saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.
Peter has just confessed Jesus as the Christ of God. Instead of moving on to a throne, the Lord silences that confession and speaks of suffering, rejection and death. Why forbid the announcement? And why does the cross come in as something that must happen?
The command to tell no one sounds strange. One writer ties the silence to two things: the nation's unbelief, and God's own purpose:
This is a remarkable word. Why withhold from people that He was the Christ of God? It was useless to bring it forward. No man had faith in Him except those who were born of God. Man, as man, rejected Him. The Jews rejected Him. The disciples confessed Him, Peter above all; but it was no use to go on preaching Him as the Christ or Messiah of Israel. He was the Anointed of God. But in truth He was going to suffer. So the Lord brings in another title, tied to His cross… Had the people received Him, He would have reigned as Messiah. But, morally speaking, that could not be. On the one hand man was unbelieving, wicked, and lost. On the other hand God's own purpose was that Jesus should be put to death on the cross, and rise into a new creation.
Refused as Messiah, He takes a different name for Himself — one that carries His cross with it:
Note the break at this point. The Lord Jesus takes a new title, and it stays with Him ever after. Tell no one, He says, that I am the Christ of God, the Messiah. The time for that testimony is past… "The Son of man" is the new title He takes now, because they refused Him, rejected Him. He was going to be crucified where He ought to have been crowned. And He shows us here not His atoning sufferings, but His sufferings as a martyr.
The men who reject Him are named one by one. Each group stands for something:
The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders (the most experienced) and chief priests (the most religious) and scribes (the most learned).
Why "must" He suffer? One writer answers with a question of his own:
The Lord, knowing all, said to His disciples over and over again, The Son of Man must suffer. How was a race of ruined sinners to be saved? How were we to be saved? The Son of Man came not only to set up the Kingdom in righteousness, but the Son of Man must suffer, and He suffered as no one else did. He was spat upon, scourged, shamefully treated, and put to death. His death was an absolute necessity. Without it God could not establish the Kingdom, and we could not be saved.
Death is not the last word. And what Luke sets beside it is not an account of the atonement but a call to self-denial:
Here our Saviour does not speak of putting away man's guilt. He speaks as the One rejected, suffering to the utmost because of man's — Israel's — unbelief. This is not a revelation of the effective sacrifice on God's part. The heads of earthly religion kill Him; but He is raised the third day. What comes next is not an unfolding of the blessed results of the atonement — however sure it is that God was about to do that very work at that very time. Luke, as his habit is, ties Christ's rejection and death to the great moral principle: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself."
Suffering is not the end of what He announces. The next scene, on the mountain, belongs with this one:
Luke 9:22-36 movingly presents the sufferings of the Son of Man and the glory that follows. At the hands of men He was to "suffer many things," to be "rejected" and "killed." Then, on the Mount of Transfiguration, we get a brief sight of the glory and honour with which God purposes to crown the Son of Man. The passage also challenges our hearts. It shows that if His disciples have the privilege of sharing in His glory, they are first called to share in His sufferings.
- Rejected — Man, as man, refused Him. So it was no use preaching Him as Israel's Messiah, and He silenced Peter's confession.
- Renamed — Refused as the Christ, He takes up "Son of Man," the title that stays with Him. He is crucified where He should have been crowned.
- Required — The "must" is no accident. Without His death God could not establish the Kingdom or save sinners.
- Raised — The heads of earthly religion kill Him. The third day answers them, and He rises into a new creation.
- Retraced — His road becomes the disciple's own. Those who will share His glory are first called to share His sufferings.
And he said to [them] all, If any one will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me;
Peter has just confessed that Jesus is the Christ. The Lord has answered by announcing His own rejection, death, and rising again. Then He turns to everyone listening and says what it costs to follow Him. Three things come in order: saying no to self, taking up a cross, and following.
The words come straight out of the announcement of His suffering. One writer notes that Luke moves straight from Christ's rejection to a moral principle for the disciple.
Luke, as he usually does, ties Christ's rejection and death to a great moral principle: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself." The Lord wants the cross to be real not only for the man, but in him too. It is a blessing to know what God has done for us in the cross of Christ. We must also learn what the cross says about the world and about human nature.
This call goes to people who already know Him. One writer draws a line between the first step and the second, and warns that many stop at the first.
To come after Jesus is a hard task in itself. Anyone who does not know the Master might well shrink back from it. It is knowing the gracious and glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ that awakens the sincere, whole-hearted response men ought to give to His call to follow Him... Many people know something of our Lord Jesus. They answered His invitation and came to Him in their distress, weariness and repentance. They found rest in Him and peace for their conscience — but they have never followed Him!
