Thursday, December 21, 2023

PASSING THROUGH THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE

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) (Wikipedia 2023).

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’ (Strong 2006). The ‘drought’ in this case was most certainly the wilderness that the Garden had become by the time of Jesus.

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)

 That was saying it again. He had implied it before! “Beyond Jordan” (Mat 19:1) was the first saying. The man’s prosperity was hayyarden — ‘Beyond Jordan’ in Perea. He would need to turn back to wherein laid his priorities.

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.

 



[1] https://kentuckyherrin.blogspot.com/search?q=rich+young+man

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