Take Up the Cross and Follow Him
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. 28 Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom” (Matt. 16:24-28 NKJV).
Like so many of the things that Jesus tells us, we do not properly understand His command to His followers to “deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”
There are 3 commands here:
The cross in Jesus’ day was a symbol of suffering and shame, but even more it was a symbol of death. Taking up the cross of Jesus means putting to death our own desires, the plans we have made based on the world in which we live. He asks us to adopt plans for the world as it was created to be, the kingdom of heaven here and now.
To understand this better, we must understand verses 25 and 26. The word translated twice as life in verse 25 is the same word translated twice as soul in verse 26 - Strong’s G5590 psuche, “breath, that is, (by implication) spirit, abstractly or concretely (the animal sentient principle only).” This is not the word for spirit, G4151 pneuma, but simply that vitality that livens the body of mankind or animal.
Jesus is saying we can live the dead religious life of the Pharisees or the dead hedonistic life of the prodigal son (Luke 15:32), or we can incorporate His life (His body and blood John 6:54) and experience a full life as we were created to experience it. When we choose His life of love and service, we find life for ourselves.
When we discover life, when we find our life, we are returning to the life God intended for us from the beginning of time.
Jesus is calling for a total denial of self, all of the instincts, wants, and desires focused on me, as well as selfish claims that others may make upon us. This is an emptying of self and replacing it with Christ. This may be the best understanding of Jesus’ words in John 6:53-55:
53 “Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.”
Jesus is saying we must replace our life with His own. Our body becomes His, and His blood (“life,” for the life is in the blood) must course through our veins. We are used in His service as His own.
Luke 9:23 points out that we must “take up His cross daily.” When Luke 14:26 says that we must love Jesus more than the closest members of our family, a sentiment we saw in Matthew 10:37, we realize that taking up the cross is something larger than our commitments to family or friends.
Daily life has many burdens that require us to put aside our own plans and tend to the needs of others. Whether it is a sick relative or one who needs assistance in a task, or a relative who is impoverished or chronically ill and needs constant attention, these are not necessarily the situations of the cross. These things are good, but He calls us to the best.
We must be careful to take up our own cross, and not another’s. If my mother is sick, am I the better choice for taking the responsibility of her care, or is there another who is better able, or even a professional who is better qualified? The responsibility for care is not to be shirked, but to be shared in the manner most advantageous to the one in need.
There are examples given in the Bible, and we can look at those for a better understanding.
Elijah did not forbid Elisha to bid his father goodbye (1 Kings 19:19-21), for this is a son’s duty, but the prophet allowed his protégé no lingering in a long farewell.
Jesus gives 2 examples in Luke 9:59-62. Jesus did not wait for the man to bury his father, for the father was dead and those who would bury him, the priests included, were spiritually dead. Jesus must have suspected the second man who requested time to say goodbye to his parents to have been vulnerable to lingering there. “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” No one can plow straight if he is looking behind.
Note that Jesus’ call and these examples do not free us to ignore helping those in need, relative or not, but any need to which we respond must be a legitimate call and not a subtle relapse into our own desires. Our troubles – and the troubles of others for whom we are called to intercede – form the cross set in the Christian’s way to be lifted up high. One of our temptations is to forge our own cross.
The final verse of the chapter, “Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom,” is a bit mystifying and poses a question more than offering an answer. When did the disciples (they were His audience) see the Son of Man coming into His kingdom?
Some may argue this is the Transfiguration. This event occurs only a few days later, so the phrase there are some standing here who shall not taste death before the event is not very appropriate. This was witnessed only by three disciples, and they were admonished not to speak of it.
This cannot refer to the end of time, the judgment, or the Second Coming, for all those present have died and these events have not occurred.
Some suggest it was the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., for this brought the end of the Temple, the Pharisees, and the sacrificial system. But this was only the death of the old, not the birth of the new.
Perhaps the only time that fits this promise, even though it is only two years (more or less) in the future, is affirmed in Acts 1:8 – “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
This passage leads us the day of Pentecost at the beginning of Acts 2 – “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
We see the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as the promise of His power come to earth, and the spread of His message to the ends of the earth begin. The kingdom consists of all who owe allegiance first to the king, and the power of that kingdom on earth is the Holy Spirit. Of the original twelve, eleven disciples are witness to the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.
