Matthew 19:21-22

Matthew 19:21-22

[21] Jesus  said  unto him,  If  thou wilt  perfect,  go  and sell  and  give  to the poor,  and  thou shalt have  treasure  in  heaven:  and  come  and follow  [22] But  when the young man  heard  that saying,  he went away  sorrowful:  for  he had  great  possessions. 

What does Matthew 19:21-22 Mean?

Contextual Meaning

By referring to being "complete" Jesus was referring to the young man"s statement that he felt incomplete ( Matthew 19:20; cf. Matthew 19:16), that he needed to do something more to assure his eternal life. Jesus did not mean that the young man had eternal life and just needed to do a little more, to put the icing on the cake (cf. Matthew 23:8-12). Earlier Jesus had told his disciples that perfection, the same Greek word translated "complete" here, came from following Him ( Matthew 5:48). He repeated the same thing here.
What this young man needed to do was to become a disciple of Jesus, to start following Him and learning from Him. God"s will did not just involve keeping commandments. It also involved following Jesus. If he did that, he would learn how a person obtains eternal life, not by good deeds but by faith in Jesus. To follow Jesus this rich young man would need to sell his possessions. He could not accompany Jesus as he needed to without disposing of things that would have distracted him (cf. Matthew 8:19-22). Such a material sacrifice to follow Jesus would gain a reward eventually (cf. Matthew 19:29; Matthew 6:19-21). Jesus was assuming the young man would become a believer after he became a disciple.
"So attached was he to his great wealth that he was unwilling to part with it. Such is the insidiousness of riches that, as Bengel notes, "If the Lord had said, Thou art rich, and art too fond of thy riches, the young man would have denied it." He had to be confronted with all the force of a radical alternative." [1]
The young man was not willing to part with his possessions to follow Jesus. He was willing to keep the whole Mosaic Law and even to do additional good works, but submitting to Jesus was something else. Jesus had put His finger on the crucial decision this young man had to make when He told him to dispose of his possessions. Would he value his possessions or following Jesus to learn more about eternal life more highly? His decision revealed his values (cf. Matthew 6:24).
"His real problem was lack of faith in Christ, whom he considered a good Teacher but who apparently was not to be regarded as one who had the right to demand that he give up all in order to follow Him." [2]
This passage does not teach that salvation is by works. Jesus did not tell the young man that he would obtain eternal life by doing some good thing, but neither did He rebuke him for the good things that he had done. He made it very clear that what he needed to do was to follow Jesus so he could come to faith in Jesus.
This passage does not teach that a person must surrender all to Jesus before he or she can obtain eternal life either. Jesus never made this a condition for salvation. He made giving away possessions here a condition for discipleship, not salvation. We have seen a consistent order in Matthew"s Gospel that holds true in all the Gospels. First, Jesus called a person to follow Him, that Isaiah , to begin learning from Him as a disciple. Second, He called His disciples to believe on Him as the God-man. Third, He called His believing disciples to continue following Him and believing on Him because He had an important job for them to do.