Theological Review

APRIL, 1914

JESUS' ALLEGED CONFESSION OF SIN

The pericope of "the rich young ruler" is found in all three of the Synoptic Gospels, and it is associated in all of them with narratives of a common type. In all three it immediately follows the account of Jesus' receiving and blessing little children; and it is clear from Mark's representation (as also indeed from Matthew's1) that the incident actually occurred in immediate sequence to that scene. In Luke, these two narratives are immediately preceded by the parable of the Pharisee and Publican praying in the Temple; in Matthew they are immediately succeeded by the parable of the workmen in the vineyard who were surprised that their rewards were not nicely adjusted to what they deemed their relative services. It cannot be by accident that these four narratives, all of which teach a similar lesson, are brought thus into contiguity. It is the burden of them all that the Kingdom of God is a gratuity, not an acquisition; and the effect of bringing them together is to throw a great emphasis upon this, their common teaching.

Perhaps this teaching finds nowhere more pungent intimation than in the declaration of our Lord which forms the core of the account of His reception of the children: "For of such is the kingdom of heaven," (or "of God": Mt. xix. 14; Mk. x. 14; Lk. xviii. 16). These "little children" were, as we learn from Luke, mere babies (Lk. xiii. 15: Tà Spéon), which Jesus held in His arms (Mk. x. 16: évayкa

'Accordingly, Th. Zahn, Das Evangelium des Matthaeus ausgelegt, 1903, p. 589 says correctly (on Mt. xix. 16): "The close chronological connection is assured by the καὶ ἰδού, verse 16, after ἐπορεύθη ἐκεῖθεν, verse 15."

Xoáμevos; cf. ix. 36 and also Lk. ii. 28). What Jesus says, therefore, is that those who enter the Kingdom of God are like "infants of days". Such infants are not to be debarred from coming to Him, because forsooth they cannot profit by His teaching or profit Him by their service. It is precisely of such as they that the Kingdom of God consists. "And verily I say unto you," He adds, "whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein" (Mk. x. 15: Lk. xviii. 17). The meaning is accurately expressed in Alford's paraphrase (the emphases are his own): "In order for us who are mature to come to Him, we must cast away all that wherein our maturity has caused us to differ from them and become LIKE THEM. dom except as an infant." plain what "as an infant"

None can enter God's KingBut when Alford comes to exmeans, he loses the thread and

"Therefore Zahn, p. 587-8, is quite right when he comments on Matthew's Taidia: "Little children who were still in the arms (therefore, Lk. xviii. 15 ẞpépŋ), were brought by their mothers or nurses to Jesus."

T. R. Glover, The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire, 1909, p. 121, remarks: "We are apt to forget that 'come' is a Greek verb carrying volition with it." This is scarcely true. "Epxoμal expresses rather mere motion, progress: cf. e.g. Mt. ii. 9, vi. 10, vii. 25, 27, ix. 15, x. 13, xviii. 7, xxiii. 35.

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That is, not of infants like those now in His presence, but of people like those infants in the qualities which had led to their debarring. Zahn, however (p. 588), reasonably argues that in the Tv TOLOÚTWV there is included also a roúrwv, or rather a kaì ToÚTwv. He soon, however, transforms this into its opposite, as if he were arguing that in a designated Tour there was also a Kai Tolovтwv included: "not only do the little children belong to the Kingdom and the Kingdom to them, but the Kingdom belongs only to them and to such as have become like them." Similarly Loisy, Les Évangiles Synoptiques, 1908, II, p. 205. What our Lord says is that the Kingdom consists not of children, but of those who are like children; actual children are no doubt included, but we must not reverse the emphasis. Even Calvin (Inst. IV, xvi. 7 ad fin.), arguing for infant baptism, yields to the temptation to reverse it: "When He commands that infants should be permitted to come to Him, nothing is clearer than that He means true infancy. That this may not seem absurd He adds: 'Of such is the kingdom of heaven'. But if infants must be included, it cannot be doubtful that by the term 'of such' there are designated infants themselves and also those who are like them."

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thinks of the innocence, the simplicity, the trustfulness of childhood, or the like. That in which maturity differs from infancy, however, lies just in its self-dependence and power of self-help. We become "as a little child" when, in the words of the revival hymn which was such an offence to James Anthony Froude, "we cast our deadly doing down" and make our appeal on the sole score of sheer helplessness.

