The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 2 — Section 115

Vers. 18-25.-The ruler who refused the crown. It is a certain ruler, a young man, who _accosts our Lord. And the que~tion w~ich he asks represents one of the deepest cra_nngs of ~he human br~ast. ~s 1t only m the Gospels t_hat we_ find this question? It 1s written mto all the religions, mto the best of all the ph1losoph1es, the poetries, the i;ruesses at truth, which have commanded the thought of the ages. It is as old as human nature, as manifold in its complexion as the human experience, as abiding in its persistence as the human need. It is our question-one compared with which the hundred things which claim our attention are only as strivings after wind. Let us listen. The eternn,I life: what is it? and how is it realized? I. WnAT DID THE YOUNG MAN MEAN when he came running and kneeling and asked, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" The answer may indicate the essential ftatures of the desire that has haunted the breast. Clearly he meant three things: 1. .A real, personal existence-one implying distinct consciousness an,: activity. He is too prosaic, too selfishly in earnest, to mean less than this. 2 . .An existence removed from the imperfections <if the present time. His notions of immortality may have been crude; but he certainly desired a life which, as contrasted with the cbangefu1 and limited, is an eternal life. 3. .A life in relation to a moral oit,.spiritual system. He bas possessions. Sirens are ever luring him to the fateful shores of pleasure. Against them " the categorical imperative" of conscience is ever dominant. It says, "Root thy conduct in the everlastingly true. The eternal life is not mere endlessness. It is endless goodness, truth. And to be in harmony with this is to live eternally." Now, such being the contents of his thought, the burden which be brings to the Master is-how it comes that, although the harmony of his conduct with this system is complete, he is still unsatisfied; nay, that the more be seems to approach the ideal the more conscious he is that it is far ahead of him. " Explain it to me" is the passionate entreaty; and who does not love him for this sublime passion? •• What is the missing quantity? What is the plus yet to be possessed that I may have eternal life? " IL Turning to THE ANSWER OF CHRIST, and connecting it with words elsewhere, WHAT IS CHRIST'S EXPOSITIO~ OF THE ETERNAL LIFE? The question is, "What shall I do?" And to this the specific reply is, "Be free. Your life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions. Can you part with them, that you IOOY the more unreservedly obey the vision which has dawned on you?" (ver. 22). Thus the truth probed him. He might not have been called actually to sell his estate, any more than Abraham was called to offer up Isaac. But the trial of bis will was made ; and, in the trial, he was found wanting (ver. 23). Do we blame him ?-we whom the truth is proving every day, only to find that we are caught up by all kinds of vanities! He turned away ; and, alas I what of us? But the demand of the Lord reminds us of the requirement essential to the eternal life. Life, we are told by scientist8, consists in an adaptation of organism to surrounding. When the adaptation is complete, and the surrounding nourishes the organism, there is health. When it is impaired, there is sickness; when it is broken, there is death. Human life has both a spiritual and a material environment. As the ruler rightly supposed, ~he eternal life implies correspondence to the spiritual environment. Where there 1s no such correspondence, where, in Scripture phrase, the life is "without God," there is death. Where the correspondence bas been formed, and the inner life is nourished by the system which surrounds it, there is spiritual, eternal life. But are not the _phrases, "systems," "environments," too vague and abstract? Do we not need sometbmg more concrete, something nearer us, than such abstractions? Th.is is more concrete, this is nearer ns, "Take up the cross; come, follow me" (ver. 22). A perfect :dan has walked this earth-One in whom the correspondence with the heavenly environment was complete, who lived in and with a Ji'atber in heaven, and whose meat was to do his wi!L His l!xistence, in its details, we cannot copy; but his life, in its principles, inspirations, in all that gave it its beauty and glory, we can realize, under varying conditions. Tu be joined to him; to live in his light; to be the manner of person on. xvm. 1-43.J THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S1'. LUKE. 119