A Perspective on the Cross
27 “Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. 28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. 30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.
34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. 35 For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; 36 and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ 37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it (Matt. 10:27-39).
To understand the burden of the cross (vs. 38), we can review the verses preceding.
Jesus has just spoken of how a person’s family, friends, and even the leaders of society around him will condemn the person for not fulfilling their expectations of who the person should become. Each of these other people will have the person labeled and classified and categorized, fit neatly into a box of expectation.
But each person has their own identity from God, an identity in Christ, and the potential to become what God has created. This is not to be traded for the secular identity conforming to family, friends, and the popular culture. Each person is to be the unique creation intended from before the beginning of time. This is truly our birthright.
The phrase of Jesus to “speak in the light” is a call to the individual. The Greek word for speak refers to an individual’s speech, leaving us to imagine a person’s testimony or witness, a simple statement of truth rather than a discourse or an explanation.
We are to be truthful and bold, without concern for those who are able to kill us, or to cause us to live this life or the next in the state of separation from God, commonly known as ‘hell’ (gehenna, the city dump of Jerusalem, formerly a place of child sacrifice during periods of idolatry among the Jews).
Whatever may happen to us in this earthly life, we are to live as we are called. Jesus points out that the sparrow, used by the poor as a sacrifice because the small bird was of such little monetary value, even the sparrow was valuable to God, and how much more the life of a human created in His image.
Speaking the truth of God always has value, and if people do not value what you speak, God will give the speech its true worth. As our mediator and advocate, Jesus confesses those who belong to Him to the Father.
We are to be in a continual state of communion with the Spirit (“pray without ceasing,” 1 Thess. 5:17), a state placed between joy and thanksgiving. We always are progressing toward this goal, and there are times when we miss the mark. That is why humility is such an important aspect of the Christian character. From this place we are more ready to give and to receive the mercy required in a world full of people on their individual journeys.
The test for understanding what is from God is if it conforms to the examples set forth by His Son. There are many things I find at the end of the day that are not congruent with Jesus’ example. The example I have given during the day is more often mine than His. This is an opportunity for change.
Jesus declares that He has not come to bring peace but the sword. Paul puts this in another way:
12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebr. 4:12 NKJV).
The word of God, the light of truth, divides clearly between what is secular and what is spiritual. Note that soul (G5590 psu-che’, from which we get the psych- prefix) here represents the animal sentient principle only, distinguished from G4151 (pneuma, the rational and immortal soul) and G2222 (zoe, vitality, even of plants).
The words in red in the Gospels are there to guide us in the spiritual principles undergirding the fabric of our existence from the secular principles adapted and established as alternatives. Whether the sanctity of life is compared with the practices of child sacrifice or condemning other people based on personal prejudices, we see the sword of the Spirit rightly dividing the divine perspective from the human.
A stand made for a spiritual principle will be set at odds with conflicting secular principles. Jesus metaphorically says the sword of the Spirit will divide the two positions, contrasting the one with the other. The clear dividing line establishes a conflict between those adhering to one side or the other, thus setting some people against others, even within the same household.
It is easy to misunderstand Jesus’ command, 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
You have probably heard someone speak of the “cross” that they bear – the sick parent, abusive spouse, or emotional or physical scars they continually carry. But these are the afflictions of both the spiritual and the secular person, those who follow Christ as well as those who do not.
By taking up your cross, you are choosing the spiritual over the physical, God as king and you as His subject. This is the path of the Lord’s Prayer, the way of the meek, who say, “Your will be done, not mine.” This is choosing whose you are, to whom you belong.
We will bear burdens. We will have trials. This is true for all men and women. Our choice, our only choice, is to which ruler, realm, and set of laws we will be obedient: God’s, or another’s.
The rules of the divine creation are tied to God’s character. His Creation is representative of Him. And we were created in His image as the living embodiment of His character. We choose to live in His realm or in another.
We choose life, living in His will with the peace and reassurance that comes in living congruently with the laws of Creation, or we choose death, separation from all that gives life.
To choose the cross is to choose the intersection of heaven and earth, to love God above and mankind beside us.
To deny the cross is to deny heaven, to forsake peace and to live in the chaos of everyone doing what is right in their own mind.
Jesus clarifies this when He says that a person who betrays a spiritual principle for the sake even of one of their parents or one of their children will lose his life. This word translated as life here is the same G5590 translated as soul in Hebrews 4:12 above.
He is saying that the pneuma, the life breathed in by God at Creation, the breath that has enlivened us spiritually and physically, will become merely psuche, the sentient animal principle only, rather than the living man or woman made in the image of God.
Our choice is whether to claim the spiritual life breathed into us, or to become dependent only on the physical life of this world. We choose our reality, and we will live with the results of that choice.
