And they that heard it said, Who then can be saved? And He said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. Luke 18:26,27
The late evangelist Doug Howard told us of an incident when he was a very young Christian, when someone asked him if God can do anything. Oh, yes, Doug replied, God can do anything. OK, the mocker asked, can God make a stone so big that He can’t lift it? It was a trick question, of course, but it does point out that some things are impossible with God. We know that He is incapable of telling a lie, of breaking a promise, or of failing to love a sinner. God can never act or be anything that is inconsistent with His holy, omnipotent, omniscient, almighty character. So our text today is obviously not challenging the truth of God’s immutability, but is comparing the puny efforts of men with the omnipotence of God Almighty. In particular, it is comparing the inability of men to obtain salvation on their own with God’s ability to redeem the hopelessly lost.
Consider the context of our text. In the previous verses, the Lord Jesus is reminding His listeners that 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. That prompted the question: Who then can be saved? If we examine our hearts, we will agree that we did not deserve to be saved, and we did not even have the ability to even desire to be saved, let alone do anything to be saved. So how were we saved? It was not of ourselves, that is for sure. It took the strivings of the Holy Spirit to bring us to repentance. It took the power of the preaching of the Gospel to wake us up to our need, and to unfold to us the great provision that God made to meet our need. All of the riches of our pride had to be stripped away before salvation was possible. Only poor sinners ever get saved.
Rich people might think they can buy their way into Heaven. The billionaire Warren Buffet is on record as saying that he expects to be in Heaven, on the basis of the many millions that he has given to charities and good causes. Rich people can afford the trappings of religion and the blessings of religions leaders, but these things are worthless compared to the actual cost of a home in Heaven. Warren Buffet’s donations are huge by earth’s standards but paltry by God’s demands. Only the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, can purchase a place in the kingdom of God. And only God can bring a sinner into the benefit of the blood of His Son.
The reluctant prophet Jonah could proclaim that salvation is of the Lord. How thankful we are today that the Lord drew us to Himself and conferred on us the kingdom of God, that which was impossible to ourselves. – Jim MacIntosh