Jesus Asks a Question: “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world only to forfeit his soul?”
Jesus Asks a Question: “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world only to forfeit his soul?”
“Have I been with all of you for so long a time and you still do not know who I am? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. So how can you say then, ‘Show us the Father?’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in Me?” (Jesus asking three straight questions of His disciples in John 14:9-10).
Messiah Jesus was a Master of asking questions: some were open-ended, others were very pointed; some were out of curiosity, others were challenging; some seemed rhetorical, others seemed painfully obvious; some were to reveal Himself, others were to guide the other into self-understanding; some were intentionally provocative, others were to kick-start a conversation; some questions were asked to explore a topic to deepen understanding and stretch toward the truth; some were leading questions that He designed to suggest a particular answer, and others were questions in response to questions asked of Him; some were hypotheticals to stimulate the imagination, other questions were used by Him as stepping stones to think logically from one point to the next. Jesus used questions to dignify the listener, letting that person know that He is taking that person seriously and listening carefully. Many of His questions were acts of friendship and used to pursue a more profound intimacy with someone. Jesus asked very few yes-no questions, and since time was usually irrelevant for Him when He was with people, He rarely asked a “when” question. Several biblical scholars have studied the gospels with Christ’s questions in mind, and they have literally counted a total of 307 questions in His various conversations. It seems that a worthy spiritual exercise when considering the many questions of Jesus is that we should take them personally, as if He was asking us that question right now.
The Question. “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. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 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?” (Matthew 16:24-26).
Rhetorical Questions. Being the Master Teacher, Jesus doesn’t really expect an answer to his questions here. He is forming His questions to make a statement, to highlight the main point of His little talk. He already knows the answer, and He is asking the questions in order to persuade His disciples to reach the same conclusions as He has. Jesus doesn’t necessarily want to be answered literally. He asked His questions for dramatic effect and He wants to lead His disciples to the right answer, the truthful answer. There are other ways to frame His questions… What kind of deal is it to get everything you want at the cost of losing yourself? Is there anything as important as your eternal soul? Is it really worth it to acquire the whole world for yourself and destroy yourself in the process? Is there anything in this world you can offer in exchange for your very life? Does it make sense to become a major success story only to hand over your life? What is your soul really worth to you? What could be more valuable to you in this world than your eternal life with God… Power? Prestige? Wealth? Possessions? Popularity? Leisure? Entertainment? Sexual Prowess? Acclaim? Accomplishments? Is it logical to gain everything possible for your temporary, mortal life if it means losing what God has for you in your eternal, immortal life with Him? Jesus is making it clear with His questions that one soul is worth more than the whole world.
Deny Your Self. Does this mean that Jesus wants you to make yourself as miserable as possible? Did Creator God make this miraculous and beautiful world only to make sure we reject it all? No and no. The Greek word for ‘deny’ actually means to ‘disown.’ Jesus is asking His followers to disown themselves. In other words, the Christian life is all about a change of ownership. To deny yourself is to relinquish yourself as the owner of your life, and to sign over ownership to Christ. When we owned ourselves, everything revolved around self-interest and self-fulfillment and self-gratification. When we sign over the deed of ownership to Christ, we begin to revolve instead around God’s purposes, God-interests. When we are on the journey of denying ourselves for Jesus’ sake, we move gradually from being self-centered to God-centered. When we deny ourselves, we give up our own way, our own self-will, and we follow God’s directions for his way, God’s will. We get out of the driver’s seat and let Jesus take the wheel. When we disown ourselves, we surrender our own agenda, and we adopt God’s agenda in its place.
Pick Up Your Cross. This is a rather nightmarish symbol for discipleship, isn’t it? It is graphic, but sometimes that’s the only accurate way to portray things. Since crucifixion was a common form of Roman execution, this garish image was familiar to the disciples. A shameful part of that process was to have the condemned criminal make a spectacle of himself by carrying his cross down the street to the execution site. So what could Jesus have meant by this? And here is one of the primary paradoxes of life in Christ, the logic of the Gospel… We can truly live only when we die to ourselves; we gain spiritual riches through self-sacrifice; when we lose ourself, we find ourself; if we grip too tightly to this life, we lose our eternal life; when we try to save ourselves in this life, we end up destroying it; living in Christ involves a daily martyrdom; we will lose in this life whatever we try to protect; we achieve victory in this life when we surrender to Jesus; when we forget ourselves on purpose, we remember our destiny in God. So to pick up our cross daily, we are learning to, as C. S. Lewis once said, “die before we die.”
Follow Me. To become a Christ-follower is the smartest, most joyful, most deeply fulfilling thing we can do in this life. Following Christ is what we were created to do. To ‘follow’ Jesus literally means to ‘walk after’ Him. In her book Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus, Lois Tverberg puts it this way… “Jesus invited His disciples to trek the byways at His side, living life beside Him to learn from Him as they journey. His disciples were asked to engage in life’s activities alongside Him, observing His responses and imitating how He lived by God’s Word. Out of this teaching method arose a well-known saying: “You should learn from a rabbi by covering yourself in His dust.” They should follow so closely behind Him as He traveled from town to town that the clouds of sandy granules He left in His path would cling to their clothes. When Jesus called His disciples to follow Him, to walk after Him, He meant for them to follow in His literal footsteps, and to follow in His teachings as an overall lifestyle.” May all of us who seek to follow Christ be covered in His dust as we walk behind Him in life’s journey.
“What things were gain to me, these I have counted as loss for Christ’s sake. Yes, furthermore I also count everything as loss compared to the priceless privilege – the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, the supreme advantage – of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be rubbish, mere dog dung, in order that I may gain Christ, and that I may be found in Him.” (Philippians 3:7-9).
Thoughts on the Self from C. S. Lewis. One author in particular has revealed one insight after another regarding the self and the Christian life, C. S. Lewis. Here are a few of his insights, all of them from Mere Christianity unless noted:
“Every story of conversion is the story of a blessed defeat.” (Letters).
“We must remember that the soul is but a hollow which God fills. Its union with God is, almost by definition, a continual self-abandonment, an opening, an unveiling, a surrender, of itself.” (Problem of Pain).
“To become new people means losing what we now call ‘ourselves.’ Out of our selves, into Christ, we must go.”
“The more we get what we call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. Our real selves are all waiting for us in Him.”
“Self exists to be abdicated, and by that abdication, becomes the more truly self, to thereupon yet be more abdicated, and so on forever.” (Problem of Pain; to abdicate means to renounce, to resign, to give up the throne with no possibility of resuming it).
‘It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own. Until you have given up your self to Him, you will not have a real self.”
“As long as we have the itch of self-regard, we shall want the pleasure of self-approval.” (Letters).
“Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours only because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Christ.”
“Lose your life in Him and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your own ambitions and favorite wishes every day. Submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing.”
“Nothing that you have not given away will really be yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead.”