The Rich Young Ruler: You Misread 'Love God and Neighbor'

The Rich Young Ruler: You Misread 'Love God and Neighbor'


This passage is one of the most misunderstood encounters in the Gospels.

In the story of the Rich Young Ruler (Matthew 19:16–22; Mark 10:17–22; Luke 18:18–23), Jesus is not teaching a checklist for salvation, nor is He reducing eternal life to moral effort or charitable sacrifice. He is exposing a fundamental misreading of Scripture itself.

The ruler approaches Jesus with a transactional question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He assumes that goodness is definable, achievable, and measurable by human action. But Jesus immediately disrupts that assumption. When He says, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone,” He is not denying His own goodness. He is challenging the man’s definition of it.

What follows is not a lesson in moral obedience, but a prophetic confrontation. Jesus cites commandments not to affirm the man’s righteousness, but to reveal the blindness beneath it. The law is being used the way the prophets always used it: not as a moral ladder, but as a revelatory mirror. The man’s wealth is not the issue. His allegiance is.

When Jesus tells him to sell everything and follow Him, He is not issuing a universal economic command. He is exposing the man’s true source of life, identity, and security. The ruler wants eternal life as an inheritance, but he clings to the present age as his ground of meaning. He believes he has kept the law, yet he has never seen what the law was pointing to.

This episode is not about works versus faith. It is about revelation versus assumption. It shows how Scripture can be read faithfully and still be fundamentally misunderstood if it is detached from its Messianic center.

In this video, we examine:
• Why “inheritance” language is covenantal, not moral
• How Jesus uses the law as prophetic indictment, not ethical reinforcement
• Why the ruler walks away sorrowful despite his obedience
• How this passage judges modern Christianity’s moralized reading of Scripture
• Why eternal life cannot be attained, accumulated, or preserved by human effort or human concepts.

Jesus does not correct the man’s behavior. He corrects his vision.