The eternal life he sought was likely but the poor idea of living forever, all that commonplace minds grasp at for eternal life. When a man has eternal life, that is, when he is one with God, what should he do but live forever? But without oneness with God, mere existence would be but a curse...

He could not make himself naked as a little child and let his Father take him! To him it was not the word of wisdom the “Good Master” spoke. How could a rich man believe he would be of more value without his money...

Was the refusal of the young man of necessity final? Because he declined to enter into life, was the door of life closed against him? Verily, I have not so learned Christ...

Was the Lord then premature in his demand? Was the youth not ready for it? I do not believe it. He gave him the very next lesson in the divine education for which he was ready; it was time the demand should be made upon him...

The youth was so pleasing in the eyes of the Master, that he would take him to be with him—to walk with him, and rest with him, and go with him only to do for him what he did for his Father in heaven—to plead with men, be a mediator between God and men...

The immediate end of the commandments never was that men should succeed in obeying them, but that, finding they could not do that which yet must be done, they should be driven to the source of life and law...

The youth is looking for some unknown good thing to do, and the Lord sends him back to the doing of what he knows, and that in answer to his question concerning the way to eternal life. He has already more than hinted where the answer lies, namely, in God himself, but that the youth is not yet capable of receiving; he must begin with him farther back:...

But the Lord cared neither for isolated truth nor for orphaned deed. It was truth in the inward parts, it was the good heart, the mother of good deeds, he cherished...

When the word good enters the ears of the Son, his heart lifts it at once to his Father. His words contain no denial of goodness in himself; in his grand self-regard he was not the original of his goodness, neither did he care for his own goodness, except to be good...