And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them, If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
As my view of this Scripture, in those two verses, differs altogether from every Commentator which I have read upon it, I beg the Reader's indulgence to be somewhat more particular in his attention to my remarks. I shall very freely state the sense which I have of the passage; and if I err, I pray the Lord to forgive the unintentional error, and guard the Reader from adopting it.
It is plain, from the occasion in which Jesus delivered himself on this subject of hatred to our nearest relations, in the bonds of nature, that he meant to inculcate the higher claims of grace; and, as great multitudes were then following him, the Lord gave them to understand, that the life of a real disciple of his, was attended with greater sacrifices than they at first, might suppose. But few have considered the term of hatred to mean anything more, than, in a comparative way, and similar to that passage in Matthew, not to love any person or thing more than Christ, or equal with Christ. Matthew 10:37. But first I would observe, that the word in the original, which in our Testament is translated hate, will admit of no softer expression. It is one of the plainest words in the Greek language, as everyone conversant with the original cannot but allow. And secondly, it should be further observed, that the doctrine is not the language of the New Testament only, but of the Old. Israel was enjoined to have no pity upon the friend, which was as a man's own soul, if that friend enticed him to leave the Lord: Thine hand (saith the law) shall be first upon him, to put him to death, and then the hand of all the people. See Deuteronomy 1:13, throughout. And the hatred which the Lord Jesus is here speaking of, is wholly commanded upon this principle: namely, that any of those tender affinities of nature rise up to the injury of the more important claims of grace. And they must be indeed really and truly objects of hatred to the soul, if they have a tendency, or make use of their influence to thwart the soul in pursuits of the divine life.
And what, in my view, tends most clearly to prove this, and to throw a light upon the whole doctrine, is the concluding sentence in the passage, in which Jesus, having declared the necessity of hating the nearest ties in nature, if opposing the pursuits of grace, hath added, Yea, and his own life also. Here the point, according to my apprehension, is at once shown. For if a man is to hate his own life, namely, his corrupt, unregenerate, unrenewed part, because he feels daily an opposition in this body of sin and death, to the holy desires of the renewed soul, nothing can be more plain than that Jesus meant exactly what the words express: and in following Christ in the regeneration, there will be daily cause of hatred arising in the soul, to the remains of indwelling and corrupt affections, which oppose the stuff, and too often bring the soul into leanness, and distress, and sorrow.
And I would ask every real believer, every truly regenerated soul of the Lord's people, whether, on this very account, he doth not groan daily, being burthened? Let him determine the question with his own conscience! let him study the subject, as it relates to holy men of old gone before. What were the woes of Isaiah, the self-reproaches of Job, of David, of Paul, but on this account? See Isaiah 6:5; Job 42:6; Psalms 51:2-3; Romans 7:23-24. Men who have taken up, with a flimsy view of godliness, and not learnt, from divine teaching, the plague of their own heart, may, in the pride of their heart, be content with a Pharisaical righteousness, and talk of what they never truly enjoyed in themselves, a progressive holiness; but he who is learning in the school of God the Holy Ghost, to be more and more in love with Jesus, will learn from the same lesson, practically, to be more and more out of love with himself, and while he hates the world, and sin, and Satan, he will hate his own life also from the same cause; namely, the opposition he meets with from that quarter; and as Job expresses it, will abhor himself, and repent in dust and ashes.
And, Reader! suffer me to add, (however largely I have already trespassed), is it not this self-hatred, by reason of a body of sin and death, which makes, in part, a cause for the true believer to be reconciled to the prospect of death? Yea, doth not Jesus sweetly and graciously over-rule even this malady of nature, to the higher prospects of grace, and cause his faithful ones to feel as Paul did, and rejoice in the hope as he rejoiced, in the desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better? Philippians 1:23. But I proceed no further. I am free to confess that the language of our Lord, in this memorable passage, strikes me in the sense in which I have represented it. Here, therefore, I leave it with the Lord, and to the Reader's reflection, under the divine teaching.