The following was taken from the Q&A section of a church newsletter for which I used to write:
Q. Why did Jesus tell the rich man to sell all his possessions before following Him? Isn’t this salvation by works?
A. The passage you refer to is Matt 19:16-30. There a rich man comes to Jesus and asks him what he must do to obtain eternal life. Jesus tells him to keep the commandments, and the rich man replies that he has kept all these from his youth. Jesus then tells him to sell everything he has and give the proceeds to the poor; then come and follow Him.
At first glance it seems that Jesus is indeed teaching that eternal life is earned through good works. But once we see that Jesus is instead emphasizing what true discipleship is, a different picture emerges. What Jesus is doing here is probing the man to see if there is something in that man’s life—of greater priority than Jesus—that would hinder his becoming His disciple. He found it. The man valued money more than Jesus, and, as a result, “he went away sad because he had great wealth” (Matt 19:22). While grace is a free gift, it is not a cheap gift. It is not obtained by merely uttering the right words, or by following a formula. It involves a commitment on the part of the person seeking Christ. Contrary to some popular bumper stickers, Jesus is not something you “try.”
Jesus Himself tells us in Luke 14:27-30 that no one builds a tower without first sitting down and counting the cost. He goes on to say that if after counting the cost that person determines he cannot finish the tower, he shouldn’t even start it. He connects this directly to discipleship in vv. 26-27: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” In other words, Jesus pulled no punches in His presentation of the gospel. He did not coddle those who merely wanted to “experiment,” or who wanted to take a “wait and see” approach to Him. He demanded of his disciples nothing short of a full commitment; and if they couldn’t give 100% to Him, He discouraged them from continuing.
What a contrast to our presentation of the gospel today, according to which we lure unbelievers in with attractive enticements, and then instruct them to repeat words without making it clear to them that true belief involves a commitment; that true belief involves counting the cost; and that true belief means giving 100% of yourself to Jesus, and that anything less disqualifies them from becoming a disciple. We do a great disservice to the truth—not to mention those to whom we are preaching the gospel—when we fail to inform them fully. This is far from salvation by works; rather it is the biblical and historical presentation of the true gospel of Jesus Christ that has been lost in recent years due to a certain brand of Christianity that measures the success of a church in terms of the number of members it has. Obviously we’re going to go out of our way not to offend very many people if our goal is to get them saved and “churched.” Yet, by contrast, Jesus and the apostles constantly “offended” those in their audiences who had better things to do than to make a life commitment to Christ and His cause. Ironically—and sadly—many churches today are far more interested in what their uncommitted attendees think of them than in the real needs of their committed members who are true disciples of Jesus.
Eric Svendsen