John 12:25

Ver. 25. Application of the figure: “ He who loves his life, loses it; and he who hates his life in this world, shall preserve it unto life eternal. ”

The relation between this sentence and the two preceding verses does not allow us to doubt that Jesus here applies it to Himself. To this fundamental law of human life, which He has so often declared with reference to His disciples (Matthew 10:39; Matthew 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; Luke 17:33), He here declares that He is Himself subjected, like themselves. By the expression, his life, ψυχή, Jesus designates the breath of the natural life, with all the faculties with which this life is endowed in the case of man.

This physical and psychical life is good, as the starting-point of the human existence; Jesus also possesses it. But the destiny of the natural life is not to sustain and perpetuate itself as such; it must be transformed, by a superior force, into a spiritual, eternal life; but, in order to do this, it must be voluntarily surrendered, sacrificed, immolated in the form of self-renunciation. Otherwise, after having flourished for a time, and more or less satisfied itself, it decays and withers for ever. This law applies even to a pure being and to his lawful tastes. One may be called to sacrifice an honorable desire in order to respond to a higher duty; to refuse this call is to keep one's life, but in order to lose it.

Everything which is not surrendered to God by a free act of sacrifice, contains a germ of death. Jesus, seeking his own safety, His personal life, might now, if He wished, escape from death, become the Socrates of the Greeks, the Caesar of the Romans, the Solomon of the Jews; but this way of preserving His life would be to lose it. Not having surrendered it to God, He could not receive it from Him transformed and glorified (John 12:23); and, thus preserved, it would remain devoted to unfruitfulness and to earthly frailty. In order to become a Christ, He must renounce being a sage; He must not wish to ascend the throne of a Solomon, if He desires to take His place on that of God. Lange has profoundly remarked that this saying contains in particular the judgment of Hellenism. What was Greek civilization? The effort to realize an ideal of human life consisting in enjoyment and escaping the law of sacrifice. It is probable that the true reading is the present loses (ἀπολλύει) which was replaced by the future shall lose (ἀπολέσει), under the influence of the verb of the following clause. The idea of losing goes beyond that of abiding alone (John 12:14). The term μισεῖν, to hate, expresses the feeling of a generous contempt, arising from the view of what one would lose by devoting himself to the keeping of this natural life. The expression: unto life eternal, placed in opposition, as it is here, to in this world, refers not only to the more elevated nature of this life (Reuss), but also to the future epoch in which it will break forth in its perfection. This saying, which means that man gives himself to find himself again, is that which Jesus has most frequently uttered (see above); it expresses the most profound law of human life. How should not this moral axiom, which governed the life of the Master, be applicable also to that of the disciples? It is evidently with a view to these latter also, that Jesus expresses it for a last time in this so solemn moment.