Luke 18:20

Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor thy father and mother.

Salvation was always, is now, and ever shall be dependent upon obedience to the commandments of God. Matthew explicitly stated this in his account, and Luke implies as much here. As Summers said, "Implicit in Jesus' answer is the meaning that to obey these commandments is to have eternal life ... This was good Jewish religious thinking."[28] In Summers' final sentence (above), however, there is the implication that, of course, "this is not Christian thinking, at all, but Jewish thinking." On the other hand, this is an eternal and invariable law. Of course, human beings being utterly unable to keep God's law perfectly, they must unite with Christ, being baptized into him; and as Christ, in Christ, they are total, perfect keepers of all God's commandments (Colossians 1:28). This does not, however, negate the principle laid down here that eternal life is directly and irrevocably related to keeping God's commandments.