College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

Matthew 10:32-39

Section 23

JESUS COMMISSIONS TWELVE APOSTLES TO EVANGELIZE GALILEE

IV. JESUS REQUIRES AND REWARDS LOYALTY OF HIS SERVANTS
TEXT: 10:32-39
A. THE SUPREME HONOR FOR LOYALTY (10:32)

32.

Every one therefore who shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father who is in heaven.

B. THE SUPREME DISGRACE FOR DISLOYALTY OR COWARDICE (10:33)

33.

But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven.

C. THE INEVITABLE ENMITIES INVOLVED IN LOYALTY TO JESUS (10:34-36)

34.

Think not that I came to send peace on the earth: I came not to

35.

send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the

36.

daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law: and a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

D. THE SECRET OF SUCCESS THROUGH SACRIFICE AND SURRENDER (10:37-39)

37.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

38.

And he that doth not take his cross and follow after me, is not

39.

worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

This revelation of blood, sweat and tears, of trial, suffering and death must have been very discouraging to Jesus-' disciples as He sent them out. Yet Jesus considered this revelation absolutely necessary to the adequate accomplishment of their mission. Can you show several reasons why He would have predicted these painful pictures? This is surely no way to hold one's disciples, is it? Would this tactic win friends and influence people today? Why?

In what way do you think Jesus had in mind that the disciples would be confessing Him before men? Under what sort of circumstances would they be doing this? Sometimes this passage is cited to indicate the necessity for a public declaration of one's willingness to follow Christ, a declaration which is made before the congregation of believers at the conclusion of a Sunday morning gathering for worship. Is this what Jesus had in mind? if so, how could such an application be justified? If not, why not? How does such an application fit the antithesis: denying Him before men?

Have you ever denied Jesus before men since becoming His disciple? Be honest now. How, when, where and why did you do it? What encouragement do you find in this text that strengthens you against repeating that sin?

Do you think it would have been better or worse for Jesus-' disciples (you included) had Jesus not told this bitter truth about the consequences of being persecuted as His disciple? Why?

Do you think that the Prince of Peace can be telling the truth when He denies that His purpose was to bring peace on earth? Did not the angels shout the news from heaven that Jesus-' birth meant peace? How, then, can Jesus expect us to believe that His purpose for coming to earth was not to bring peace, but, rather, a sword? What kind of peace does Jesus reject and what kind of sword does He bring?

Some think that Jesus did not intend to bring a sword to earth, that it was not His purpose, but only the result of His work. Do you agree? If so, on what basis? If not, why not?

Do you think that it is right to go around splitting up families over religion? If so, then how do you understand the most basic of all commandments to honor your father and mother and similar commands regarding family care? If not, then how do you justify Jesus-' avowed purpose to set members of the same family against each other?

Do you think that Jesus knew from personal experience what He was here declaring, regarding enemies in one's own home? What makes you say this?

Is there anyone really worthy of Jesus? Then, what does Jesus mean by declaring that anyone who does not make the necessary sacrifices is not worthy of me?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

So every one who stands up and acknowledges that he is my disciple, I will gladly own him as my own in front of the great Judge, my Father in heaven. But I will repudiate before God anyone who either is afraid to stand up for me in front of men or else publicly denies being my disciple.
You must never suppose that my mission is to bring peace on earth at any price. In fact, that kind of peace is impossible. My mission is rather to separate the wicked from the truly righteous, but this is going to cause trouble. I will not have peace at the expense of truth! Allegiance to me is going to cause, for example, a man to be set against his own father or a daughter against, her own mother! A young wife will go against her mother-in-law. A fellow will find enemies right under his own roof!
No one who cares more for his father or his mother than he does for me deserves to belong to me! The same is true of the man who holds his son or daughter dearer to him than he does me: he does not deserve to belong to me! Likewise the man who refuses to be crucified, because he is walking in my footsteps, is not fit to be called my disciple! If you hold your own life dear, I can guarantee you that you will lose it, But the man who will let himself be killed for MY sake, saves his life forever!