Next article
27 “Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. 28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. 30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.
34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. 35 For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; 36 and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ 37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it (Matt. 10:27-39).
To understand the burden of the cross (vs. 38), we can review the verses preceding.
Jesus has just spoken of how a person’s family, friends, and even the leaders of society around him will condemn the person for not fulfilling their expectations of who the person should become. Each of these other people will have the person labeled and classified and categorized, fit neatly into a box of expectation.
But each person has their own identity from God, an identity in Christ, and the potential to become what God has created. This is not to be traded for the secular identity conforming to family, friends, and the popular culture. Each person is to be the unique creation intended from before the beginning of time. This is truly our birthright.
The phrase of Jesus to “speak in the light” is a call to the individual. The Greek word for speak refers to an individual’s speech, leaving us to imagine a person’s testimony or witness, a simple statement of truth rather than a discourse or an explanation.
We are to be truthful and bold, without concern for those who are able to kill us, or to cause us to live this life or the next in the state of separation from God, commonly known as ‘hell’ (gehenna, the city dump of Jerusalem, formerly a place of child sacrifice during periods of idolatry among the Jews).
Whatever may happen to us in this earthly life, we are to live as we are called. Jesus points out that the sparrow, used by the poor as a sacrifice because the small bird was of such little monetary value, even the sparrow was valuable to God, and how much more the life of a human created in His image.
Speaking the truth of God always has value, and if people do not value what you speak, God will give the speech its true worth. As our mediator and advocate, Jesus confesses those who belong to Him to the Father.
We are to be in a continual state of communion with the Spirit (“pray without ceasing,” 1 Thess. 5:17), a state placed between joy and thanksgiving. We always are progressing toward this goal, and there are times when we miss the mark. That is why humility is such an important aspect of the Christian character. From this place we are more ready to give and to receive the mercy required in a world full of people on their individual journeys.
The test for understanding what is from God is if it conforms to the examples set forth by His Son. There are many things I find at the end of the day that are not congruent with Jesus’ example. The example I have given during the day is more often mine than His. This is an opportunity for change.
Jesus declares that He has not come to bring peace but the sword. Paul puts this in another way:
12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebr. 4:12 NKJV).
The word of God, the light of truth, divides clearly between what is secular and what is spiritual. Note that soul (G5590 psu-che’, from which we get the psych- prefix) here represents the animal sentient principle only, distinguished from G4151 (pneuma, the rational and immortal soul) and G2222 (zoe, vitality, even of plants).
The words in red in the Gospels are there to guide us in the spiritual principles undergirding the fabric of our existence from the secular principles adapted and established as alternatives. Whether the sanctity of life is compared with the practices of child sacrifice or condemning other people based on personal prejudices, we see the sword of the Spirit rightly dividing the divine perspective from the human.
A stand made for a spiritual principle will be set at odds with conflicting secular principles. Jesus metaphorically says the sword of the Spirit will divide the two positions, contrasting the one with the other. The clear dividing line establishes a conflict between those adhering to one side or the other, thus setting some people against others, even within the same household.
It is easy to misunderstand Jesus’ command, 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
You have probably heard someone speak of the “cross” that they bear – the sick parent, abusive spouse, or emotional or physical scars they continually carry. But these are the afflictions of both the spiritual and the secular person, those who follow Christ as well as those who do not.
By taking up your cross, you are choosing the spiritual over the physical, God as king and you as His subject. This is the path of the Lord’s Prayer, the way of the meek, who say, “Your will be done, not mine.” This is choosing whose you are, to whom you belong.
We will bear burdens. We will have trials. This is true for all men and women. Our choice, our only choice, is to which ruler, realm, and set of laws we will be obedient: God’s, or another’s.
The rules of the divine creation are tied to God’s character. His Creation is representative of Him. And we were created in His image as the living embodiment of His character. We choose to live in His realm or in another.
We choose life, living in His will with the peace and reassurance that comes in living congruently with the laws of Creation, or we choose death, separation from all that gives life.
To choose the cross is to choose the intersection of heaven and earth, to love God above and mankind beside us.
To deny the cross is to deny heaven, to forsake peace and to live in the chaos of everyone doing what is right in their own mind.
Jesus clarifies this when He says that a person who betrays a spiritual principle for the sake even of one of their parents or one of their children will lose his life. This word translated as life here is the same G5590 translated as soul in Hebrews 4:12 above.
He is saying that the pneuma, the life breathed in by God at Creation, the breath that has enlivened us spiritually and physically, will become merely psuche, the sentient animal principle only, rather than the living man or woman made in the image of God.
Our choice is whether to claim the spiritual life breathed into us, or to become dependent only on the physical life of this world. We choose our reality, and we will live with the results of that choice.
Next article
