 'the first'. The Lord had just taught in the parable of the labourers that a principle of His Kingdom was that the first were to be last.

Lord it over them- Gk. katakurieuo. Literally, to be kurios over, to be as Lord over. His idea was that if He is our only Lord, then there can be no lording it over others even when they are clearly unspiritual as the two brethren were at this time. This is where our belief in the Lordship of Jesus really cuts deep. For we naturally would like to think that we are superior to those who 'don't get it' about the spirit of Christ. But we are to see Him as total Lord, and ourselves as servants. Our natural anger and indignation at others' weakness is to be replaced by servanthood. And yet the body of Christ is littered with the wreckage of believers angry with others who refused to serve them but rather stormed out from them or rejected them- rather than staying to serve them, realizing that they are under the Lordship.

The style of leadership / control known in this world isn’t to be exercised by the elders of God’s flock (Mt. 20:25,26; 1 Pet. 5:3); ecclesial organization shouldn’t reflect the structures and practices of big commercial organizations. Leadership is to be based upon spiritual attributes and the ability to change and convert the lives of others, rather than secular skills such as fund raising, computer literacy, management etc. Yet sadly many ecclesias and Christian organizations seem to confuse the difference between management skills and spiritual leadership. The two things aren’t the same. An executive director of a company may very well not be the right brother to lead an ecclesia. The Greek language is full or words containing the compounds kata- and arch-, implying power over others, as part of a hierarchy. The leaders of the Roman world used these terms (Mt. 20:25), as did the synagogue leadership. But never does scripture use these kind of words about those who are ‘elders’ in the true ecclesia. It’s a pointed omission. On the other hand, there are many sun- prefixes: fellow-worker, fellow-citizen, fellow-soldier, fellow-heir etc. The New Testament emphasis is certainly on what we have in common rather on the fact that in practice some are more capable of organizing, or deserve especial respect for their evident spirituality and “for their work’s sake”. And the teaching of the Lord Himself was more concerned with how to follow Him than how to lead others. Likewise, there were many contemporary Greek words used to describe religious gatherings, e.g. heorte, synodos, koinos. But instead the word ekklesia is used, meaning a gathering together of town citizens with equal rights to discuss a matter. This is how the word was understood at that time.

And their great ones- The megas, the mighty, the strong, the superior. The context is the sense of spiritual superiority felt by the ten against the spiritual weakness of the two brethren and their mother. 

Exercise authority over them- They have exousia, power, control, over their inferiors. It is the Lord Jesus who is the Lord, and who has this exousia uniquely over His followers and indeed the whole world (Mt. 7:29; 9:6; 21:24; 28:18 etc.). For us to be indignant and superior against the unspirituality of our brethren is thus to usurp the unique role of the Lord Jesus. Quite rightly should we refer to Him as "the Lord", for this is who He must be in daily life and thought. The failure of others does give us in a human sense this exousia, this control, power and superiority- but the Lord goes on to say that it must not be so amongst us (:26), we are to resign this for servanthood. The Lord repeated His teaching here almost verbatim in Lk. 22:25- and He states it there immediately after predicting that one of the twelve would betray Him. He did so because He did not want them to be angry and superior over even Judas- He wanted them to instead resign those feelings for servanthood.

10:43 But it is not to be so among you; but whoever would become great among you- This is in the singular- for "let him be your minister". The Lord may not be intending 'If any of you wants to be the greatest, then be the servant'. He may instead be developing the theme of His absolute and unequalled Lordship by saying that the one who shall be great shall be the minister- and He had solely Himself in view. He knew that He was to be the greatest in the Kingdom, the one with ultimate and total exousia (see on Mt. 20:25). And the path to that was through servanthood, and He invited His men to likewise participate in that servanthood. 

When the disciples argued about who should be the greatest, the Lord replied in the present tense that "it is not so among you: whosoever will be great among you shall be your minister" (Mk. 10:43 R. V.). He expected them to live up to the righteousness which He imputed to them.