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24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. 28 Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom” (Matt. 16:24-28 NKJV).
Like so many of the things that Jesus tells us, we do not properly understand His command to His followers to “deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”
There are 3 commands here:
- Deny self,
- Take up the cross that is yours,
- Follow Jesus.
The cross in Jesus’ day was a symbol of suffering and shame, but even more it was a symbol of death. Taking up the cross of Jesus means putting to death our own desires, the plans we have made based on the world in which we live. He asks us to adopt plans for the world as it was created to be, the kingdom of heaven here and now.
To understand this better, we must understand verses 25 and 26. The word translated twice as life in verse 25 is the same word translated twice as soul in verse 26 - Strong’s G5590 psuche, “breath, that is, (by implication) spirit, abstractly or concretely (the animal sentient principle only).” This is not the word for spirit, G4151 pneuma, but simply that vitality that livens the body of mankind or animal.
Jesus is saying we can live the dead religious life of the Pharisees or the dead hedonistic life of the prodigal son (Luke 15:32), or we can incorporate His life (His body and blood John 6:54) and experience a full life as we were created to experience it. When we choose His life of love and service, we find life for ourselves.
When we discover life, when we find our life, we are returning to the life God intended for us from the beginning of time.
Jesus is calling for a total denial of self, all of the instincts, wants, and desires focused on me, as well as selfish claims that others may make upon us. This is an emptying of self and replacing it with Christ. This may be the best understanding of Jesus’ words in John 6:53-55:
53 “Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.”
Jesus is saying we must replace our life with His own. Our body becomes His, and His blood (“life,” for the life is in the blood) must course through our veins. We are used in His service as His own.
Luke 9:23 points out that we must “take up His cross daily.” When Luke 14:26 says that we must love Jesus more than the closest members of our family, a sentiment we saw in Matthew 10:37, we realize that taking up the cross is something larger than our commitments to family or friends.
Daily life has many burdens that require us to put aside our own plans and tend to the needs of others. Whether it is a sick relative or one who needs assistance in a task, or a relative who is impoverished or chronically ill and needs constant attention, these are not necessarily the situations of the cross. These things are good, but He calls us to the best.
We must be careful to take up our own cross, and not another’s. If my mother is sick, am I the better choice for taking the responsibility of her care, or is there another who is better able, or even a professional who is better qualified? The responsibility for care is not to be shirked, but to be shared in the manner most advantageous to the one in need.
There are examples given in the Bible, and we can look at those for a better understanding.
Elijah did not forbid Elisha to bid his father goodbye (1 Kings 19:19-21), for this is a son’s duty, but the prophet allowed his protégé no lingering in a long farewell.
Jesus gives 2 examples in Luke 9:59-62. Jesus did not wait for the man to bury his father, for the father was dead and those who would bury him, the priests included, were spiritually dead. Jesus must have suspected the second man who requested time to say goodbye to his parents to have been vulnerable to lingering there. “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” No one can plow straight if he is looking behind.
Note that Jesus’ call and these examples do not free us to ignore helping those in need, relative or not, but any need to which we respond must be a legitimate call and not a subtle relapse into our own desires. Our troubles – and the troubles of others for whom we are called to intercede – form the cross set in the Christian’s way to be lifted up high. One of our temptations is to forge our own cross.
The final verse of the chapter, “Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom,” is a bit mystifying and poses a question more than offering an answer. When did the disciples (they were His audience) see the Son of Man coming into His kingdom?
Some may argue this is the Transfiguration. This event occurs only a few days later, so the phrase there are some standing here who shall not taste death before the event is not very appropriate. This was witnessed only by three disciples, and they were admonished not to speak of it.
This cannot refer to the end of time, the judgment, or the Second Coming, for all those present have died and these events have not occurred.
Some suggest it was the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., for this brought the end of the Temple, the Pharisees, and the sacrificial system. But this was only the death of the old, not the birth of the new.
Perhaps the only time that fits this promise, even though it is only two years (more or less) in the future, is affirmed in Acts 1:8 – “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
This passage leads us the day of Pentecost at the beginning of Acts 2 – “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
We see the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as the promise of His power come to earth, and the spread of His message to the ends of the earth begin. The kingdom consists of all who owe allegiance first to the king, and the power of that kingdom on earth is the Holy Spirit. Of the original twelve, eleven disciples are witness to the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.
Next article
