2. Where had the ruler got hold of the thought of eternal life ? It was far above the dusty speculations and casuistries of the Rabbis. Probably from Christ Himself. He was right in recognizing that the conditions of possessing it were moral, but his conception of " good " was superficial, and he thought more of doing good than of being good, and of the desired life as payment for meritorious actions. In a word, he stood at the point of view of the Old Dispensation. "This do, and thou shalt live," was his belief; and what he wished was further instruction as to what " this " was. He was to be praised in that he docilely brought his question to Jesus, even though, as Christ's answer shows, there was error mingling in his docility. The fact that he came to Christ for a purely religious purpose, not seeking personal advantage for himself or for others, like the crowds who followed for loaves and cures, nor laying traps for Him with puzzles which might entangle Him with the authorities, nor asking theological questions for curiosity, but honestly and earnestly desiring to be helped to lay hold of eternal life, is to be put down to his credit. He is right in counting it the highest blessing.
3. Probably when he came to our Lord with his question the ruler had an idea that Christ would recommend him to build a synagogue or ransom some of his countrymen who were slaves, or do some striking religious act ; for when our Lord gives him the simple answer that any child of his own household could have given him, he answers, " What commandment ? " fancying He
1 F. von Hiigel, Eternal Lift, 365.
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might mean some rules for extraordinary saintliness which had not been divulged to the common people ; and evidently, when our Lord merely repeated the time-worn Decalogue, the young man was disappointed, and somewhat impatiently exclaimed, " All these have I kept from my youth up." He probably did not mean to vaunt his own blamelessness of life. Not at all. He merely meant to state that all his life he had had these command- ments before him, and if this were all our Lord had to tell him, then that was no fresh light for him at all. All the good they could do him he had already got ; and that was not all the good that could be got, he felt. " What lack I yet ? " We are told that the Talmud describes one of the classes of Pharisees as the " tell-me-sonietbing-more-to-do-and-I-will-do-it " Pharisee. The young man plainly belonged to this class. He thought he was ready to make any sacrifice or do any great thing which would advance his spiritual condition.
^f A sermon by the Archbishop of York emphasizing that the test (M religion is love for one's neighbours fills her with delight ; a sermon on the third anniversary of her baptism by the vicar of St. Mary Abbot's, in which " he laid stress on the impossibility ot doing without first being," is noted with ardent enthusiasm a few days afterwards. Then she makes an approving note of some words of Dr. Parker : " He spoke against men who met together in a nice room to discuss how to do something for the suffering masses ; if you want to reach them — go to them yourself." " I feel no doubt of religion," she wrote on the threshold of 1891, and she immediately hurried to reflect that it was life essentially : " There is a tremendous difference between admiring and believing in Christianity on the one hand, and on the other putting ourselves under the Divine influence hour by hour." She was discovering the old problem of how to be what one believed, and she was just the person to solve it with almost a ruthless rectitude. She had come to the briar patches already.1
4. It is evident that the young ruler made the mistake of forgetting that goodness can come only from God. He apparently imagined that goodness is inherent in man, if he only knew how to exercise it. " What good thing shall I do ? " And the Lord answered, " Why askest thou me concerning that which is good ? " — as if there were several good things: good works, and good 1 J. Ramsay MacDonald, Margaret Ethel MacDonald, 66.
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eternal life ? There is but one true Good, and that is not a thing, but a Being. God is the One Good, and the One Life. It is as if our Lord would say, " You ask Me a question which I cannot answer directly ; because, if I did, you would not understand Me. I Eternal life is not a commodity to be purchased at a price. God » and eternal life are one. If you have God, you have eternal life ; if you enter into God, you enter into eternal life.") Or, more plainly, if your idea of life, what you like, desire, work for, is one with God's idea of life, you are thereby one with God. Your will is " at-oned " to His will ; and therefore what you will you will have eternally, because you will what is eternal. For God is good, and good is God ; and therefore whatever is good — the good thought, the good desire, the good deed — these, and these only, are eternal.