Shall be your servant- The idea may be an appeal for the disciples to allow the Lord to be their minister. This appeal had to be repeated at the last supper, when He wished to wash their feet, to be the ultimate servant, and Peter didn't want to "let Him" be his minister. So instead of thinking about what they could personally get out of the Kingdom [as the two brethren], or being spiritually superior over their weaker brethren [the ten], they were to instead accept the Lordship of Jesus and His ministration to them. And the form in which He was supremely a servant was in His death on the cross. And yet as so often, the Lord is speaking to Himself on one level, as well as to the disciples on another level. He is the one who to be great had to make Himself a minister of all, and yet He invites all those in Him to pass through the same process. For all that is true of Him is to be true of us. Hence He goes on to say that "Even as" He ministered, so should they.

One of the commonest allusions to priesthood in the NT is the idea of ministry. Time and again, the Old Testament speaks of the priests ministering in the priest's office. The priests are specifically called God's ministers (Is. 61:6; Jer. 33:21; Ez. 45:4; Joel 1:9,13; 2:17).  The early Christians would have heard and read many of the New Testament references to ministers and ministry as invitations to see themselves as a new priesthood. The Lord said that we should aim to be a minister, a priests, to every one of our brethren, not expecting them to minister to us, but concentrating on ministering to them (Mt. 20:26). This is exactly against the grain of our nature, and also of the concept of religion we find in the world. People expect to have others spiritually ministering to them. They expect a priest-figure to do all their thinking for them. But our Lord said that we are each other's priests, we're not here to be ministered  ('priest-ed') to, but to minister, and give our lives in service to each other.

When James and John asked to have the senior positions, the Lord didn’t rebuke them; he just told them that the greatest would desire to be a servant (Gk. diakonos) of all (Mt. 20:20-28). The utter degradation of the cross, and the Lord’s willing humbling of Himself to accept it, is a pattern for all who would take up His cross. The “servant of all” would make no distinctions concerning whom or how he would serve; such servanthood was a complete and unqualified act of surrender. And this is taken by the Lord as a cameo of His mindset on Calvary. In conscious allusion to this, Paul could speak of how he had become a slave of all men, that he might help some to Christ (1 Cor. 9:19). He was a slave of the Gospel, a slave of the kind who was lower than the least of all others, i.e. a slave of all (Eph. 3:7,9). He didn’t preach himself, but rather preached that he was a servant to all his brethren, for the sake of the fact that he was in Christ, the servant of all (2 Cor. 4:5). Thus he almost advertised his servant status; he preached himself as a slave. Paul wished to be perceived by his brethren and the whole world as merely a slave of Jesus (1 Cor. 4:1). In our talking to each other, or in our writing, it does us good to analyze how many personal pronouns we use; how much we are preaching ourselves rather than Jesus Christ. Any who may appear to be leaders or organizers are serving Him, who debased Himself to that depth. There can be no room at all for any sense of superiority amongst us. We are servants of all, not just of those individual brothers or ecclesias whom we happen to get on well with.

 

10:44 And whoever would be first among you- The protos (chief) amongst the disciples was clearly the Lord Himself. So again, the Lord may not necessarily be inviting His followers to seek greatness in the future Kingdom, but rather inviting them to focus upon His Lordship and achievement through His upcoming death. Instead He may have Himself in view- the One who is to be chief is to be the servant of the disciples, which the Lord did through His death on the cross. And it is His death there which is the context for this whole teaching, seeing He has just given a detailed prediction of it. However, the Lord's teachings often have reference to both Himself and to the disciples, and we have noted a number of times where He seems to have specific reference to Peter. For Peter was the protos, the chief disciple, according to Mt. 10:2 [s.w.]. And within the Lord's words there is the nod to Peter that he must learn the spirit of servanthood if he is to be worthy of that special calling as the leader of the pack which the Lord clearly had in mind for him. The Lord has just had a lot to say about the protos being last in the preceding parable of the labourers, using the word three times in 20:8,10,16. He is perhaps answering the question which arises from that parable: How practically can we be the last? The answer is by serving as He served, by identifying ourselves with the "last" labourers rather than the "first" who thought they were spiritually superior over their weaker fellow labourers.