The phrase is often softened into giving up a few comforts. One writer shows how that softened version feeds the very thing it claims to cut.
People talk about self-denial. They even hold self-denial weeks, by which they mean giving up certain things for a set time to help a good cause. But this is the very opposite of denying self. It adds to self-satisfaction and lifts self up. Denying self is not just giving up certain things. It is denying the person who craves these things. Denying self is ignoring self altogether so that we serve others in love.
Denying self and carrying a cross are not the same act repeated. One writer on the matching account in Mark separates them.
To say "no" to yourself is to accept death inside, in your own spirit. To take up your cross is to accept death outside, at the hands of the world. That is what following Him must mean, since we follow the Christ who died, rejected by the world.
People often confuse that outward side with hardship in general — illness, money worries, difficult people.
The cross is not the ordinary trouble of everyday life, though the disciple will meet that too. Someone under pressure may say, "I have a heavy cross to bear." That is not the thought here.
The word does not appear in Matthew's record of the same saying.
Matthew 16:24 does not include the word "daily." There the stress falls on the first decision. Luke stresses a daily practice.
That daily repetition is where the real weight falls — heavier, one writer argues, than a single heroic act.
It has been well said that it is very hard to keep denying yourself every day, with no one knowing anything about it... A man might go bravely to death, once for all, to defend the truth. His name could be passed down for generations and a monument raised in his memory. But taking up your cross daily, denying yourself daily, is a very different thing.
No one can work this up by effort or willpower. The strength comes from God, and it reaches us through love.
We will not find the power we need within ourselves, and we cannot work it up by religious exercises. It is in God alone. But it reaches us in a very simple way... Let the bright rays of the love of God break into any heart, however dark, and at once that heart knows a new driving power, and following Him begins.
- Come first. He calls people to come after Him who have already come to Him. Resting in Him for peace is the gate, not the road.
- Deny self. This is not giving up certain things, which can feed self-satisfaction. It is denying the person who craves them, and ignoring self so that we serve others in love.
- Carry the cross. Saying no to self accepts death inside. Taking up the cross accepts death outside, at the hands of the world. That is not the same as ordinary trouble.
- Daily. Matthew records the once-for-all decision. Luke adds the word that makes it a daily practice. Unseen daily denial tests a person more than a single heroic death.
- Follow. A rejected Christ shapes the path. No one generates the power to walk it. That power starts when the love of God breaks into the heart.
for whosoever shall desire to save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, *he* shall save it.
Jesus has just told His followers that He will be rejected, killed, and raised. He now lays down the rule that follows, and it sounds like a riddle: saving ends in losing, and losing ends in saving.
The word behind "life" is usually translated "soul." One writer explains what that word covers:
The word translated "life" here is usually translated "soul." It refers to the "soul life" that marks man in his natural fallen condition. The soul is not the same as the spirit. The spirit is the higher part of man, able to put him in intelligent touch with God. The soul is the seat of our natural desires and longings. So "soul life" is the life of enjoying everything that appeals to us by nature.
The saying works on two levels. What a man keeps on one level, he loses on the other:
Everything now depends on eternal life. It is no longer a question of living long on the earth. This was, and will be, all very well for the Jew. But the cross of Christ is the burial of all Jewish thoughts. So if a man is careful to save his life now, he will lose it. He may save it in a lower sense, but he will lose it in a deeper. He may save it in this world, but lose it for eternity. But if I am willing to lose it in the lower, I shall save it in the best — the eternal — sense.
Jesus says this right after announcing His own rejection. The quotes never say Luke alone records the daily cross:
The Lord announces to all the plain consequence. If anyone will follow after Him, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Him. He was not going to have the present glory of Messiah. He was going a sorrowful journey right to the end, even to death. And this was the daily character of the service... And whoever would save his life would lose it... Whoever should lose his life for Christ's sake should find it really.
Talk of saving and losing can sound like a price you pay to be saved. One writer rules that out:
The Lord speaks these words to the disciples, not to unbelievers. It is therefore not a question of salvation. We are not asked to deny self and take up the cross to be saved. These words tell us that the way the Lord went is the way of all His true disciples. It is not only possible to believe in the Lord and not follow Him; it is the most common thing we see around us today.
For some believers, losing their life has meant dying. But the principle reaches further:
Someone may attach himself to this world. He may seek his life in it, or keep it as a life he clings to, over against the rejected Christ. Such a man loses it. We are not always called to give up our lives in fact, though this can happen, and often has. But in moral terms it always applies. Whoever loves his life, and holds on to it as if it belonged to this world, loses it. It is a life of vanity, as cut off from God as the world it attaches itself to, and it ends only in death.
