The Rich Young Man: Love for Wealth vs. Need for Grace

I went on a trip to Johor Bahru, Malaysia with the Young Adult Ministry at my church over the last weekend. During the sermon session, my pastor preached the story about the rich man who approached Jesus, seeking guidance on how to attain eternal life. In this story, A wealthy young man approached Jesus, asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus first told him to follow the commandments, which the young man claimed he had kept all his life. Jesus then said, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” The young man became very sad and went away sorrowful because he had great wealth and was unwilling to give it up. According to my pastor, the interaction between Jesus and the rich man highlights a critical flaw in the man’s character: his deep-seated love for wealth. The pastor emphasized that the rich man’s reluctance to sell his possessions and give to the poor reveals a significant fallibility – his attachment to material wealth over spiritual devotion.

However, this viewpoint can be contrasted with another interpretation I learned from my former pastor, rooted in the Lutheran theology of distinction between Law and Gospel. According to this perspective, the real issue at hand is not merely the rich man’s love for money but rather his reliance on his ability to achieve righteousness by adhering to the commandments. When Jesus tells the man to sell everything and give to the poor, it serves as a revelation of the man’s inability to fulfill the Law perfectly and his need for divine grace.

If the story is primarily about the love of money, then virtually all Christians would fail the test, as few could truly sell all their possessions and give the proceeds to the poor. This Law and Gospel interpretation, therefore, highlights the broader and more profound theological point: the impossibility of achieving salvation through human efforts alone. The Law, as represented by Jesus’ command, reveals human shortcomings and the need for the Gospel, which offers salvation through faith in Christ.

This interpretation aligns with the disciples’ reaction, who, upon hearing Jesus’ words, asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus’ response, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible,” reinforces the message that salvation is not attainable by human efforts but through God’s grace.

While the Law and Gospel distinction provides a valuable lens through which to understand this parable, it is important not to take this perspective too far. For instance, some may argue that Jesus’ commands to love God and neighbor should be viewed solely as Law, thereby stripping these teachings of their moral and edifying impact. This extreme application could also diminish the transformative power of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes, which offer profound moral guidance and inspiration.

I've observed that Christians often tend to be judgmental towards certain characters in the Bible due to their perceived flaws. For example, in the story of the rich young man, many focus on his love of wealth as the key issue that is deserving of criticism, sometimes overlooking his sincere effort to keep the commandments. It's almost as if this one flaw disqualifies him entirely from inheriting eternal life, despite his evident commitment to following God's laws.

Perhaps a holistic way to look at it is that keeping the commandments can be seen as the basic standard for a good Christian life. However, those who aspire to a higher spiritual calling may be challenged to go further, such as selling all they have and giving to the poor, as Jesus suggested. This additional step signifies a deeper level of sacrifice and trust in God, which not everyone may be ready or called to undertake. Moreover, even not-so-good Christians or those who have strayed, like the prodigal child, can be saved through God's grace. This underscores the doctrine of Law and Gospel, where the Law reveals our shortcomings, but the Gospel offers salvation through faith, emphasizing that our flaws do not disqualify us from eternal life. By considering both aspects, we gain a more balanced understanding of the characters and the messages in these biblical stories.

In conclusion, the Law and Gospel perspective offers a sensible and useful framework for interpreting the parable of the rich man. It underscores the necessity of divine grace and the futility of attempting to achieve righteousness through our own efforts. However, it is crucial to balance this understanding with the recognition that Jesus’ teachings also provide essential moral guidance that can edify and transform our lives.

Doubts about the function of the holy communion

I have been attending a Lutheran spirituality course at my church led by my pastor. The material used for the course is a book titled “The spirituality of the cross – The way of the first evangelicals (Revised Edition)” by Gene Edward Veith, Jr.

The course so far emphasizes the viewpoint that grace and salvation comes from God, rather than it being the merit of good works by human individuals. Even the ability to have faith is deemed to be the work of God, as sinful human beings are unable to believe on their own accord. As such, no one should claim himself superior to his fellow human being, but should be humble and grateful for his belief and salvation.

The other point that is tied in is that of the sacraments. The sacraments seem to be a key feature in Lutheran spirituality on how God administrate his gifts and saving grace to believers. So rites like baptism of infants, and the partaking of the holy communion, are deemed to be essential practice for the salvation and forgiveness of sins.

I have some reservations though about this idea of sacraments, especially the part about the partaking of holy communion as being essential for the forgiveness of sins. For one, I don’t like the idea of the institutional church claiming for itself the key to forgiving people’s sins. I just have an aversion towards the idea that there needs to be another layer of ritual for the forgiveness of sins apart from the simple prayer for God to forgive one’s sins, and that the means of the latter is inferior to the former. The key bible passage for examination regarding the function of holy communion seems to be Matthew 26:27, where Jesus took the cup of wine, and told the disciples to drink from it, saying “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”

I suppose this saying by Jesus is open to interpretations. On the one hand, it could mean the partaking of the holy communion, which is representative of the blood of Jesus, is essential to receive the forgiveness of sins. On the other hand, Jesus could be referring to his crucifixion as the blood covenant that is poured out for the forgiveness of sins. The wine in the holy communion is simply symbolic and representative of the crucifixion, and Jesus intends it to be simply a reminder rather than having the function for forgiving sins.

I favour the latter interpretation. I just don’t see why it is that God would need the practice of another ritual to administer the forgiveness of sins. The death of Jesus on the cross seems adequate to me, and salvation stemming from this is freely administered upon petition via prayers.

Why did Jesus’ cry out ‘Why God have you forsaken me’?; A portrait of Mrs Luther

I shall write about two things that interested me in the sermon given by my Pastor at church today.

