Chapter 19.
The Lord pursues the principles on which the relationships of the people with God subsist. He does not weaken those that existed: on the contrary, He confirms them; but He advances now and leaves the people under the consequences of the violation of the covenant under which they were found, and without the enjoyment of the new blessings into which He introduced those who accompanied Him in His rejection.
In answer to the Pharisees, who tempted Him by questions of their schools, where the fear of God was not-He traces things higher up than the law. He speaks, as the Son of man. He confirms, in all their extent, the ties that God had formed; the ordinance of Moses did but suffer the hardness of their heart. The law just recognized the relationships which preceded it; what was more than those relationships was only for a time.
The second principle He enunciates is the humility, the teachableness, and the confidence of a little child: such is the principle whereby one enters the kingdom.
Thirdly, all goodness in man is denied; God alone is good. (See the position that Christ takes at the beginning of Psa. 16. He has said to God, Thou art My Lord; My goodness extendeth not to Thee, but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all My delight.) Then the Lord, repeating and taking up the word of the young man, confirms the law as a condition of life, and says to him: " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." There was the principle of the law, and it is also what the young man had done outwardly.
On his answer to that effect, the Lord goes farther: Give up thy heart then-I myself am the touchstone for that- and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: other hopes are open through My rejection. The young man went away sorrowful. The only answer to this difficulty insurmountable for sinful man, the only key which opened the door of the kingdom of God, was, " With God all things are possible."
The chapter is remarkable in this respect, that is to say, for the manner in which Jesus confirms for the Jews that which was fundamental in the law, " These things do, and thou shalt live." He maintains the everlasting righteousness of God as regards the ties of nature: He founds all this upon that which preceded even the law, and (since the relations on which the law was based preceded the law) He appeals from it to what was of God at the beginning He also goes beyond the law for him who observed it in his ordinary relationship, and presents Himself as the true touchstone for the heart- Him, the rejected One, who was not of the world. What is the only means of arriving at it? The answer is: " With God all things are possible." He recognizes all that God had put in Judaism; but he ceases to be a Jew: the young man could not live on such a footing.
These words of Jesus excite in the spirit of Peter this question: What shall we have therefore-we who have forsaken all and followed thee? The answer, founded on the glory already revealed on the mount of transfiguration, is, that when the Son of man shall return in His glory, in the regeneration, the twelve shall be in their place on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
This answer leaves all aside, until the restoration of Israel, and places again the disciples in connection with this principle, omitting what, in the interval, was for the church; but it is also wholly outside the legal relationships of the people with God. If the law were accomplished, life would be the result. Those who followed Christ, when the Jews under the law rejected Him, should judge Israel in the day of the glory of the Son of man. They had followed the Lord in His rejection by Israel; they should participate in His glory when He should be the glorious Head of His people and of the entire world. Moreover, whoever had acted faithfully in this relation and taken Christ for his portion should receive an hundredfold here below, and besides life everlasting. Nevertheless one can judge nothing beforehand as to the relative degree of glory of individuals by their present position.