What looks like the safe choice turns out to be the losing one:
Suppose someone wants to save his life — that is, to escape the dangers that come with true discipleship. In the end he would only lose his life. But if he willingly lost his life for Christ's sake, he would truly save it, in its real and lasting worth.
This saying comes back in the Gospels more often than anything else Jesus said:
Of all His wonderful words in the Gospels, this is the only one, as far as I know, that comes back again and again. With slight variations, it appears no less than six times. Read these passages: Matthew 10:39; 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; 17:33. Together with the one in John 12, they make six. So He pressed this truth home on four occasions: when He sent out His twelve disciples; just before His transfiguration; when giving a prophetic address not long before the end of His ministry; and within a few days of His death.
- Life — the word means "soul": the natural life of desires and enjoyments that fallen man lives for.
- Lower — you can keep that life at the lower level and still lose it at the deeper, eternal one.
- Loss — losing it for Christ's sake may mean death. It always means letting go of a life that belongs to this world.
- Daily — the cross is not a one-time crisis. It is the daily shape of following a rejected Christ.
- Repeated — the Lord said this more often than anything else on record. He said it to disciples, not as the price of salvation, but as the road they walk.
For what shall a man profit if he shall have gained the whole world, and have destroyed, or come under the penalty of the loss of himself?
Jesus has just spoken of His own suffering and called His followers to take up the cross. Now He weighs the biggest prize anyone could win against the loss of himself, and asks whether that trade pays.
One writer links the disciple's road straight to the Lord's own suffering:
This suffering of the Son of Man at once defines the path for the disciple. "He said to them all, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." It was in no way the enjoyment of earthly things. That would be right and fitting in the Kingdom when He reigns as the Christ... But that is not the character of Christianity. The cross shows us our true path. If Christ suffered, the Christian cannot expect to be above his Master.
The choice here has only two sides:
You see, it comes down to one of two things: either give up everything for Christ, or go after everything apart from Him.
Scripture elsewhere speaks of losing "his soul." Luke says "himself." One writer explains why that wording matters:
The parallel place in Luke 9:25 shows that "his soul" is just the equivalent of "himself"... The finding and losing of the soul in the present world are reversed in the world to come. The finding becomes losing, the losing finding there. He who makes himself the object of his life loses himself and is cast away. He who sacrifices self and its interests for Christ's sake is really preserving all for the world to come.
The same writer adds that this does not require an actual martyr's death: "the actual laying down of life in martyrdom is not necessary at all to the application."
Profit and loss depend on how far ahead you count:
Everything now depends on eternal life. It is no longer a question of living long on the earth... So if a man is careful to save his life now, he will lose it. He may save it in a lower sense, but he will lose it in a deeper. He may save it in this world, but lose it for eternity. But if I am willing to lose it in the lower sense, I will save it in the best — the eternal — sense.
The world cannot be held anyway, which is what makes the bargain absurd:
It comes to this: that if you spare the flesh in this life, you will lose your life in the next... It is giving up the world for eternal life, or for eternal misery — that is the real question. "What is a man advantaged?" You must give it up; you cannot keep it.
Saving your own life can look like plain good sense. One writer shows what it really costs:
If someone wants to save his life — that is, to escape the dangers that come with true discipleship — in the end he will only lose it. One may think he is saving his life by gaining the world or piling up great riches. But he can do all this and still lose himself, or be cast away as useless. Many are snared by such delusions. Such things involve being ashamed of Christ Himself and of His words. They mean being ashamed of the One who did not seek gain or honour for Himself in the world, but who willingly accepted the place of rejection.
So what is a single soul worth? One writer looks in one place for the answer:
What is the worth of your soul? The blessed Son of God gave Himself for my soul. If I want to know the value of the soul, I look at the cross. I look at this holy, sinless, spotless One going down to death to redeem it. That is the value of the human soul.
- Cross first. Christ suffered first, and His road is the disciple's road. The follower does not rise above his Master.
- Profit next. The verse asks about profit. The biggest possible gain still buys nothing you can keep.
- Self is the stake. Luke's "himself" and "his soul" mean the same thing. A man does not just lose things; he loses himself.
- Timing decides. Save your life in the lower sense and you lose it in the deeper. Let it go for Christ, and you keep it for eternity.
- Price revealed. The whole world cannot buy one soul. The cross shows what a soul is worth.