1. My Pastor mentioned in his sermon that when Jesus was crucified upon the cross, he experienced the abandonment that is due to his being separated from God that made him cry out “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me” (Matthew 27:46).

Why did Jesus say these words when he was on the cross at Calvary? One answer that is given is that God is too pure to look upon evil. Therefore, it is possible that when Jesus bore the sins of humanity in His body on the cross that the Father, spiritually, turned away.  At that time, the Son may have cried out. Those who give such an make reference to the prophet Habakuk’s complaint in Habakkuk 1:13  which goes “Your[God] eyes are too pure to look on evil.”

Another answer is that the feeling of abandonment was due to Jesus’ experiencing the effect of sin which he took onto himself at the cross. A commentary from NIV Disciples Study Bible on the Matthew passage states “Part of the suffering occurred as Jesus felt forsaken by the Father. This feeling let Jesus identify totally with our feelings. This shows how deeply sin penetrated the heart of the Godhead, for the sinless Jesus suffered all the consequences of our sin. Jesus’ sense of desertion did not rise because God was in any way displeased with Jesus.”

I have read viewpoints from Christian theologians who come up with the doctrine known as the noetic effect of sin. According to this doctrine, sin negatively affects the human mind and intellect, making it difficult for the person to become a believer of the faith. The Christian apologist William Lane Craig who espoused this view wrote in an article how he felt most separated from God when he was living most sinfully.

Some website sources that I have visited explained the utterance as Jesus as simply his fulfilling the prophecy by quoting Psalms 22.

My favoured interpretation would be that God did not abandon Jesus. I don’t think God would be hampered from being able to look at a person because of sin. If it were the case, he would not have been able to interact with many of the Israelites in the past when they committed sins. I would also prefer to attribute Jesus’ feeling of abandonment as being due to his humanity instead. I don’t think that the view that feelings of abandonment by God as necessarily being due to sin conciles easily with the observation of what many believers may feel at certain point in their lives or when they are undergoing hardship. I don’t believe that all believers who feel a sense of abandonment by God are necessarily leading sinful lives. Moreover, even before Jesus was crucified on the cross, he experienced human emotions such as fear and doubt when praying at the Garden of Gethsemane when he said “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 29:39-45).

Whilst the utterance by Jesus fulfills the prophecy in Pslams, I don’t think it is necessary for symbol fulfillment of prophecy to be devoid of meaning within the circumstances in which it is fulfilled. For example, Jesus riding on the donkey into Jerusalem fulfills the prophecy in Zechariah 9:9, but in itself, its significance was to show Jesus as a Messiah of peace rather than of war. The riding of the donkey in Jewish custom is symbolic of a king of peace, rather than a king of war as if he should have been riding on a horse. The prophecy fulfillment of Jesus uttering the statement at the cross is in the same way connected to its context, from the emotion of angst he felt when undergoing extreme pain at the cross.

2. The pastor introduced a figure in Lutheran history that he says models the quality of Christian love – Katharina von Bora, who was Martin Luther’s wife. She administered and managed the vast holdings of the monastery, bred and sold cattles, ran a brewery in order to provide for her family and the steady stream of students who boarded with them and visitors seeking audience with Luther. Katharina operated a hospital on site, ministering to the sick alongside other nurses.

This is the first time I have heard the pastor speaking about Katharina von Bora, and I can’t remember any church sermon speaker talking about figures of church history as models. I do see in Wikipedia that Katharina is commemorated in the Calendar of Saints of some Lutheran Churches in the United States on December 20, which is odd. In my own church though, we do not celebrate Calendar of Saints. And I didn’t know that Christian sects apart from the Catholics celebrated a Calendar of Saints. After all, Martin Luther opposed the Catholics for believing in the merits of saints in addition to Jesus Christ for the salvation of humanity. But I suppose protestant denominations may come up with their own Calendar of Saints without holding onto it the same significance that the Catholics have with theirs.

Matthew 5:39 - Dilemma of enforcement of secular law

I had a discussion with some friends from the law VCF a year ago where we discussed the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:39 to 'turn the other cheek'. A girl in our discussion brought up the dilemma of  whether Christians can enforce secular law against their wrongdoer. A friend of mine answered the dilemma by referencing the works of Martin Luther in his work titled Secular Authority. In Secular Authority, Martin Luther argues that the secular sword/government is introduced to protect Christians. Christians should thus have no qualms about doing violence in the name of the secular rule. Luther’s conclusion is that the two governments (secular and church) must be kept separate, since they have completely different functions. The church makes men just and good, government keeps the temporal peace. The church clearly serves nobler aims.

I was wondering though whether the principle of 'turning the other cheek' may extend beyond simply desisting from assuming personal action against one's wrongdoer and relegating the meting out of punishment to the state. Perhaps there may be instances where one should forgo the right to vindicate himself with state punishment against the wrongdoer. One such example is in the story of Les Miserables, where Jean Valjean, a former convict, ran off with the silverware of the Bishop Myriel who had housed him when all other innkeepers had turned him away. When the police caught Valjean, Myriel exculpated Valjean of his crimes by pretending that he had given the silverware to Valjean and pressing him to take two silver candlesticks as well, as if Valjean had forgotten to take them.

In my opinion, it can be just as vindictive to use state instruments to exact revenge. I think that a better approach to interpreting the words 'turn the other cheek' would be to qualify the extent of he wrongdoing that is inherent in the words "being struck on the cheek" rather than a delineation of the role of who is to exact punishment on the wrongdoer. Perhaps being struck on the cheek could be purposively interpreted to mean inflicted wrongdoings which are not too severe in nature? Whereas there might be circumstances where the wrongdoing is of such a severe nature that a Christian is justified in seeking retribution personally or by recourse to state instruments.