Matthew 16:25

LIFE SAVED AND LOST

‘Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it.’

Matthew 16:25

In the parallel passage of St. Mark 8:35, there is a slight addition: ‘for My sake and the Gospel’s’; and both there and in St. Luke 9:24, for ‘find it,’ the closing words are ‘save it.’ The same statement occurs in Matthew 10:39, and is abbreviated in St. Luke 14:26 into the short phrase: ‘hate … yea, and his own life also.’

I. Service not salvation.—The topic before us is not the saving or losing of the soul, but the life reckoned as gained or lost, according as it is yielded up to the Master’s service, or withheld from Him and kept for selfish ends. A life ‘lost,’ as the world names it, is really saved, gained and kept; whilst the life spent for worldly advantages, earthly profit, and selfish ends counts but as pure loss, and is worth nothing in His sight.

II. Christ as example.—Our Lord’s use of the idea of losing and keeping the life, in St. John 7:24, applies it to Himself and His own conduct, and once more makes Him the example for disciples to follow.

III. The yielded life.—The condition for consecration and discipleship, which calls for a practical surrender of the whole life, and a willingness to let it be lost to all personal ends for Christ’s sake, forms in fact the summary and climax of everything. The whole being is put under contribution and nothing is left unclaimed by Christ.

—The Rev. Hubert Brooke.