Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 19:22

"But when the young man heard the saying, he went away sorrowful; for he was one that had great possessions." — Matthew 19:22 (ASV)

He went away sorrowful. Mark adds the word “sad,” meaning frowning or having a gloomy expression. This is the same word used for the sky in Mark 16:3. The discipline, so far, did its work: it made the man conscious of his weakness. He shrank from the one test that would have truly led him to the heights of holiness at which he aimed.

Yet his sorrow, while a sign of weakness in one whose heart was not yet whole with God, was not without an element of hope. A merely worldly person would have smiled with cynical contempt, as the Pharisees did when they heard a similar teaching (Luke 16:14). In this case, there was at least a conflict.

According to the common view that we can know nothing more about the questioner, it might seem that his failure was final. However, on the view suggested here, we may believe that the Lord, who “loved” this seeker of eternal life despite his inward weakness, did not abandon him. The sickness, death, and resurrection of Lazarus may have been the very discipline that proved that the things impossible for humans are possible with God. At the very least, we are not hindered by any chronological difficulty from placing those events after the dialogue with the young ruler.