If You Keep the Law, Will You Live Forever?

In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions and listeners and readers of The Berean Call.  Here is this week’s question: Dear Dave and T. A., I’m confused by the scripture in which the rich young man comes to Jesus and asks him how he can attain eternal life.Although I haven’t been a Christian very long, my understanding is that eternal life can’t come by keeping the law yet, it seems that Jesus is pointing him to the law.What am I missing here?

Tom:

Dave, the Lord does say, “Thou knowest the commandments.”

Dave:

Well Tom, there’s a—well I’d like to preach a sermon on this, do I have a couple hours here?

Tom:

Yes, it’s a wonderful teaching.

Dave:

Terrific, yes.First of all the fact that Jesus says “Why callest thou me good?There is none good but one and that’s God does not mean that he is saying that he is not God.He’s saying that he IS God, because he is good.Jesus said which of you convinceth me of sin?He’s the only sinless one.Okay so this is God.Now in the Old Testament the commandments were given and the promise was you keep this perfectly you have eternal life.Because judgment is against sin.The wages of sin is death.A person who hasn’t sinned, the judgment of God is not upon them, so that’s clear, we’ll accept that from scripture.The problem is as the Bible says, all have sinned.So now this young man was rather proud of his accomplishments obviously.

Tom:

Yes, although he starts out—he’s running, he’s kneeling before the Lord, he’s calling him good, he’s doing everything right.

Dave:

Well yes, but you can do those things for effect.

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

Good master, what good thing shall I do to inherit eternal life?

Tom:

You’re good, I’m good hey, we’re all good here.

Dave:

Yes, so Jesus said, “Well, you know the commandments.That is true to the Old Testament.”And he says, “Oh, I’ve kept them all.”Well Jesus is not going to say, “You rascal, you haven’t kept them all,” he’s just going to expose his heart and show him.Because there are basically two commandments and Jesus says and the Old Testament gives it to you in the same way.The first one is “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might, strength and so forth.And the second, all the others are included in this phrase: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self.”Now Jesus is showing him that he does not love his neighbor as himself.“Sell what you have, give to the poor.”Those are his neighbors.“Let them have it and then come take up the cross and follow me.”He goes away sad because he has great riches and that’s when Jesus says, “If you’re trusting in your riches--” In other words, it’s a pitfall we can all fall into.You’ve got a little money in the bank, you have a good insurance policy, you have a good job?Oh this is what we call security and you can trust in these things rather than God.Now the kingdom of God—to enter into the kingdom of God—I don’t think Jesus is talking about eternal life, I don’t think he is talking about salvation.

Tom:

Although that’s what the young man asked at the beginning.

Dave:

No, what good thing may I do?

Tom:

No, he says—asks him how can he attain eternal life?

Dave:

Right to inherit eternal life.And Jesus is talking about entering into the kingdom.It’s more difficult for those have riches to enter into the kingdom than to enter than for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle.

Tom:

Because they are putting their trust in everything other than the kingdom.

Dave:

Right, I think the kingdom here would be the experience, the daily experience of the king ruling in my life and having his way and my dependence upon him.And if you’re trusting in your riches instead of in God then you are really not experiencing the blessings of his kingdom.I think it is quite clear that you are not going to earn your way to heaven.You can’t earn eternal life.That’s quite clear.

Tom:

Well he was brought under conviction right away, just by Jesus’ keeping pushing it so he had to admit here there was something I couldn’t do.Or had maybe done wrong in the past.

Dave:

Now another danger Tom, there are some people that would take this scripture and would brow beat everyone and say unless you sell everything you have and give to the poor or you’re not going to be saved.Well we read in Acts for example that those who had property sold it, but they didn’t see everything.That’s quite clear because we find that there’s a prayer meeting going on in a house in Acts.Peter’s in prison, remember?We find Paul is writing to the church that is in the house of so-and-so.So we have to have some basic understanding.If everybody sold everything they had, then we all become dependent upon society.I think Christ is giving him an extreme example, just to point out that he is not the person that he really thinks he is.

Tom:

And of course, Jesus pointing him to the law, the law saves no body.It’s a task master, it points to sin in our lives.But again as we said earlier in our earlier segment, you break the law in one place, you are under condemnation.