Jesus' words seemed to close the door on everyone. A rich ruler who said he had kept the commandments had just become "very sorrowful" (Luke 18:21-23), and Jesus said, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!" (Luke 18:24). If a man like that could not enter, who could? Gill says, "These were the disciples of Christ," and explains that they had taken the Messiah's kingdom to be a worldly one that would be filled with rich men. Matthew Henry gives voice to their alarm: "If we must sell all, or break with Christ, who then can be saved?" The question is astonishment more than argument.

Jesus answered plainly: "The things which are impossible with men are possible with God" (Luke 18:27). He did not take back what He had said about riches. He moved the question from what people can do to what God can do. Peter then said, "Lo, we have left all, and followed thee" (Luke 18:28), and Jesus promised that no one who leaves house or family "for the kingdom of God's sake" will fail to receive "manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting" (Luke 18:29-30).

Barnes explains that the camel and the needle's eye was "a proverb in common use among the Jews," a way of describing something extremely difficult. The other Gospels show how strongly the hearers reacted. Matthew says the disciples "were exceedingly amazed" (Matthew 19:25), and Mark says they "were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves" (Mark 10:26).

Gill notes that the disciples did not expect any difficulty for rich men in the Messiah's kingdom. Jesus' saying overturned what they assumed about who was closest to God.

The answer to this question shows that salvation rests on what God can do, not on what people can do. Barnes sums up Jesus' reply: the obstacles riches create can be overcome, because "God can give grace to do it." Matthew Henry says God's grace "can work upon the soul, so as to alter the bent and bias of it."

Luke soon shows this in a real life. A few verses later Jesus meets Zacchaeus, "chief among the publicans, and he was rich" (Luke 19:2). By the end of that meeting Jesus says, "This day is salvation come to this house" (Luke 19:9), because "the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). What was impossible with men happened by God's power.