Jesus looked at them and said, “For people this is impossible, but for God everything is possible.”
In this verse Jesus responds to the disciples’ deeply sincere but bewildered question: “Then who can be saved?” He explains the logic of salvation. Jesus does not contradict what He said in the previous verse: a camel truly cannot pass through the eye of a needle, and a person whose heart is truly bound to the world cannot be saved by his own strength. But now He reveals the door of hope: God’s action. “With people it is impossible” clarifies the truth that salvation cannot be obtained by human efforts, by keeping the law, or by moral merit. No one can become worthy of eternal life by his own works. The second part of Jesus’ statement—that with God all things are possible—makes clear in one sentence that salvation is God’s work, by God’s grace, power, and will. He can change even worldly people at heart, can bring them to repentance, free them from the bondage of possessions, and transform them toward eternal worthiness. Here Jesus reveals the very core of the whole gospel: salvation is grace, not merit. And the only way is to receive it with the whole heart, with obedience and humility.