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.