The New Testament contains irony, and one who fails to recognize the irony will be misled in the task of understanding the text. Some commentators seem to have never entertained the idea that Jesus occasionally speaks ironically.
Consider the following narrative from Matthew. It seems to contain multiple ironies. The man addresses Jesus with the title "Teacher," but perhaps does not want to be taught. He poses the question, "what must I do?" to gain eternal life, yet the mega-text informs the reader that the proper question to ask to Jesus is "what can you do?" that the supplicant might have eternal life.
For an ordinary human to ask, "what must I do to gain eternal life?" is to elicit the answer "nothing." There is nothing he can do to gain eternal life, because it is impossible for him to gain it. God can give it, but man cannot achieve it.
So two ironies already lie in the man's first utterance.
Jesus, seeing through the apparent urgency in the man's question, deflects it with an ironic non-answer. Note that Jesus answers a question with a question. "Why?" - Christ's question goes to motive. Why would the man ask if he already has an answer in mind, if he is not eager to learn, and if his question is so ill-formed that no reasonable answer is possible? The questioner perhaps considers himself to be good; in that case, why bother Jesus with a question? The question would be insincere.
Jesus deflates the man's ego a bit by reminding him that only God is good. Jesus then offers ironic advice. Jesus, and the reader, know from the mega-text that "keeping the commandments" is impossible. Whether one is speaking of the ten commandments, the 613 commandments, or natural law, humans are incapable of perfect implementation. The man, however, is oblivious to the irony, which only heightens the irony.
An absolutely impossible command is ironic; the failure to see such a command for what it is generates humor. Had Jesus issued a command to drink the entire ocean, or draw a square circle, the effect would be the same.
Incognizant of the irony, the man pursues the matter: which commandments must he keep? As if, to the ironic command to draw a square circle, he'd responded with a request for clarification about whether he should draw it with a pencil or a pen. The humorous effect is prolonged by the question.
Jesus patiently begins a list of commandments. It doesn't really matter which ones He mentions, because sinful human nature is incapable of faithfully following any of them, or any set or subset of them.
And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
The man's oblivious naivete is matched only by the inflated opinion he has of himself. To claim to have faithfully followed the law, no matter which variation of 'law' is meant, is to claim perfection. The ironies here are multiple: to claim perfection and then request guidance - if the man were really that good, he wouldn't need to ask Jesus for instruction. More basically, there is irony in the claim to have followed the law. It is axiomatic to the mega-text that such perfection is unachievable by human effort.
Having claimed perfection, the man asks what he still needs. This is a self-contradiction. If he were as good as he claims to be, he would need nothing. He undermines his own claim to moral superiority. "I have everything: what do I still need to obtain?"
Christ's answer contains several unspoken premises: "if you would be perfect - but you can't get there by doing things - here's what you must do." Alternatively: "if you would be perfect - but didn't you only now imply that you were morally perfect? - here's what you must do." Jesus is patiently answering the man, but to humorous effect to the knowing reader.
Jesus then gives an ironic imperative: give away all your possessions. If this were truly what was required to obtain eternal life, then the rest of Matthew's text, and the rest of the New Testament, would be useless and futile. Two thousand years of Heilsgeschichte would be unnecessary. Christ's painful suffering and death would be unnecessary.
The three final thoughts in the narrative depart from irony. Jesus tells the man that it is possible to have treasure in heaven. Jesus is not being ironic, but the man's limited imagination and limited perspective create irony. Then Jesus tells the man to follow; the man who approached Jesus and called him 'Teacher' and who asked what must be done is, as Jesus and the reader know even before the man has finished hearing the final imperative, not interested or willing or able to follow Jesus.
No human can, of his own volition, follow Jesus. Rather, people follow Jesus only as the Holy Spirit calls and enlightens them, sanctifies them, and preserves them in faith. All people lack the ability to follow Jesus, or to decide to follow Jesus - but most especially one like this man, who considers himself to be morally perfect.
The denouement reveals that the man, whose moral estimation of himself was so high, is merely a crass materialist. Irony is located in the tension between the high-sounding salutation and question which he first addresses to Jesus at the beginning of the narrative and the man's baseness as the end of the narrative.
If we contrast Mark's version of the narrative to Matthew's, the irony continues, as in Mark's version, the man addresses Jesus not only as "Teacher" but "Good Teacher." While the man addresses Jesus as 'good', he in reality considers, consciously or subconsciously, himself to be good, apparently unaware of both his original sin and his committed sin. Considering the phrase text-critically, if Matthew worked from Mark, he may have felt it sufficient to recount merely an excerpt from the salutation rather than the longer version given by Mark.
Matthew also omits the fact that the man knelt. The greeting, as given in detail in Mark, emphasizes the homage which the man pays to Jesus, a homage made ironic by the fact that the man understands neither his sin or nor his inability to do anything about his sin. Mark gives a slightly different version of the man's question: not, what must I do to "have" eternal life, but to "inherit" it. There is a tension between 'do' and 'inherit' - in order to inherit something, one must do nothing; rather, someone else must die.
Mark's version of Christ's response is also more detailed: again answering a question with a question, Jesus asks "why do you call me good?" Again the question goes to motive. Is the man's act of honoring Jesus sincere? Or does the man seek self-justification? Does the man realize that, despite himself, he has affirmed Christ's divinity?
And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Commented on Mark's version of the events, Richard Lenski writes:
The man does not ask how he may obtain life eternal as if he were at a loss as to the way and the means. On the contrary, he thinks he knows quite well how, namely, by his doing something, some one good thing.
Like all humans, he finds it difficult to believe and consistently internalize that salvation is God's action, not man's, in which man is passive and God is active. It is fallen human nature which wants somehow to believe that it at least cooperates with God in salvation, if it does not accomplish the matter entirely on its own. Lenski continues:
In the question: "What shall I do?" there lies, of course, the assumption that the questioner has the necessary ability and may easily reach the goal that Jesus has reached. All he needs is to know the thing that is to be done.
Lenski briefly considers the tension between 'do' and 'inherit' in the man's question, but does not extract the full ironic contradiction from it, preferring instead to see 'inherit' as a synonym for 'obtain' and leaves it at that. Further, Lenski sees Christ's imperative to give his wealth to others as a call to internal repentance. Lenski does not see the command as ironic.
Yet, considered as a literal answer to a literal question, irony seems the more plausible reading. The question is already ironic, "what must I do to have eternal life?" - because the action is God's, not man's. Consider the question, "what must I do to ensure the continuation of Jupiter in its orbit around the sun?" - what man would be foolish enough to imagine that he can 'do' anything about that?
But even if we grant the question, Christ's answer remains ironic. Go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor: good and God-pleasing actions, but nobody will find admission into heaven based upon them. Rather, such actions are performed out of gratitude for the salvation which God has already given.
Lenski fails to see the degree and amount of irony in Christ's words, and strives to make literal sense of them.
Luke's version of the matter adds only a generalized comment about wealth. Yet this comment sheds a bit of light on the matter:
Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 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.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” But he said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
Those who witnessed the exchange between Jesus and the man understood: taken literally, the words would indicate that salvation is impossible. So they say, "who then can be saved?" - a rhetorical question, roughly, "so, nobody can be saved, right?" Jesus points, as ever, to the fact that God saves; man does not save, but rather man is saved. Man is passive, God is active. Therefore, salvation is 'impossible' with human effort; but it is "possible with God."
