19:13-15
We now have another “little children” or “little ones” incident, and one of the best known episodes in the gospels. People brought their children to Jesus for Him to lay hands on them and pray for them. The equivalent passage in Mark 10:16 adds that Jesus blessed them. “But the disciples rebuked them”. Once again the disciples’ lack of understanding is demonstrated. Accordingly, Jesus corrected the disciples, telling them to let the children come, and that the kingdom of heaven “belonged to such as these”. We must never think the kingdom is ours, it is God’s and belongs to all who come to Him.
19:16
The previous incident looked at not excluding people from the kingdom, now comes a man who wants to know how to get eternal life. He comes with some presuppositions, for he asks “what good thing must I do ...”. He is assuming that we get eternal life by doing some good thing or other, and that we are capable of doing a good thing. Neither of these things are true. We cannot gain eternal life by our own efforts. If we followed the Law perfectly we would have eternal life, but no one can do that, we will all fall down at some point. When Adam and Eve had one commandment they failed the test.
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