I have written before commentary on the rich young man, and almost neglected to consider it again. Once I began to write, I saw some things that were happening behind the scenes that I had glossed over before.
Now, continuing the notion of
“What shall I do? to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, finally the one who asked
that is identified. He was the rich young man. However, there were others there
with Jesus. The answer was really to the question, What shall we
do? They all had to do the same thing! Perhaps the rich man could have made
a name for himself. Perhaps he also could have been an apostle!
I have written about that one
before: “Secular Humanism;” Oct 23, 2017. [1] The young man had done
things even many pagans might do, but he was about to fail taking up his cross
and following Jesus. He mentioned all the commandments about loving others but
failed to say anything about loving God. As it turned out, his love of money
was greater than his love for Jesus. The one thing that He should do, he did
not do.
He was free to walk with Jesus or
away from Him. “Jesus said unto him, ‘If you will be perfect, go and sell that you
have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come and
follow Me” (Mat 19:21).
His treasure was right there beyond
Jordan (Mat 19:1) in Judea. There was no ‘Jordan’ at that time (See the
map). The English word ‘Jordan’ (Hebrew;
Yarden) means ‘Garden’ and often means the “River of the Garden.’
Like Joshua long before, Jesus passed over the River of the Garden into Israel (Jos 3:1). Israel, at that time, ‘Judea.’ was symbolic of Paradise in heaven. As such, the man had passed over the Jordan and had no idea what that would mean. He was, although only vicariously, at the door to Paradise, but he did not belong there. His treasure was beyond the Garden, apparently in Perea, literally ‘beyond the Jordan’ (hayyarden)
Speaking of Zion, Isaiah wrote, “He
will comfort all her waste places; and He will make her wilderness like Eden,
and her desert like the Garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found
therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody” (Isa 51:3).
The rich young man had followed
Jesus to the Garden of the Lord, but it was certainly no longer a garden but a
wilderness just as Isaiah had prophesied. The rich young man was at the crossing
into the Garden of the Lord (Gen ,3:24) but did not go in. He turned his back
on ‘Paradise’ and the LORD GOD in the person of Jesus. He could have gone all
the way with Jesus, but part way was certainly not enough.
What kept the man from going to
eternal life in Paradise? Riches.
Perfection, according to Jesus,
was both giving to the poor and following Him. Indubitably, the man had social
justice by giving to the poor, but because his wealth was his treasure, he would
not follow Jesus into Zion — the paradisiacal Garden of the Lord.
The young man was driven out of
the Garden just as Adam was in the beginning.
Remember “beyond Jordan” above?
In the Hebrew, it is ‘hayyarden,’ with the Hebrew ‘hay,’ meaning
life. The rich man was at the crossing of death unto life beyond Jordan and
failed to know it. God (Jesus) was keeping him from where he should be but he did
not fit the criteria.
The ‘flaming sword’ that would
keep the unrighteous from entering was a ‘blazing drought’
Why could the rich man not get into life? Jesus said it, ‘again.’ I missed the first time, but His words caught my eye with the second way He said it:
It is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the
kingdom of God. (Mat 19:24)
Hence, the ‘eye of a needle’ compares
to the crossing the Jordan River, symbolically the ‘River of Life.’
At the time of the Abrahamic Covenant,
the servant of Abraham, “Made his camels to kneel down without the city by a
well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to
draw water” (Gen 24:11). That was to find a marriageable bride for Isaac.
Remembering the woman at the well and
her many marriages, Jesus suggested that she needed “living water.”
To get to the water, the camels had to
kneel to drink the water of the well. It was possible to drink, but it required
bowing to obtain the water that kept the camels alive. The well may have been
symbolic of the “Well of Souls” which lies beneath the Foundation Stone. To get
into that well requires that the flesh to die for the souls to enter in.
The eye of the needle may more pertain
to an aperture of any sorts, not necessarily a needle, but any tool and perhaps
the Well of Souls. Perhaps that place is the “flaming sword” guarding the Way,
or direction, to the Tree of Life (hay).
The point is not about a camel going
through some city gate, but that it has to bow to drink of the water of
life, whose tool is not a needle at all but the Sacred Cross. That ‘instrument,’
I think, is the ‘flaming sword’ whose “eye” may be the juncture of the post and
crossbars for entry to the way into life. And, of course, the ‘Living Water’
that pours from the Cross is the Blood and Holy Spirit of Jesus.
The rich man failed to mention that he saw
Jesus as God, or even that he would follow Him to his own death. It was just good
things that he had done, and none of them was bearing the Cross like Simon the
Cyrene would do.
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