SUMMARY

You, my disciples, do not stand before the judgment seat of Herod or imperial Rome: you stand before the judgment throne of the living God! You must decide now how it will fare with you then: I will own or disown you as my disciples before God, on the basis of your allegiance or disloyalty here on earth. This choice is not a simple one, because it is going to rearrange all your present loyalties. You will have to decide whether your family is to come first, ahead of your loyalty to me. This choice may lead you to your death, but remember: the prudent are damned! He who is willing to give up everything he holds deareven his own lifejust to please me, will be able to secure the only life that is worth living! But decide, and decide now.

NOTES

A. THE SUPREME HONOR FOR LOYALTY (10:32)

Matthew 10:32 Everyone therefore who shall confess me before men, is the broad, general introduction to this audacious declaration of Jesus-' regal authority. This dictum has to do with disciples in general. Its universal character becomes immediately clear if we artificially insert the word apostle, so as to make the sentence apply only to the Twelve. While the Apostles themselves certainly and rightly took this admonition personally, nevertheless, its very general character is not only very apparent, but is also in perfect harmony with the more comprehensive tone of this entire concluding section (Matthew 10:24-42; see on Matthew 10:24). Therefore neatly links this marvelous promise to the warnings, the gentle coaxing, the facing of unpleasant realities and the challenges Jesus has just put before His people in the earlier minutes of this sermon. This is the logical conclusion especially of the demand that the disciple be absolutely fearless. (Cf. Matthew 10:19; Matthew 10:26; Matthew 10:28; Matthew 10:31)

While it would seem most appropriate to consider the word oûn, here translated therefore, in this inferential sense, i.e. drawing a conclusion in relation to statements made before, yet the suggestion of Dana and Mantey (Manual Grammar, 255, 256) that oûn here has an emphatic or intensive use, is not without merit. Some suggestive translations they would substitute for therefore are: be sure that.. to be sure, surely, by all means, indeed, etc. Try inserting these words in place of therefore to feel the emphasis thus produced. However, despite the good examples adduced by Mantey, it may yet be wondered in Matthew's sentence here whether Jesus is not rather drawing a proper conclusion to all the precedes. If, then, oûn may well have this special emphatic force, all the better for its ambiguity, since the sentiment expressed by Jesus in this sentence is easily inferential as well as emphatic.

The Master had already intimated that the disciples must fear only Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28) Here He makes this point explicit by stating it in two parallel phrases that leave little room for doubt. How well He knew the propensity of man to save his neck at all cost! Simply, almost quietly, he puts compelling authority into His speech. This is a precious promise, but its logical converse is necessarily a threat to the fearful and unbelieving, stating clearly whom we are to fear. It is Jesus who holds our fate in His hands.

Every one who shall confess me (homologçsei en emol) This seemingly unusual expression which uses the preposition en after the verb is not to be translated literally confess in my case. I will confess in his case before the Father (see Plummer, Luke, 320; Morgan, Matthew, 110), but is to be taken as an Aramaism because of the normal use of the preposition be after -odi in that language. (Arndt-Gingrich, 571, Lenski, Matthew, 412). The confession involved here is an agreeing with something affirmed, and admission of one's own position, a declaration more or less public of what one believes, an acknowledgement to being or believing something.

What or whom is the disciple to confess? His belonging to a particular sect of the Church? His adherence to a temporary formulation of the Gospel, a creed? His support of certain ecclesiastical organizations and programs? His understanding or interpretation of certain Scripture texts? According to Jesus, what is the critical issue, the only really burning question? Whoever shall confess ME. What a man thinks about Jesus is the only important issue over which he should have to stand trial and give account, because if he be mistaken about this one question, how can he be right, or even significantly near it, in relation to any other issue? There is so much clear evidence for a proper decision regarding Jesus, that to fail to decide rightly about Him, automatically affects one's ability to evaluate the evidence on all other significant questions. While it may be admitted that many wise and good men of earth have both studied the evidence about Jesus and have rejected Him as supreme Lord, still the Master Himself is here declaring that such men damn themselves, since the imperious nature of His double affirmation (Matthew 10:32-33) presumes that the evidence He has given to lead to a right decision has been both sufficient and clear. The problem lies then not in the nature of the evidence but in the moral makeup of the men whose intellectual bias did not permit them to evaluate properly the evidence or surrender their will to Him. The Judge here expresses His opinion on the wisdom and goodness of those men, who, whether ignorant, deceived or conceited, reject Him,