The Lord Jesus was the supreme example of spiritual ambition in daily life.   When the disciples debated about who would be greatest in the Kingdom, Christ said that "If any man desire to be first, the same shall be... servant of all" (Mk. 9:34,35).   Christ was the "servant of all" because He desired to be the greatest in the Kingdom.   It was this ambition which motivated His endurance of the daily cross of His life:  "Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:  even as the Son of man came... to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mt. 20:27,28). He was drawing on the ideas of Hos. 13:1, where Ephraim exalted himself when he humbled himself to speak to God with the trembling of a true humility. The Lord Jesus was not esteemed by men in His death (Is. 53:3); the same word occurs in Dan. 4:17, concerning how Yahweh will exalt the basest, the least esteemed, to be King over the kingdoms of this world. That made-basest man was a reference to the Lord Jesus. He humbled Himself on the cross, that He might be exalted. Peter had his eye on this fact when he asks us to humble ourselves, after the pattern of the Lord, that we might be exalted in due time (1 Pet. 5:6).  Christ desired greatness in the Kingdom, and so can we; for the brighter stars only reflect more glory of the Sun (1 Cor. 15:41).   This very thought alone should lift us up on the eagle wings of Spirit above whatever monotony or grief we now endure.

 

Shall be servant of all- Consider the influence of Christianity on the Greek language of humility. The Lord taught that the leaders, the great ones, in His Kingdom, would be the humble servants (Mt. 20:27). Christ spoke of himself as a humble King, which would have been a contradiction in terms to the first century Greek mind. Consider the following commentary by Alan Hayward: "The ancient Greeks had no time for humility. In fact, their language didn't even have a word for it until well into the first century... the early Christians evidently had to coin a word for it. It's a clumsy, long word, made by sticking together the Greek word 'low-down' and the Greek word 'mentality'. The sudden appearance of this new word in Greek literature during the first century is generally attributed to the influence of the early church" [Alan Hayward, The Humble King, 'The Bible Missionary' No.131, January 1994].

See on Phil. 2:7. It is a great NT theme that we are the bond slaves of the Lord Jesus. And yet we are also to be slaves to all His people (Mk. 10:44), for the Lord Jesus is His people: they are His body. To serve our brethren is to serve the Lord Himself. The Lord Jesus expects us to relate to Him as bond slaves. He speaks of how a bond slave can be working in the field all day, come home tired, and then be immediately commanded by the master to prepare his meal and only then get his own meal- and the master won't thank him, but just expects it of him. And the Lord Jesus applies this to His relationship with us. The Lord of all grace is, by absolute rights, a demanding Lord. He commented that we call Him Lord and Master, and we say well, for so He is (Jn. 13:13). If we are truly the bond-slaves of the Lord Jesus, we have no 'free time' for ourselves. Neither will we expect to have time for ultimately our 'own thing'. The craze for personal and social freedom which sweeps the modern world will leave us untouched. Ultimate freedom and total independence is not for us.

10:45 For the Son of Man came- If the Lord was speaking of Himself as the One who was to be the minister so that He might be great, it is possible that this is a commentary from Matthew rather than the words of the Lord- pointing out that in fact the Lord had Himself in view in the preceding verses.

Not to be served by others- Surely the Lord develops this teaching when He characterizes the rejected as insisting that they had never missed an opportunity to minister unto Him personally (Mt. 25:44). Putting these teachings together, perhaps the Lord means us to understand that He did not come to be personally served, but rather does He 'come' to us in the form of His needy brethren, each encounter with them is an encounter with Him. People did of course minister to the Lord in His life (Mt. 27:55; Mk. 1:31; 15:41; Lk. 8:3 s.w.), but He surely means that He didn't come so much as to be ministered to as to Himself minister to others. In this the exquisite beauty of His Lordship. He is indeed Lord, but He didn't come to be personally treated as Lord but rather His psychological focus was upon what He could do for others. And this is His comment upon the desire of the two brethren to have a grand place in the Kingdom "for us", they were seeking something for themselves, whereas the example of the Lord which they were to follow was of focusing upon serving, rather than having an eye upon the reward.

