Luke 9:23-27

We can quite understand that the people could not yet bear the disclosure of a suffering Messiah; but Jesus might make them participate in it indirectly, by initiating them into the practical consequences of this fact for His true disciples. To describe the moral crucifixion of His servants, Luke 9:23-27, was to give a complete revelation of the spirituality of the Messianic kingdom.

3 d. Luke 9:23-27. “ And He said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. 24. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. 25. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? 26. For whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He shall come in His own glory, and in His Father's, and of the holy angels. 27. But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God. ”

The preceding conversation had taken place within the privacy of the apostolic circle (Luke 9:18). The following words are addiessed to all, that is to say, to the multitude, which, while Jesus was praying with His disciples, kept at a distance. According to Mark, Jesus calls them to Him to hear the instruction which follows. Holtzmann maintains that this to all of Luke must have been taken from Mark. But why could not the same remark, if it resulted from an actual fact, be reproduced in two different forms, in two independent documents?

Jesus here represents all those who attach themselves to Him under the figure of a train of crucified persons, Luke 9:23. The aor. ἐλθεῖν of the T. R. means: make in general part of my following; and the present ἔρχεσθαι in the Alex.: range themselves about me at this very moment. The figure employed is that of a journey, which agrees with their actual circumstances as described by Mark: ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ.

The man who has made up his mind to set out on a journey, has first of all to say farewell; here he has to bid adieu to his own life, to deny himself. Next there is luggage to carry; in this case it is the cross, the sufferings and reproach which never fail to fall on him who pays a serious regard to holiness of life. By the word αἴρειν, to take up, to burden oneself with, Jesus alludes to the custom of making criminals carry their cross to the place of punishment. Further, there is in this term the idea of a voluntary and cheerful acceptance. Jesus says his cross, that which is the result of a person's own character and providential position. There is nothing arbitrary about it; it is given from above. The authenticity of the word daily, which is wanting in some MSS., cannot be doubted. Had it been a gloss, it would have been inserted in Matthew and Mark as well. This voluntary crucifixion is carried on every day to a certain degree. Lastly, after having taken farewell and shouldered his burden, he must set out on his journey. By what road? By that which the steps of his Master have marked out. The chart of the true disciple directs him to renounce every path of his own choosing, that he may put his feet into the print of his leader's footsteps. Thus, and not by arbitrary mortifications actuated by self-will, is the death of self completely accomplished.

The term follow, therefore, does not express the same idea as come after me, at the beginning of the verse; the latter would denote outward adherence to the followers of Jesus. The other refers to practical fidelity in the fulfilment of the consequences of this engagement.

The 24th verse demonstrates (for) the necessity for the crucifixion described, Luke 9:23. Without this death to self, man loses himself (24a); whilst by this sacrifice he saves himself (24b). We find here the paradoxical form in which the Hebrew Maschal loves to clothe itself. Either of the two ways brings the just man to the antipodes of the point to which it seemed likely to lead him. This profound saying, true even for man in his innocence, is doubly true when applied to man as a sinner. Ψυχή, the breath of life, denotes the soul, with its entire system of instincts and natural faculties. This psychical life is unquestionably good, but only as a point of departure, and as a means of acquiring a higher life. To be anxious to save it, to seek to preserve it as it is, by doing nothing but care for it, and seek the utmost amount of self-gratification, is a sure way of losing it for ever; for it is wanting to give stability to what in its essence is but transitory, and to change a means into an end. Even in the most favourable case, the natural life is only a transient flower, which must soon fade. That it may be preserved from dissolution, we must consent to lose it, by surrendering it to the mortifying and regenerating breath of the Divine Spirit, who transforms it into a higher life, and imparts to it an eternal value. To keep it, therefore, is to lose both it and the higher life into which, as the blossom into its fruit, it should have been transformed. To lose it is to gain it, first of all, under the higher form of spiritual life; then, some day, under the form even of natural life, with all its legitimate instincts fully satisfied. Jesus says, “for my sake; ” and in Mark, “for my sake and the gospel's. ” It is, in fact, only as we give ourselves to Christ that we satisfy this profound law of human existence; and it is only by the gospel, received in faith, that we can contract this personal relationship to Christ. Self perishes only when affixed to the cross of Jesus, and the divine breath, which imparts the new life to man, comes to him from Christ alone. No axiom was more frequently repeated by Jesus; it is, as it were, the substance of His moral philosophy. In Luke 17:33 it is applied to the time of the Parousia; it is then, in fact, that it will be fully realized. In John 12:25 Jesus makes it the law of His own existence; in Matthew 10:39 He applies it to the apostolate.