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Mark 10:20
Comments
The response is astonishing. Look at the lightness of this man’s attitude: ‘All these I have kept. No problem! I do keep them, and always have done so.’ What a light view of morality he had! He seems to be honest but he doesn’t know what he is saying. The poor man is so superficial. He has no awareness of himself, of his sinfulness in God’s sight. He takes these commandments at their surface meaning only. He has evidently never murdered. He has never committed adultery. He takes just that surface meaning and he is completely unaware that in fact he has broken the commandments in hundreds of ways.‘Do not commit adultery’, says the Lord, but that includes lust and heart sins. It is the head of a family of sin and betrayal; the crowning sin is adultery. The man did not know that. He interprets them in the shallowest way, including only the most obvious literal meaning, as if God could not see his heart. The command not to kill given through Moses, covers unreasonableness and hatred, and Christ understands it in the same way, but this man has never grasped the searching nature of the commandments. ‘Do not kill’ – ‘I have never done that’, he says. Anger may have burned in his heart, but that is nothing to him. Stealing includes extortion and failing to give others what is their due. He has never seen this, and as a result he has no realisation of his spiritual need.
Application
If we can do that – if we give ourselves a pass mark before the Lord – then our greatest need is to have the full force of the law applied to our hearts. Until we see ourselves as we really are, we will never come sincerely to Christ for salvation. Are you like that? Do you think you will pass muster with God? All sin must be put away, all boasting and pulling down of his standards. Christ came to take our punishment, but this man would not let go of his sin.
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