But to serve- The Lord is the same yesterday, today and forever. His focus in His life was upon serving others, and yet the word is used of how He who served at the last supper shall also 'come forth' [s.w. "the Son of Man came", Mt. 20:28] to "minister" to His people at the future Messianic banquet (Lk. 12:37).  

And to give his life as a ransom for many- The Greek lutron is only used in this place in the NT, although the LXX uses it for the Hebrew pidion, the ransom payment for human life (Ex. 21:30; Num. 3:49-51; Num. 35:31). The word means literally 'to loose'. The idea may be that something [a life, an eternal life] was potentially prepared for the "many" which was tied up [by human sin], which the Lord's death would unloose and make available. But why use this particular term in this context? The connection is clearly with the idea of being a servant, a slave of the lowest order. And what did they loose? The sandals of the guests at meals, after which they washed their feet. There is clearly a connection of thought between the Lord's teaching here and His washing of the disciples' feet at the last supper, whereby He visually fulfilled the picture of being a servant and not being ministered unto, despite Peter's objections. His unloosing of the disciples' sandals and cleansing their feet, dressed as He was on the cross, having laid aside His outer garment and being clothed only with a loincloth, was all a prefigurement of His death on the cross. He invited us all to do as He had done- to participate in His death by dying for others that they might live. And that has various fulfilments day by day, in self control, not demanding from our brother, forgiving, rebuking, caring for, teaching... telephoning, emailing, and so forth.

In all ways, the Lord is our pattern. He was a servant of all, and so should we be. His servanthood dominated His consciousness. He said that He came not [so much as] to be ministered unto, but so as to minister, with the end that He gave His life for others (Mk. 10:45). In His death for Israel, He was “a minister [lowly servant] of the circumcision”, i.e. the Jews (Rom. 15:8). Yet we are His ministers, His slave / servants. The same word is used for how the women and Angels ministered unto Him (Mk. 1:13,31; 15:41), and how He anticipated men would minister to Him (Jn. 12:26 Gk. cp. 2 Cor. 11:23; Col. 1:7;  1 Tim. 4:6). But both then and now, He came and has come in order to minister / serve us, rather than to be served by us; even though this is what we give our lives to doing. Yet He is still all taken up with ministering to us. He came more to serve than to be served. We are slaves, all of us, of the lowest sort. It’s hard for us to realize the lowliness of being a Roman slave; and the sheer wonder of being made a free man, purely by grace. This is what each and every one of us has experienced. Servanthood / slavery should be the concept that dominates our lives; for we cannot be a servant of two masters (Mt. 6:24). We are to be wholly dedicated to the service of the Lord Jesus and those in Him. See on Lk. 17:10.

10:46 And they arrived in Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho- Matthew's account of the healing of the two blind men as they left Jericho must be compared with the healing of Bartimaeus as He left Jericho (Mk. 10:46), and the healing of a blind man as He approached Jericho (Lk. 18:35). These accounts are not in contradiction. One of the two blind men was Bartimaeus, and he is the one Mark focuses on. The healing of the first blind man is indeed described in the same terms as the healing of the other blind men, but the similarity of the language is in order to demonstrate how the Lord worked in the same way in different lives at slightly different times. And there are other examples of incidents repeating in Biblical history but being described in similar language. We are left with an abiding impression that what happens in our lives has been in essence repeated in other lives. And surely the healing of the first blind man inspired the others to take the same leap of faith, just as we are to be inspired by the way others have responded to the Lord's hand in their lives.

