Luke 18:25

“For it is easier for a camel to enter in through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingly Rule of God.”

Then Jesus spoke the immortal words known to Christians world over. ‘It is easier for a camel to enter in through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingly Rule of God.' There is no reason for us to take these words as having any other than their natural meaning. All could imagine the eye of a needle. All could visualise a camel coming to a rather abrupt halt as it faced it, and baying, ‘Don't be ridiculous'. It was simply stating the extremeness of the impossibility. And there is no real evidence of any such thing as a ‘needle gate' in Jerusalem at that time, nor a need to turn to an obscure word which might mean hawser. Jesus really was thinking of a camel and a rather large needle.

Why then did Jesus use this illustration of a camel? Apart from displaying a sense of humour and giving a picture really worth remembering, the whole point was that the camel viewed the eye of the needle like a rich man viewed the challenge of life without riches, as not worth taking trouble over because it was impossible. It took one look at the eye of the needle and then turned languidly away, just as the rich man, when he was inspired by better thoughts, would take one look at the problems that might arise, and then give up. He was safely settled down in his own comforts. He did not need to alter anything. But the result was that unless he removed all dependence on them his urges towards goodness would always end up with his lying back and relaxing again, putting it off until another day. Like the camel he would turn away from the open door because going through it demanded too much from him. It would all be far too difficult and far too demanding. And then like the rich man in the parable he would die with his position unresolved.

So if we have not learned the lesson about riches from the unrighteous estate manager, and from the rich man and Lazarus, let us now learn it from the real life example of this rich ruler. Let us learn that our wealth and our security of life and whatever else it is that we consider important to us can be a curse to us and not a blessing. For they can prevent our being thrown upon God. What we too must do is thrust aside whatever it is that is holding us back, and then we too will be able to ‘inherit eternal life'.