The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?
Ver. 20. All these things have I kept] Lie and all; as now the Popish Pharisees dream and brag that they can keep the law, and spare. a They can do more than any that ever went before them, Psalms 143:2; Job 15:14; James 3:2. Oecolampadius saith that none of the patriarchs lived out a full thousand years (which is a number of perfection), to teach us that here is no perfection of piety. David's heart smote him for doing that which Saul highly commended him for.
What lack I yet?] Gr. "Wherein am I yet behind with God?" (τι ετι υστερω). He thought himself somewhat beforehand, and that God, likewise, was in his debt. Truly, many today grow crooked and aged with overly good opinions of themselves, and can hardly ever be set right again. They stand upon their comparisons-I am as good as thou; nay, upon their disparisons, "I am not as this publican." No, for thou art worse; yea, for this, because thou thinkest thyserf better. This arrogant youth makes good that of Aristotle, who, differencing between age and youth, makes it a property of young men to think they know all things, and to affirm lustily their own placits. b He secretly insults over our Saviour as a trivial teacher, and calls for a lecture beyond the law, worthy, therefore, to have been sent to Anticyra; surely, as when Drusius in his defenee against a nimble Jesuit, that called him heretic, alleged that heresy must be in fundamentis fidei, in the foundation of the faith, the Jesuit replied that even that assertion was heresy. So when this young man affirmed that he had ever kept the commandments, and asked, "What lack I yet?" Christ might well have said, "Thou art therefore guilty of the breach of all the commandments, because thou takest thyself to be keeper of all, and thou therefore lackest everything, because thou thinkest thou lackest nothing."
a Arrogantius mendaeium nemo hominum de se dixit. Pareus. Insignem hypocritam se gloriatur. Ib.
b παντα ειδεναι οιδσθαι και διοσχυριζεσθαι. Ethic. 1.