Mark 8:35 For whoever will save his life shall lose it; but whoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. 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.) Parallel Verses KJV: For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. |
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