October 21, 2012
What do all these men have in common: Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon,
and Job? They were all patriarchs of the faith. They are paragons of faith. As
the saints of old did, we look to these men as fathers in the faith; our Lord
points us to them as examples of being His children. There were others in the
Old Testament who are lifted up as saints as well that we should give thanks to
God for: Hannah, Elijah, Jeremiah, Joshua, and countless others. These saints don’t
quite have the status of those in the first list. Abraham, Moses, David,
Solomon, Job, there is one thing they have in common that at least in part
accounts for that—they were fabulously wealthy. These men had it all. They were
men in powerful positions, men who were highly honored, and along with that
status, men of immense wealth. Why is this? Was there something special about
them? Did they have stronger faith in God than most others?
There is an aspect of faith and the Christian life that there are
strong Christians and weak Christians. Some are strong in their faith and
others are struggling. Yet faith is faith. You either have it or you don’t.
Weak or strong, a lot or a little, if you have faith you have faith. In terms
of every human being being born in sin there was nothing more righteous about
Abraham and David than there was about Hannah or Jeremiah or your average believer
in God in the Old Testament. We, like they were, are saved solely on the basis
of Christ’s righteousness, not our own.
But think about those men the Bible holds up as saints par excellence.
Is it just a coincidence that they were wealthy beyond compare? Or is there no
correlation to their having extraordinary wealth and their being in a category
unlike every other believer in God in the Old Testament?
The disciples in the Gospel reading may very well have been thinking
along these lines. A couple of these men Jesus called to be His apostles
actually had wealth of their own when Jesus called them. Even so, their wealth
in no way compared to the likes of Abraham or King David. Most likely, it
didn’t come close to the man who had just walked away from Jesus in great
sadness because he had great wealth. What prompted this sadness was Jesus’ call
to him to sell all he had and follow Him. Now Jesus is telling His disciples
that it’s nearly impossible for a rich person to get into heaven. Accurate or
not, in the minds of the disciples there likely was a direct correlation
between the riches of Abraham, David, and company and their status as saints
par excellence; as paragons of the faith. Now this wealthy, upstanding follower
of God comes to Jesus and upon leaving Jesus Jesus declares to the disciples
that it’s nearly impossible for the wealthy to enter into eternal life? The disciples
were seeing a major disconnect with what they saw the Old Testament teaching
them and what Jesus now was teaching them.
They were astonished at Jesus’ words. If what you’re saying is true,
Jesus, then who can be saved? It wasn’t that they thought that these men were
wealthy and therefore God blessed them with eternal life. It was the notion
that these men were men of great faith, ones who obeyed the Law of God, and
therefore God rewarded them and blessed them. There’s no more obvious way of
seeing this than of being endowed with fabulous wealth. The man who came up to
Jesus was so endowed and so when he in all sincerity responded to Jesus that he
had kept the commandments of God from his youth the disciples were not
surprised. Here was a man who was abundantly blessed with wealth. And of
course, he was an outstanding example himself of what a believer in God should
be.
If we’re looking for resolution from Jesus on this matter of the
correlation between wealth and being blessed by God then we’ll likely be
disappointed. Jesus’ response to the disciples’ question of who can be saved is
simply, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are
possible with God.” They’re thinking, if this man has little hope of salvation,
what hope do the rest of us have? And perhaps that’s what prompted Peter’s
rationale to Jesus: “See, we have left everything and followed you.” We may not
be wealthy, we may not be in the same league as Abraham and David and the rich
man who just walked away, but we have given up all we have. You just called
that man to sell all he had and follow you, and we have done something of the
sort. We’ve put everything of value to us behind us and have put you in front
of us so that we may live our lives in submission to you.
Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left
house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for My
sake and for the Gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time,
houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with
persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” Jesus had made clear to
them how someone, anyone, everyone, can be saved—with man it is impossible, but
not with God. For all things are possible with God. Salvation is in God alone.
With you, dear disciples, with that man who just walked away, with Abraham, and
David, and Moses, and everyone. There are no special blessings upon people
because they are in any way more righteous or better or good in the sight of
God. Salvation is in what God accomplishes alone. If only the disciples had
realized that the way God does this was in the person who was standing before
them telling them all of this. They would come in time to see this and believe
it. For now they were as puzzled as ever, still caught up in their notions that
they somehow had to do something, or live a certain way, or give up something,
or accomplish certain good works, in order to gain salvation. This is exactly
what the rich man had thought and he went away sad because he didn’t want to
give up what he had in order to gain salvation. He didn’t see that salvation is
by grace, not by doing something.
We spend far too much time quantifying things, far too much effort
trying to determine what effort we must exert, far too much rationalizing what
we have done that should matter as we stand before God. We are so much like the
rich man. We are far too much like the disciples. For the record, we are so
similar to Abraham, and Moses, and David, and all those men of renown who seem
on such a higher plane than us. The news flash from Jesus is that we are all
the same. We are in the same boat with every other person. There is no one who
deserves anything from God, in this life or in eternity.
Thankfully, His news flash doesn’t end there. His main thing He has
come to bring is Himself, and with Him you get it all. “Truly, I say to you,
there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father
or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a
hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and
children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.”
These are remarkable words from God Himself, God in the flesh. He laid aside
His glory to serve. He came not just to help but to accomplish. His serving
took the form of suffering in the place of every person, high status or low. The
call He gives to each of His children is that, yes, when the rubber hits the
road, God comes before your mom and dad, your brother and sister, your
valuables, your life. If you hold on to those with the notion that you truly
can’t live without them you have already lost them because you can’t hang on to
them for eternity.
We truly leave all and cling to Christ alone. That’s a stunning
statement, but not so much in comparison with what He says comes next. What we
leave behind is everything we have. What we get in return is so much more. His
words are clear, we do not live in this life waiting for the all the blessings
to come to us in heaven. Even now He blesses us. We “receive a hundredfold now in
this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and
lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” When you are in
the Church, you are in a new family, God’s family. Your brothers and sisters in
Christ are your spiritual family, but you don’t have to wait until heaven to
receive this gift from God.
The blessing upon receiving the Lord’s Supper captures this nicely: The
body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen and preserve you in body and
soul to life everlasting. The Lord’s Supper is a spiritual meal, no doubt. But
its blessings are for your body and soul. Not just your soul, your body
as well. His blessings to you are not just for the life to come but also for
now in this time. He blesses you in body and soul, now and forever. Amen.
SDG
1 comment:
Very thoughtfuul blog
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