MARK 10:23-31

MARK 10:23-31

MARK 10:23-27 - They were astonished to hear this, for undoubtedly they thought, as many do today, that poverty rather than wealth would be the greatest impediment to entrance into the kingdom. But Jesus explained that it is the danger of putting one’s trust in his wealth which keeps many a one from taking his rightful place before God as a needy sinner who can be saved only through grace.  

A camel could more readily pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man enter into the kingdom of God. Only those who judge themselves and come to God, acknowledging their lost estate and spiritual poverty, find entrance there. In reply Jesus told them that all things are possible with God. Even the rich may be brought to the place where they no longer trust in their wealth but in the living God. 

MARK 10:28-31 - Jesus replied with words of assurance, though not at this time fully correcting His followers’ carnal ideas as to the nature of the coming kingdom. He gave the definite promise that no one would lose, but rather gain by sharing His path of rejection. But He warned them that many that are first shall be last, and the last first. That is, not everyone who gave promise of being a faithful and devoted follower would continue in the path of self-denial for Christ’s name’s sake, and some who seemed backward and whose devotedness was questionable, would prove real and self-effacing in the hour of trial.

   To follow Christ means to share His cup of sorrow, to be misunderstood, and even hated and maligned by the world that lieth in the wicked one. But he who takes this path finds a joy in fellowship with the rejected King and in communion with fellow-sufferers, of which the worldling knows nothing; and he looks forward with assured hope to entering eternal life in the age to come. All believers now have eternal life abiding in them but in a decaying body. In the age to come we shall enter into life in all its fullness when the body as well as the soul is fully redeemed from the bondage of corruption.