But does this confession of Jesus mean merely to acknowledge adherence to certain propositions regarding His identity, position and consequent authority? At least this, (Romans 10:9-10; Acts 2:36; 1 John 2:22-23; 1 John 4:2-3; 1 John 4:15; 2 John 1:7; 2 John 1:9) But it is more, for how can one confess the absolute lordship of Jesus while at the same time ignoring the plain import of any command, declaration, promise or warning He gives? (Luke 6:46)He is then to be confessed:

by our recognizing and responding to His position and function;

by our recognition of His authorized representatives (Matthew 10:40);

by our recognition of His message (Luke 9:26; John 12:47-50);

by our recognition of Him in His people (Matthew 25:40; Matthew 25:45; Acts 9:4-5);

by our joyful admission that we personally are committed to Him because we need, trust and love Him and try to serve Him as Lord of all lords;

by that obvious consistency between our profession of adherence to Him and our personal morality that truly and deeply affects all our attitudes and actions.

There may be other expressions of our confession, but these are sufficient to suggest that they all have importance because of what we think about Jesus. We will be willing to die before relenting on any proposition regarding Jesus-' person. Witness the Virgin-birth controversy and the vigorous rejection of the modern Arianism of the Jehovah's Witnesses who, like Arius of Alexandria (c. 313 A.D.), deny the identity of Jesus with Jehovah God. We spend years of careful research, examining the authenticity, reliability and integrity of the documents of the Apostles, just because our confession of Christ depends for its content upon the dictates of those books. Witness the several hundred-years war that has raged in the field of biblical criticism. Further, our confession of Jesus drives us to lay down our lives for the brethren, since, in confessing Him, we confess those who belong to Him.

But someone might object that, contextually, Jesus has in mind most probably a hostile situation in which the disciple is called upon to admit (or deny) his discipleship to Jesus on pain of death. But it is most significant that Jesus just ordered, Confess me before men, without specifying which men, whether hostile, indifferent or friendly. Even otherwise friendly men (they might even be Christians!), who are themselves unwilling to pay the high costs of discipleship, can make it very difficult for the earnest disciple to confess his loyalty to Jesus in the little, but practical, business of everyday's living. They dampen his enthusiasm, lest his zeal expose their lack of it, when in reality their befouled conscience demands that they follow his good example. It may be even more difficult to remain morally alert and skillful in confessing Christ in some Christian environments than in those openly hostile. Before men only means publicly and reminds us of the earlier command to give Christ's message the widest possible coverage (Matthew 10:26-27, despite the ever-present menace of those who can kill the body. (Matthew 10:28) The only justification for the Church's existence is to proclaim the wonderful deeds and moral excellence of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9) This is the work of the Church, as Morgan put it (Matthew, 107):

The work to be done is not described in detail here, but it is inferentially seen. It is that of confessing Christ, before men. That is the Church's work. It is all-inclusive. When we have said that, we have said everything we can say about the Apostles, the evangelist, the prophet, the pastor and teacher, and the disciple and servant. Whatever our gift may be within the Church, or as a member of the Church, our work is to confess Christ before men.. By confession we are to reveal Him, to flash His glory, to make Him known. The Church of Jesus Christ is not constituted in order to discuss philosophies or indulge in speculations. It is created to confess Christ, and it never ought to rest for one moment until the last weary, sin-bound soul, in the furthest region of the world, has heard His evangel, has beheld His glory.

This confession is not merely that initial commitment to Jesus made at the beginning of our discipleship nor merely that bold declaration stated at trials where life or death is riding with the answer. It is, rather, the normal way of life and work of every single disciple whereby he shows who his real Master is.

Before men is not to be construed as contrasting with before the saints, as if Jesus meant, before men of the world and not before the Church. Indeed, there is no command or consistent NT practice for a guide to confession exclusively before the assembly of the Church. It is, of course, reasonable and proper to declare oneself a believer in the presence of the rest of the Church, before expecting to be admitted to the group. And yet some Christians act as if only a confession before the church were here intended, and as if the public confession of faith they once made at a meeting of the Church exhausted all their responsibility in this regard. Before men means good men and bad, poor men and rich, ignorant and learned, Christians or not.