If indeed there are major bloomers in the Gospels and in the Bible generally [as the critics suggest regarding these incidents of healing the pairs of blind men], then naturally the question arises as to how reliable the Biblical text really is. Liberal Christians tend to argue that some is, other parts aren't. But no basis is given for deciding which parts are reliable and which are not. Nor does there seem any reason why God would inspire some parts of the Bible but not others. But the wonder is that the Bible, and the Gospels particularly, can be analyzed at depth and found not to contradict but rather to dovetail seamlessly in a way in which no human piece of writing ever could. This is particularly seen in the four Gospels, and it is this seamlessness and lack of contradiction which led sceptics like Frank Morrison in Who Moved the Stone? to become committed believers in the bodily resurrection of Christ. In musical terms, the whole united record reads as a symphony. There is no need to remove one note from it, or a few notes here and there. The overall wonder is lost by doing so, to the point that it is a desecration of the Divine product. If there are passages which we cannot reconcile, the way of humility is surely to accept that we are still waiting for more insight and understanding- rather than arrogantly insisting that Divine inspiration somehow faltered at that point. 

With his disciples and a great crowd- The section began with the idea of the Lord now being on His journey to death in Jerusalem, and bidding the disciples follow Him on that path. The crowd followed, but not in that deeper sense. The same term is used of the healed blind men- they too "followed Him" (Mt. 20:34), but the implication is that they followed Him with understanding. The parallel Mk. 10:52 records that one of the men, Bartimaeus, "followed Jesus in the way". That last phrase would surely be redundant unless it was pregnant with some deeper meaning, and that meaning surely rests in the idea of following the Lord in the way of the cross which led to Golgotha.

Bartimaeus the son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside- Mk. 10:52 speaks of how at least one of these blind men followed Jesus "in the way", using the same word hodos as used here for "the way". Their sad position, sitting maybe for years day by day para or by, next to "the way", was in fact putting them in a position when at the right time, they could get up and follow the Lord along that "way".

We note the parallels between the rich young ruler and the blind beggar. The young man came to Him "as he was proceeding along the road / way, a man ran to him". The Lord then teaches that they must follow Him on the way / road to Jerusalem and the cross (:32 "they were on the road heading up to Jerusalem"). The young man turned away from that road, but the beggar followed Him "in the way", on that road. The beggar also ran to Him (:50) after likewise encountering Jesus as He walked along the road / way- for he was "sitting by the roadside" (:47). He was ready to go; his disability and poverty had placed him on the way / road, he just had to be activated. We recall Mark's Gospel opens with John the Baptist preparing the way / road for the Lord, and it would seem this man by the way / road had been prepared by John's ministry. Both men ask the Lord for what they deeply wanted- the young man wanted to live for ever, the blind man wanted to see. The beggar cast away his cloak, his only possession (:50), but the rich young man refused to give up all that he owned. The contrast is there to exemplify the Lord's words to the rich young man- that those who have wealth will find it difficult to follow Him.

10:47 And when he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out, and say: Jesus! You Son of David, have mercy on me!- These were exactly the words of the two blind men of Mt. 9:27, who were likewise cured as the Lord "departed" from a town, just as here the cure happened as He departed from Jericho. The similarity and connection is obvious. From God's side, we see how He works according to pattern in the lives of people. And humanly, the blind men had somehow passed on to other blind men the truth that there was mercy / grace in the Son of David, which could be manifested in the restoration of sight. In this lies the significance of the fact that according to Lk. 18:35, another blind man had very recently said exactly these words and made exactly this request as the  Lord approached Jericho. Far from being [as supposed by the critics] a jumbling up of material by uninspired writers, we see rather the development of a theme- that blind men at various places and times approached the Lord with the same words, and made the same connection between His mercy and Him being the Son of David. They may simply have thought that as the Son of David, He had the characteristics of David- which included remarkable mercy and grace to his enemies. We also see how once a community is broken into with the Gospel, it spreads within that community, expressed in the words and concepts which that community understands, and in the style which originated with the first ones in the community who accepted the Gospel. I have seen this happen in communities of the deaf, Gypsies, HIV patients, ethnic minorities under persecution, language groups etc. And so it happened amongst the blind beggar community in Palestine. Such communities have amazing links to each other and paths of communication.  

