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Transcript 581A
"The Eye of a Needle" [Mk 10:25]
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Brother Camping, I'd like for you to explain Mark 10:25.
HC: Mark 10:25. There we read, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God." Is that the verse?
CALLER: Yes.
HC: All right. Let's see what this might mean.
Now there are those who try to soften the impact of this particular verse by saying that the eye of a needle was a small gate in the wall of the city. And in order for a camel to go through that gate, it would have to crawl on its belly through the gate, if it could go through it at all, and perhaps it could not go through it at all. And so for that reason God is using the phrase, "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle."
However, when we let the Bible be its own interpreter, we don't find anything like this in the Bible, that God is talking about a very small gate that's in the wall of the city. When God speaks of the eye of the needle, as near as we can tell from anything else in the Bible, He's talking about the eye of a needle. And so you say, "Well, that's ridiculous! The eye of a needle you have a hard enough time pushing a thread through it if your eyesight is bad at all. How could a camel, a large animal like that, ever go through the eye of a needle?"
Well, actually, it's impossible, isn't it? It's absolutely impossible for a camel to go through an eye of a needle. And so it's impossible for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, that is, if he is going to remain rich in his own resources, if he's going to remain rich in his own good works, in his own things which he has done which he believes ought to merit God's favor. These things are an impossible means by which he can go into the Kingdom of Heaven. And of course those who are physically rich, those who are materially rich, like the rest of the human race, this is where they have put their trust. This is normative for the human race.
The only way that we can go into the Kingdom of Heaven is by becoming poor not physically poor or materially poor, necessarily, but that we become spiritually poor, that we become broken before God, that we recognize our spiritual bankruptcy, that we see that our material riches have nothing at all for us. And our good works can buy us nothing whatsoever. And we come to that point of spiritual bankruptcy where we're ready to trust altogether in the Lord Jesus Christ. Only then can we go into the Kingdom of Heaven. Then we're going altogether into the Kingdom of Heaven on the merits of Christ, which is become our Substitute.