With God All Things Are Possible…Right? (Matthew 19:26 and Luke 18:27)

Matthew 19:26 and Luke 18:27 loosely state that, "With God all things are possible." This verse and some others (such as Isaiah 54:17 and Philippians 4:13) sound wonderful, but are they true the way people quote them?

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00:00 With God All Things Are Possible, Right? (Luke 18:26-34)
02:57 Lesson One: “You keep using that verse. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
28:01 Lesson Two: With God it is possible for man to be saved by divine grace.
44:56 Lesson Three: Jesus’s sacrifice puts our sacrifices in perspective.

Do Matthew 19:26 and Luke 18:27 Teach that With God All Things Are Possible?

People love to loosely quote Matthew 19:26 and Luke 18:27 and say, “With God all things are possible.” I get why people say this. Not only does it sound really good, this verse makes God himself sound good. The other two misquoted versus, Isaiah 54:17 and Philippians 4:13, are about us, but this verse is about God. It exalts him. Who wouldn’t want to say this? But are the verses really saying, “With God all things are possible”?

No, they are not. The verses sound like they are saying God helps people do anything, but:

It is impossible for God to help people sin.
It is impossible for God to help people do anything against his will.

So, what are Matthew 19:26 and Luke 18:27 saying? To correctly understand the verses, like we must do with every verse, we must look at the context. The verses flow from Jesus speaking to the rich young ruler who wanted to go to heaven. He was convinced he was righteous, so Jesus tried to help him see his sinfulness by exposing his covetousness:

Luke 18:22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” :23 But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. 24 Jesus, seeing that he (the rich young ruler) had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 25 For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

We don’t all need to do this. It is descriptive for us, but it was prescriptive for the rich young ruler. When presented with the choice between his possessions and following Jesus, he chose his possessions.

Two Applications from Jesus’s Statement about Rich People Entering the Kingdom of God
One application is obvious and the other is less obvious. The obvious application is that it is harder for rich people to enter the kingdom of God. It is not impossible. Many of the greatest people in Scripture were rich:

In the Old Testament, there were Abraham, Job, and Solomon. In the New Testament, there was Joseph of Arimathea, Lydia, and those who hosted churches in their homes because they were wealthy enough to have homes that accommodated large groups.

But we must acknowledge that there are certain temptations or struggles that rich people would face, that non-wealthy people would not face. This makes entering the kingdom of God harder.

The other application, which is less obvious, deals with the common belief in Jesus’s day that rich people enter the kingdom of God. There are two reasons people thought this:

There was the belief that wealth is evidence of God’s approval. The richer people were, the more righteous they must be. If people had money, God was pleased with them, and they were going to heaven. Think about it: if God was displeased with people, why would he give them so much money?

There was the belief that rich people’s money allowed them to be more righteous. They had more money to give and they had more money to offer sacrifices:
The Jews believed that with alms a person purchased salvation (as recorded in the Talmud), so the more wealth one had, the more alms he could give, the more sacrifices and offerings he could offer, thus purchasing redemption.

John MacArthur, The MacArthur Bible Commentary, page 1161.

Jesus dispelled this belief a few times. One of the most familiar instances is when he taught on...

Read the rest of the blog post: https://www.scottlapierre.org/with-god-all-things-are-possible/