The connection between "the son of David" and "mercy" is surely rooted in the description of the promises to David as "the mercies [chesed] of David" (Is. 55:3; Acts 13:34; 1 Kings 3:6; 2 Chron. 1:8; Ps. 89:49 "The mercies which You promised unto David"; Is. 16:5 "In mercy shall the throne be established... in the tent of David"). These promises were utter grace; "mercy" translates chesed, which is about the closest the OT comes to the NT concept of grace. David rejoiced in this chesed / mercy shown to him (2 Sam. 22:51; 2 Chron. 7:6; Ps. 101:1). Solomon pleaded for grace on the basis of the fact that God had shown such covenant mercies to David (2 Chron. 6:42 "Remember the mercies of David"). The mercies of David surely also refer to God's mercy, the mercy of grace, shown to David in forgiving him the sin with Bathsheba and Uriah- he begged for forgiveness on the basis of God's "tender mercies" (Ps. 51:1). It could be argued that David's forgiveness was on account of his pleading for the mercies shown to him in the Davidic covenant to be continued to him. For in that covenant God had promised that chesed would not depart from David (2 Sam. 7:15), and David therefore begs for forgiveness on the basis that grace / chesed would indeed not be withdrawn from him (Ps. 51:1). From all this, David pleaded in crisis towards the end of his life to fall into God's hands because "His mercies are great" (2 Sam. 24:14). In response to the chesed ["mercy", or grace] shown David, he too was characterized by humanly senseless chesed to his enemies in the family of Saul (s.w. 1 Sam. 20:15; 2 Sam. 2:5 "you have shewed this kindness / chesed unto Saul"; 2 Sam. 3:8; 9:1,7) and to Hanun his Ammonite enemy (2 Sam. 10:2 "I will shew kindness / chesed unto the Hanun"). What is so impressive is that the network of blind men, from Galilee to Jericho, had figured this out, or at least part of it. They saw the connection between grace and David, and were inspired to throw themselves upon the grace of David's Messianic Son. There was in those times [as there is in much of the world today] a deep belief that blindness was the direct result of sin (Jn. 9:2). These blind men almost certainly felt that their blindness was a result of their sin, and so they felt a moral need for forgiveness, so that the blindness would be lifted. According to Mk. 10:46, one of the blind men was called Bartimaeus, literally 'Son of the unclean'- doubtless this was what he had been dubbed by others, for no Hebrew mother would have named her son that. And they believed that Jesus could indeed cleanse them, morally forgive them, and thereby restore their sight. This would explain why they screamed [Gk.] "Have mercy on us!". This was a moral request; they didn't simply call out for healing.

10:48 And many rebuked him- This is yet another example of where the Lord is presented as eager to accept, when men [including disciples] are more eager to reject. The same word has just been used in 19:13 for how the disciples rebuked the little ones from coming to the Lord- and were in turn rebuked. The impression is that in the disciples' exclusivity, they weren't being [as they supposed] more spiritual than the world around them, but rather were they being simply as that world. Soon afterwards, the Pharisees told the Lord to "rebuke" His disciples, and He replied that it was impossible for them to "hold their peace" (Lk. 19:39,40). These are all words and phrases taken from this incident. Now it is the disciples who refuse to be quiet, and it is the Pharisees who want them to be quiet. Again the point is made that the desire to silence and exclude others is from the world, and not of Christ. The Lord's acceptance of people is consistently painted by the Gospels as being far more inclusive and extensive than that of men. The human tendency to reject and erect barriers is simply not there in Christ.

Saying that he should hold his peace. But he cried out more zealously: You, Son of David, have mercy on me!- This could be seen as the result of the Lord's piquing their sense of urgency for Christ by not responding immediately. This is also a factor in some of His delayed responses to our own needs.

10:49 And Jesus stood still and said: Call him. And they called to the blind man, saying to him: Be of good courage! Rise, he calls for you!- The Lord could have walked up to the man as He did to others when curing them. But on this occasion He wished to teach that His calling of men to Him for healing often uses a human mechanism. The "call" comes through people. Through us. Their obedience to the command to go call the man is emphasized. The Lord "calls" just as the people "called" the man. The Lord's calling and our calling of men are thereby paralleled. The experience of being called by the Lord is not to be seen as an onerous call to responsibility before Him; rather is it the source of "courage". His calling is because He wants to do something good for us, rather than saddle us with the weight of responsibility to judgment.

