For whosoever will save his life shall lose it.
Bearing the cross
A three-fold inducement is here held out.
I. Each man has two lives-A lower and earthly, and a higher and heavenly. If any man thinks only of the former, and makes everything bend to that, with all its temporal enjoyments and self-pleasing, he will forfeit all right to the latter. If, however, he learns to sit loosely to that, and is prepared to resign it whenever a strong sense of duty prompts the resignation, he carries in his hand a passport into a higher and nobler existence.
II. There is a vast disproportion between the two lives.
1. He pictures to His hearers a man placed upon trial for his conduct, and condemned to forfeit all claim to eternal life, because he has thought only of the present, and taken his fill of its pleasures; and then He weighs in the balance one against the other, what he has gained and what he has lost, and the former flies up at once and kicks the beam, for it is altogether lighter than vanity itself.
2. There are many things which may be recovered by ransom or won back by exchange; but eternal life, once forfeited, is past recovery; at least no corruptible things, such as silver and gold, neither thousands of rams nor ten thousands of rivers of oil, can effect a redemption or offer the least compensation.
III. He appeals to the requital at the final judgment. (H. M. Luckock, D. D.)
Meaning of the term “life”
The first thing for us to do is to settle the meaning of the word “life.” In this the Lord helps us. He calls it in one place our “life in this world” (John 12:25). The term is the very same which is used in Genesis, where it is said that “man became a living soul.” Again, it is a word which the Hebrews used as a synonym for happiness. A happy life in this world; perhaps that phrase might do by way of beginning our definition. But that definition is not complete. A good Christian life is a happy life; nay, it is the happiest of all, and it is led in this world; so that one might lead a happy life in this world, and yet lose nothing in the world to come. Let us go on then to take in other elements. “Life in this world” appears to mean life which has no reference to any other; a worldly life only-no more; a life which is regarded as a complete and finished thing in itself; which needs no rounding and filling out by aught to come after it; a life which has in its activities, in its aims, in its felt necessities, no relation to any other: that seems to be the life here spoken of … God Almighty, when He made man, made him at first the tenant of this natural world, which was to him, for a time, a home, and, during that time, gave him all that the natural man requires: nor was it till God proposed to him a supernatural end, and an eternal life of glory and felicity like that of God Himself, that the natural earthly life sank away out of sight, and man, reaching forth towards the heavenly prize, lost his relish for visible and temporal joys. This, then, is what we understand by that “life” which we are hidden not to love, nor save, nor find. It is this natural existence, this earthly state, this present life, alone and by itself, with nothing in it prophetic of the world to come, with nothing in it to sanctify, hallow, bless; a life, perhaps of toil, perhaps of pleasure, yet marked by no holy signs, secular, social, and domestic; wherein all is for time and man, and nothing for God. That is our natural state; we began that way; and there should we have remained, but for some act on God’s part calling us away; as the scripture calls it, “electing” us; giving us a new birth unto another and wholly different condition; and begetting us again unto a lively hope which has its spring and centre in a supernatural region. (Morgan Dix, D. D.)
