He was not saved. Here's the quote:
Luke 18:18 A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
19 "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No-one is good� except God alone.
20 You know the commandments: �Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honour your father and mother.�"
21 "All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.
22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
He asked what he needed to be saved and Jesus told him he lacked one thing, to give up his wealth. He couldn't be saved until he did that one thing and he refused to do it. He put his money ahead of his soul. Jesus must be first in everything.
Jesus doesn't require us to be paupers. He just requires us to put him 1st. He knew where this man's heart really was.
Cross reference with Matthew 19:21. What he lacked was not what's needed for salvation (unless you suggest that all must sell all they have and become priests or monks), but what was needed for
perfection, i.e., to also store up
treasures in heaven, in addition to saving one's soul. He was offering him a
higher calling than merely to be personally saved, which he understood him to be looking for, but Jesus knew he wasn't willing to pay the price for that.
"We shall do well to recognize that there are two ways of serving God acceptably - there is the good life required from all religious Christians, and there is the life of perfection to which some, by God's special grace, are called, and which they embrace and fulfill. It was the latter life that Christ put before this young man."
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Pulpit Commentaries, H. D. M. Spence (1836�1917)