Note the joy of the man when he knows the Lord has called him to Himself. But we have each been called by the same Lord. The man's joyful, eager response is a pattern for all.

10:50 And he, casting away his garment, sprang up and came to Jesus- His garment was likely all he owned. And he is therefore presented as being willing to forsake all in response to the call of Jesus, just as the disciples immediately forsake all and followed Him. 'Coming to Jesus' is the phrase just used of how the little children came to Him (10:14); and again, there was a desire to forbid them. This native tendency we have to forbid others to come to the Lord must be watched carefully; and never allowed to be given formal expression in church policies which exclude some from ever coming to the Lord Jesus.

We imagine the crowd parting and the tight circle around Jesus also opening to allow the blind beggar to come to the Lord. Just as He opened the circle around Him to let the little child come to Him.

10:51 And Jesus said: What will you have me do for you? And the blind man said to him: Rabbi- that I may receive my sight- The Lord had just used the same words to James and John in :35,36: "We want you to do for us whatever we shall ask of you. And he said to them: What would you wish that I should do for you?". Compared to the enormity of salvation which the Lord was planning to 'do' for man on the cross, the requests seem mundane- sight, and glory over others. His death, and His teaching about it, should've obviated any request for 'doing' things for us. All that matters has been done by Him.

The Lord had a way of focusing men upon their need. Thus He would have passed by the desperate disciples as they struggled in the storm, He would have gone further on the road to Emmaus, and He asked the blind men the obvious question: “What will ye that I shall do unto you?” (Mt. 20:32). He only partially cured another blind man, to focus that man’s mind on the faith that was needed for the second and final stage of the cure (Mk. 8:23-25). He elicited from the father of the epileptic child the miserable childhood story of the boy- not that the Lord needed to know it, but to concentrate the man on his need for the Lord’s intervention (Mk. 9:21). He wanted them to focus on their need: in this case, for sight. He let Peter start to sink, and only then, when Peter’s whole heart and soul were focused on the Lord, did He stretch forth His hand. The Lord deliberately delayed going to see Lazarus until he was dead and buried; to elicit within His followers the acuteness of their need. And was He really sleeping in the boat with the storm all around Him? Was He not waiting there for them to finally quit their human efforts and come running to Him with faith in no other (Mk. 4:38,39)? Only when men were thus focused on their desperate need for the Lord would He answer them. The Lord further focused men’s need when he asked the lame man: “Wilt thou be made whole?” (Jn. 5:6). Of course the man wanted healing. But the Lord first of all focused his desire for it.

The one thing he wanted was to see. The healed blind man is a type of us. True understanding (seeing) should be the one thing we want. "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom" Prov. 4:7). This was obviously a rhetorical question, and it succeeded in the intention of making the men verbalize their dominant desire. Likewise the Lord works with us to make us focus and understand what is our dominant desire- and then seeks to reposition that focus. In this section He has done that by placing all human desires and requests in the shadow of His death for us. For how could we want anything 'extra' after He has done that for us, with all it enabled.

10:52 And Jesus said to him: Go your way. Your faith has made you whole. And immediately he received his sight and followed him in the way- The context is that the Lord had spoken of how He was going His way to Jerusalem and death on a cross (:33,34 "we are going up to  Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over..."). The suggestion is that the man followed in the way of cross carrying. He "Followed Him in the way". But He told the man "Go your way". The man's way was now the Lord's way, the way of the cross. There's surely a play on words here, for akoloutheo translated "followed" means literally 'to be in the same way with'. The Lord told the man to go his way, but the man followed Jesus in His way, the way which has been defined in Mt. 20:17,18 as the way to the cross. Our way is His way, not in that He dominates and subsumes our individuality beneath His own, but in that we each follow Him in our own particular and unique way. That is not to say that we each have our way in life and that journey must of itself be the right one. It's axiomatic that every man has his own path in life. As believers in Christ, our path must be following Him, and not just wandering around in life; but each one in Christ follows their Lord in their own unique path.