Life saved, yet lost
Let us force again upon our thoughts the danger of getting back into the bondage from which the Lord has made us free. This common natural life of ours; the life of those who are “conceived and born in sin;” the life which is so loaded down with divers kinds of trial and sorrow; the life which has, no doubt, much that is bright and pleasant in it, but also much that is very hard and bitter; this life which can be abstracted from any practical relation to aught that is to come hereafter, and made to look as if it came out of nothing and went back into nothing; why should we love it so dearly as to care for nothing else? why should we be so wrapped up in it as to feel almost as if it sufficed to our necessity? Men thus love it; and a cold shudder passes through the soul when they think, “After a little while, comes an end, and then what shall become of me?” And some men are like persons seeking to find what is lost. You lose a piece of silver, and you give your whole thought to searching for it. You mislay a book, or an important paper, and you give yourself no rest till you find it again. A name is gone from your memory, or the details of an incident from your recollection, and you think, and think, and try to get hold of the lost idea, the impression which you cannot trace. So do some men search the world through, fix their whole thoughts on their life, and try to get out of it the pleasure they miss, and of it to fill the void in their hearts. And think what it is to save: the double sense that is here. You save a thing from destruction: you rescue a drowning man, you run in haste to snatch something from the flames. Or again, you save things by putting them away and making no use of them. You hide things in dark closets or on top shelves, and there they remain, unused, till the dust settles on them, and the moth or the worm consume them. Or so might one hide grain away, instead of sowing it in the ground, and what might have produced the bright green leaf and the rich full fruit in the ear, lies there sterile and valueless. Thus do some men save their lives; they never will take any risk; they never do one brave, unselfish thing; they are always in alarm for consequences, afraid of compromising themselves or their interest, afraid of losing the earthly possession. Or they bury their talents and skill, their ideals and ambitions, so that when they come to die no one can recollect one single thing they ever did in all their lives, that others might be thankful for, or for which society was the better. (Morgan Dix, D. D.)
Insecurity of this life
Some years ago a vessel lay becalmed on a smooth sea in the vicinity of an iceberg. In full view the mountain mass of frozen splendour rose before the passengers of the vessel, its towers and pinnacles glittering in the sunlight, and clothed in the enchanting and varied colours of the rainbow. A party on board the vessel resolved to climb the steep sides of the iceberg, and spend the day in a picnic on the summit. The novelty and attraction of the hazardous enterprise blinded them to the danger, and they left the vessel, ascended the steep mountain of ice, spread their table on the summit, and enjoyed their dance of pleasure on the surface of the frosty marble. Nothing disturbed their security, or marred their enjoyment. Their sport was finished and they made their way down to the water level and embarked. But scarcely had they reached a safe distance before the loud crash of the crumbling mass was heard. The scene of their gaiety was covered with the huge fragments of the falling pinnacles, and the giant iceberg rolled over with a shock that sent a thrill of awe and terror to the breast of every spectator. Not one of that gay party could ever be induced to try that rash experiment again. But what is this world with all its brilliancy, its hopes, and its alluring pleasures, but a glittering iceberg, melting slowly away? Its false splendour, enchanting to the eye, dissolves, and as drop after drop trickles down its sides, or steals unseen through its hidden pores, its very foundations are undermined, and the steady decay prepares for a sudden catastrophe. Such is the world to many who dance over its surface, and in a false security forget the treacherous footing on which they stand. But can anyone who knows what it is, avoid feeling that every moment is pregnant with danger, and that the final catastrophe is hastening on? Is it in a merely fanciful alarm that we warn you to flee from the wrath to come, that we tell you that every moment of life is full of the deepest solemnity, and that we admonish you of the treacherous character of hopes that glitter like the pinnacles of the iceberg in the sunlight, which a moment may crumble to ruined fragments, strewn over your grave? If it is solemn to die, is it not solemn to live, when any moment may be the door through which you may pass into eternity? What are all the objects upon which you rely-health, strength, youthful vigour-but the frozen marble beneath your feet, that may yield in an hour when you dream not, and leave you to sink in a river which no plummet can fathom? Could you be so secure, so heedless of warning, if you realized your true condition. (Homiletic Encyclopaedia.)
The shroud of Saladin
Who has not heard, or rather read, of that famous Asiatic warrior, Saladin? After subjugating Egypt, establishing himself as Sultan of Egypt and Syria, taking towns without number, and retaking Jerusalem itself from the hands of the crusaders, this Moslem hero of the Third Crusade, and beau ideal of mediaeval chivalry, had at length to yield to a still mightier conqueror. A few moments before he breathed his last he ordered a herald to suspend on the point of a lance the shroud in which he was to be buried, and to cry as he raised it, “Look, here is all that Saladin the Great, the conqueror, the emperor, bears away with him of all his glory.” Thus all the honours and riches of this world, all bodily pleasures and gratifications, all earthly greatness, are reduced by death to the shroud and the winding sheet; but the soul, immortal in its nature, and secure in its existence, “smiles at the drawn dagger” or other implement of death. Who, then, can estimate the untold value of the soul? (J. J. Given, M. A.)
