SAD though the reaction was of the young man to Jesus' teaching, Jesus seeks to make it useful to the soul's of his disciples. Jesus now turns to his disciples. The trouble with the young man was that he was still bound by the religious teaching he had received from his youth. He was still thinking in terms of salvation and entering the kingdom of heaven by his own works. By his own effort he could not give up his riches for the poor, and he could not leave his comfortable way of life and follow Jesus. His desire for eternal life was great but it was not great enough. The experience of this rich young man surely illustrates perfectly how impossible it is for any human being to gain eternal life by their own efforts. Each person's experience is different, but like this young man the world, the flesh and the devil hold each of us, and we can't save ourselves. If only the young man had confessed his impotence, and cried to Jesus for mercy, what a difference it would have made.

Jesus, in turning to the disciples, highlights this human dilemma. How hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. However wise; however disciplined, however strong the will, human beings can't enter the kingdom of heaven by their own efforts. Jesus presses home the lesson by saying that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Jesus meant to speak of an impossible thing. There is no need to explain away the needle or make the camel a cable or a thread. Jesus is saying that just as it is impossible for a camel to go through an eye of needle, so it is impossible for a rich man, or any person for that matter, to enter the kingdom of heaven by their own efforts.

People have tried all down the ages. Some have gone to great austerities. Others have taken up a serious monastic life and sought to shut the world out, and by discipline and religious duties work righteousness to merit salvation. All have found that the world follows them into these disciplines and solitudes. They find that though they shut the world out in an outward way, they can't keep temptations out of the inner person and the soul. The great reformer Martyn Luther tried to win eternal life by great austerities in an Augustinian Monastery, and nearly killed himself with his strict regime, but still found that his sins were always there overcoming him, and the wrath of God always threatening him.

The disciples understood the teaching of Jesus only too well. They saw Jesus revealing how high the standard was if a person would win eternal life by their own effort. In fact the standard is perfection from start to finish. The disciples cried quite rightly “who then can be saved?” The answer is clear that no one can be saved by their own efforts, and their own keeping of God's righteousness. The fact is that even our best works are soiled and tainted by imperfection, and fall short of the glory of God, and have no merit in the sight of God, nor does God's law approve them as righteousness.

When the disciples had got to this understanding and fear, Jesus gave his punch line of revelation. What a glorious revelation - “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” We can't save ourselves, but God can save even the vilest of mankind.

Jesus was telling the disciples, and so also us today, that we can't save ourselves from eternal damnation, but we can come to God and plead that he will graciously save us by his power. God can do this thing which is proved impossible by human wisdom or effort.

The trouble is that if we are to be saved we must come to God and own our deserving of everlasting damnation; and own our total inability to merit eternal life; and then plead for mercy at the feet of Jesus. God has provided in Jesus a fountain for the cleansing of all uncleanness and sin, and that fountain is the precious blood of Christ. God in wonderful wisdom and power has provided in Christ, and his death for us, a means whereby he can be just and at the same time justify the sinner. This impossible thing was achieved, in the wisdom of God, by Jesus being made sin for us who knew no sin, and then accepting the punishment which would satisfy all the holy demands of God's law in our place. So when we come to God in our need and plead for mercy, through Christ we become the righteousness of God in him, for God clothes us by sovereign gift in the righteousness of Jesus, and so our sins are hidden forever from the sight of God, and we are invited to the heavenly banquet, and are made children of God.