Chapter 20: Cleansing the Soul. Anyone who combines wealth with wrong desires has mixed a deadly combination. In such a case, to lose the wealth would be a healthy alternative. To make the soul pure that is poor and bare, we need to focus on the next words of the Savior: "Come, follow me." Mark 10:21. Jesus becomes the way to the pure in heart. God's grace finds no entrance into the impure soul. And the soul that is rich in material desires, entangled with affection for the things of this world, is impure.
Yet some people are able to hold their gold, silver, houses, and other possessions simply as the gifts of God. They use their things to minister for the salvation of men. They thereby return them to God, who gave them. They know that they possess them more for the sake of their brothers than for themselves. They are the masters of their belongings, not the slaves of their possessions. They don't carry their belongings around in their soul, nor do they plan their life around their things.
Instead, they are always laboring at some good, divinely inspired activity. Even if they sometimes need to be deprived of their things, they are able to cheerfully bear the removal of their belongings just as easily as they were able to enjoy their abundance. Philippians 4:11-12. These are the ones who are blessed by the Lord. They are the ones he calls poor in spirit. Matthew 5:3. They are the proper heirs of the kingdom of heaven. But there are others who carry their riches in their souls.
Instead of being filled with God's Spirit, their hearts are filled with their gold or their land. They are always acquiring possessions, and they are perpetually on the lookout for more. They are bent down and fettered to the toils of the world. They are of the earth and destined to become a part of the earth. How can they desire or pay attention to the kingdom of heaven? They don't carry around hearts in their bodies. Instead, they carry around land or precious metals.
You'll always find them in the midst of the objects they have chosen. For where the mind of man is, there also is his treasure. Matthew 6:21. The Lord says that there are two kinds of treasures. First, there's the good kind. The good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, brings forth good. Matthew 12:35. And then there's the evil kind. The evil man, out of the evil treasure, brings forth evil, for the mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart. Matthew 12:34-35.
So according to Christ, there are two different kinds of treasure. First, there's the kind that gives an unexpected great gain where you find it. Second, there's the kind that is profitless, undesirable, and even harmful. So there is a richness in good things and a richness in bad things. It's appropriate to possess and acquire the first sort of riches. However, the other kind should be cast away. Genuine and counterfeit poverty. In the same way, spiritual poverty is blessed.
That's why Matthew added, "Blessed are the poor." Matthew 5:3. What kind of poor? Those poor in spirit? In the same way, he says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after the righteousness of God." Matthew 5:6. How wretched indeed, then, are the other type of poor? Those having no part in God and even less in human property. These are the ones who have not tasted the righteousness of God.
So the expression, "How difficult it is for those who have riches to enter into the kingdom of God," must be taken with careful thought, rather than in a clumsy or fleshly way. When the expression is understood the right way, it's clear that salvation does not depend on external things, whether there be many or few, small or large, shiny or dull, valuable or cheap. Rather, salvation depends on the virtues of the soul: faith, hope, love, brotherhood, knowledge, meekness, humility, and truth.
The reward for these is salvation. Likewise, no one is granted life on account of his physical beauty, nor is anyone doomed to perish because he is not handsome. But anyone who uses the body has been given in a chaste manner, and according to God's design, he will live. And anyone who destroys God's temple will be destroyed. First Corinthians 3:16. After all, an ugly man may be immoral, and a handsome man may be self-controlled.
Likewise, the strength and size of the body do not give life, nor do any members of the body destroy life. But the soul which uses the body provides the cause for either life or destruction. To illustrate, we are told that when we are struck in the face, we should simply endure it. Matthew 5:39. A strong and healthy man is capable of obeying this command, even though his body could enable him to strike back. And a poor and feeble man may just as easily break this commandment because of his nasty temper.
In the same way, a poor and destitute man may be drunk with the desire for material goods, while a man rich in worldly goods may be sympathetic and pure. He may exercise self-control and only rarely indulge himself. So the soul is the first and most important aspect of our living. The virtue that springs up in the soul is what saves, and corruption of the soul kills.
So let's stop looking for the causes of life and death anywhere else other than in the soul's purity and obedience to God, or in the soul's breaking of the commandments and its accumulation of wicked behavior. So the one who is truly rich is the one who is rich in virtue. He is able to use his fortune in a faithful and holy way. On the other hand, the one who is falsely rich is the one who is rich only according to the flesh. He turns life into a matter of our possessions, which are transitory and perishing.
Today it may belong to one person, tomorrow to another, and in the end it belongs to no one at all. In the same way, there is a genuine poor man and a counterfeit poor man. To be poor in spirit is the right thing. To be poor in a worldly sense is a different matter. To the one who is poor in worldly goods but rich in vices, it is said, "Abandon the alien possessions that are in your soul, so that by becoming pure in heart, you may see God." To put it another way, enter into the kingdom of heaven.
For such a person is neither poor in spirit nor rich towards God. How do you abandon those possessions? By selling them. But then what? Should you exchange your personal effects for money, simply changing your riches from one form into another? Not at all. Instead, you should dispose of it in accordance with the commandment of God. You do that by bringing into your soul the kind of riches that deify and that minister everlasting life.
By doing so, the following things will accrue to you: endless reward and honor, salvation and everlasting immortality. That is the right way to sell your belongings. Your many superfluous possessions shut the heavens against you, but you may exchange them for those that are able to save. Let those who are poor in a carnal sense have your possessions. They are destitute of the things that save. But you, by receiving spiritual wealth instead, will now have treasure in the heavens.