Men burn for goods, who will not for Christ
Richard Denton, a blacksmith, was the means of converting the martyr, William Woolsey. When told by that holy man that he wondered he had not followed him to prison, Denton replied that he could not burn in the cause of Christ. Not long after, his house being on fire, he ran in to save some of his goods, and was burnt to death!
And the gospel’s
These words, peculiar to St. Mark, are written for those who in this day cannot follow Christ personally, as the apostles did. They teach us that those who now forsake the comforts of home and intellectual society, and the prospects of preferment in a wealthy Church, to preach the gospel amongst uncivilized or savage tribes, in so doing lose their lives, or all that worldly men esteem life worth living for, not only for the gospel, or for the Church’s sake, but for Christ Himself. (M. F. Sadler.)
Life lost and saved
It is a riddle to flesh and blood, that the same life should be both saved and lost: For the resolving whereof we must know that there is a two-fold tribunal, the court of the world, and the court of heaven; and as he that saves himself in the common law, may be cast in the Chancery; so he that saves himself here in the consistories of men, may elsewhere lose himself, namely, in the court of heaven. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
Loving Christ best
I. If we look at Christ, He is to be loved best of all, and all things must be accounted “dross and dung in comparison of Him” (Philippians 3:7-8). Again, if we look on His merit and desert, he loved not His life unto death for us, but readily offered it up on our behalf (Luke 12:50). How then should we hold ourselves bound in way of thankfulness, if we had a thousand lives, to give them up for Him? shall the Just for the unjust, and not the unjust for the Just?
II. If we look to the truth and gospel, it is far more worthy than all we can give in exchange for it; it cost Christ dear: He thought it worthy of His life, and bought with His precious blood, which was the blood of God (Acts 20:28); and should we think much to buy it with our last blood?
III. If we look on ourselves:
1. We are soldiers under Christ’s colours. A soldier in the field sells his life for a base pay, and is ready for his king and country to endure blows, gashes, and death itself. How much more ought the Christian soldier for the love of his Captain, and honour of his profession, contemn fears and perils, and think his life well sold in so honourable a quarrel and cause as Christ’s is?
2. This is indeed rightly to love ourselves, when we can rightly hate ourselves. We must learn to love ourselves by not loving ourselves. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
Thought no test of love
I grant we have callings, and earthly affairs, which tie us ordinarily to speak and think of such things; but the special calling of a Christian must be ever subordinate to the general, and in all earthly business a man must carry a heavenly mind. God gives no leave to be earthly-minded, even while a man is earthly employed. Again, the speaking and thinking more of a thing upon necessity doth not ever argue more love unto it, but the speaking and thinking of things out of the valuation of judgment: for instance, a workman thinks more of his tools, and an husbandman speaks more of his husbandry, than of his wife or children, because these are the objects of his labour; but it follows not he loves them better, because he does not in his judgment esteem these better. Now let a Christian preserve in his judgment a better estimate of Christ and heavenly things, and his speeches in things earthly will still prefer that, and run upon it. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
Life saved by losing it
And this is, if we believe our Lord, to save and preserve our life by thus casting it away. A man that will save his seed, and not cast it away into the ground, loseth it by such saving; but if he sow it, he reneweth it, and multiplieth it, some times an hundredfold. So to lose thyself for Christ, is to save thyself, and to reap an hundred fold. For it is but sown to spring out unto the eternal harvest. Ever remember that the right love of a man’s self is in and for Christ. Objection. You speak of nothing but hindrance and loss, and as if a Christian may not have riches, friends, life and comforts of it. Answer.
1. Yes, he may have them, and must save them; but not in Christ’s cause when he is called from them.
2. Divorce not the parts of the text: as there is loss in the text, so there is a greater gain by it; as the harvest makes him a gainer, who in seed time seemed a loser. (T. Taylor, D. D.)