Zahn, therefore, strikes a much truer note when he comments: "Over against the fancy (Dünkel) of the disciples, who ground their claim that the Kingdom belongs to them on their intelligence and will, Jesus reminds them that they must rather, by renunciation of their own intelligence and will, obtain the receptivity (Empfänglichkeit) for the blessings and benefit of the Kingdom which the immature children possess of themselves." And so does Wendt: "But in this very respect, of having no claim, so that they could offer nothing but only wish to have something, Jesus finds the ground for the children being permitted to come to Him, that He might show them His love and give them His blessing. For in their unpretentious receptivity He recognizes the necessary condition which must exist in all who would enter the Kingdom of God." "Under this childlike character, He does not understand any virtue of childlike blamelessness, but only the receptivity itself (which is the notion impressively emphasized by Him) on the part of

"It would be difficult to go more astray here than A. Loisy does (p. 205): "He profits by the occasion to remind them of the moral worth of infants, and of the merit which belongs to the spirit of infancy. . . . Nothing is opposed to Jesus' having in view infants and those who resemble them in the spirit of candor and of simplicity." C. G. Montefiori (The Synoptic Gospels, 1909, I, p. 243) is better, though still confused: "The child symbolizes or represents the temper in which the Kingdom must be received. Humble trust, a complete lack of assertiveness, no consciousness of 'merit' or desert, simple confidence and purity, these are the qualities which Jesus means to indicate in the character of a true child. The Kingdom can only be entered by those who can approach it in such a spirit." New-born babies represent no particular temper, and exemplify no particular spirit: they illustrate a particular condition.

Pp. 588-9.

'H. H. Wendt, The Teaching of Jesus, E. T., II, pp. 49-50.

those who do not regard themselves as too good or too bad for the offered gift, but receive it with hearty desire." The emphasis which these expositors throw on "receptivity" as the characteristic of infancy-as if it were an active quality -is not drawn from the text but belongs to the habits of thought derived by them from a Lutheran inheritance. It requires to be eliminated before the meaning of our Lord's enunciation can be purely caught. Infancy is characterized by "receptivity" as little as by "blamelessness" or by "trustfulness"; its characteristic is just helpless need. He who receives the Kingdom of God “as a little child” receives it (in this sense) passively; is the pure recipient, not the earner of its blessings. What our Lord here declares is thus, in brief, that no one enters the Kingdom of God save as an infant enters the world, naked and helpless and without any claim upon it whatever.

No more illuminating comment on our Lord's teaching here could easily be imagined than that which is supplied by the immediately succeeding incident, that of the rich young ruler. No sooner had our Lord announced that "whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein", than one appeared before Him bent on making his way into the Kingdom in quite another fashion. And, indeed, if any could hope to acquire it for himself, it might well be supposed to be this eager young man. He had everything to commend him. He was young, he was rich, he was highly placed, he was clean. He was accustomed to desire good things, and, desiring them, he was accustomed to obtain them for himself: and, with the resources at his command,-resources of youthful energy, wealth, position, moral earnestness-he was accustomed to obtain them without much difficulty. He had heard of Jesus, perhaps had heard Him; and he recognized in Him a good man whose counsel were well worth

*Δέχομαι, not λαμβάνω (or αἱρέω) is the word our Lord uses, and despite the wearing off of the edges of the distinction in usage, the difference remains fundamentally good that Aaßeir is taking, déçaobai is receiving.

having. And he had conceived a commendable desire for the eternal life which Jesus was proclaiming. What remained but to learn from this good teacher what needed to be done, in order to obtain it? It never occurred to this rich and influential youth, accustomed to get what he wanted, but that this good thing which he now desired might be obtainable at its own proper price; and was he not prepared and fully able to pay the price and so to secure it? It seemed to him an easy thing to purchase eternal life.

It was our Lord's painful task, in response to the young man's appeal for guidance, to reveal him to himself in the shallowness of his nature and outlook; to open his eyes to the nature of that eternal life which he sought, in its radical difference from the life he was living; and to make it clear to him that what he had thought so easy to acquire was to be had only at a great price, a price which he might not be willing to pay, a price which he might find it was impossible for him to pay. And it was our Lord's task, further, on the basis of this incident, to carry home poignantly to the consciousness of His disciples the lesson He had already taught them in the incident of the blessing of the little children, that the Kingdom of God is not a thing into which in any case men can buy their way; that they stand before it helpless, and can make their way into it as little as a camel can force itself through the eye of a needle. It may be conferred by God: it cannot be acquired by men.9

As the result of his conversation, the young man departed with his countenance fallen, 10 exceeding sorrowful,11

'Nothing could be more inapt than to say with Montefiori (1, p. 243); "Wellhausen points out most aptly how Shakespeare [Rich. II, act v, scene v] has felt the contrast between this section [on the blessing of the children] and the section which follows it [on the rich young man]. For here the Kingdom is a gift which one must accept as a child, there it is only to be won by effort and self-denial." In both sections alike the Kingdom is a pure gift and cannot be earned.

10 Mk. x. 22, σrvyváσas, full of gloom; cf. Swete's note in loc. "Lk. xviii. 23, πepíλvros, hemmed in on all sides by sorrow, so that there is no escape; cf. Princeton Biblical and Theological Studies, 1912, p. 76.