Before men, it is true, may well mean, and in the case of many Christians it has meant, to stand in formal trials as before councils, synagogues, governors and kings, and declare one's allegiance to the Son of God. (Matthew 10:17-18) In this sense, the Church has only one justification for getting into trouble with the law: for exalting Christ as King above Caesar and as Lawgiver above Moses or another religious tribunal or authority. But as the individual Christian stands alone before these earthly potentates, he must remember the wide disparity between the judges before whom he must give testimony. Feel the contrast: before men. before my Father; the temporary versus the eternal; the corruptible versus the gloriously incorruptible. It is a temptation to ask the obvious: who would exchange the approval of God for the applause of men? But lest we answer this too glibly, we need to see with greater clarity the difficulty of refusing this world that seems so much more real, because it is so much more immediate and tangible. As in Matthew 10:28, so here, Jesus reminds His people that, in reality, though they are physically standing before the judgment of infinitely feeble human judges whose ultimate jurisdiction halts at death, even though they may now have the relative ascendency for the present, yet in such moments these same disciples are under the even more critical scrutiny of the unseen, living God, the Judge whose unlimited authority and power execute a verdict of infinitely greater consequence! The Savior knows that this dilemma between life, peace and security with the approval of earth's enemies of the faith on the one hand, and life, peace and security in the judgment of God on the other, is capable of resolution only to the man who has already died to this world and all its relationships. (See on Matthew 10:34-39)

What is to be gained by confessing Christ? Him will I also confess before my Father who is in heaven. Since Jesus has made this clear beforehand, the disciple can have peace-bringing confidence throughout his life, since he need not fear the judgment. (Cf. 1 John 2:28; 1 John 3:21; 1 John 4:17; 1 John 5:14; Romans 10:9-10; Hebrews 3:6; Hebrews 10:19-23; Hebrews 10:35) While we actively confess Jesus Christ on earth, our prayers obtain a receptive hearing with God, for our Mediator through Whom we pray acknowledges that we are His, as our faithful confession testifies. (1 Timothy 2:5-6) There is the joy of sharing His suffering, since we see ourselves identified with the Lord Himself who has passed this moment of trial too. (Cf. 1 Peter 4:13; Philippians 3:10; 1 Timothy 6:13) There is also that rejoicing that comes from an approving conscience that knows the gladness at having victoriously passed the critical moment of trial. (Cf. Acts 4:23-31; Acts 5:40-42) Sometimes during the days of fixing of the revelation, such bold confession was blessed with deliverance from danger. (Cf. Peter, Acts 5:12-42; Acts 12:1-17; Paul, 2 Timothy 4:16-17) But not always, as the traditionally brutal deaths of these same Apostles testify. But the principle promise of Jesus here is that willing acknowledgement whereby Jesus endorses us as His disciples before the Father at the great accounting.

This is the fifth motive for enduring the dangers and hardships faced by disciples in this life. It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a motivation higher than this: to accept all the pain and death in the service of Jesus Christ and know that the conclusion of life brings us, not judgment, but joy! To be personally introduced to God just because we did only what it was our duty to do is nothing short of incredible! (Cf. Luke 17:10) How many of the little people of earth long for just a glimpse of the earth's great ones! How very few are permitted a private audience with the great, or are privileged to be their intimate friends. But not only to be presented to God but also permitted to live with Him for eternity: this is too good to be true! (Revelation 3:5; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-7) But how can God permit so great a reward for so insignificant a response on our part? Two reasons:

Confession of Christ, with all that this involves, is not insignificant, since this affects every facet of our lives and is the very life-direction of a disciple.

Our Father intends to save the savable on the basis of His mercy. None can presume to earn His reward by putting Him in debt to them merely because they, sinners, confess Jesus. On the other hand, God's plan is to draw us to Him by exalting Jesus. So if we but confess Jesus as Lord to the glory of God the Father, He is more than willing to consider us as righteous even though we are not, because we are willing to trust Him. (Cf. Romans 3:21-26; Romans 4:1 to Romans 5:1)

The question arises at this point whether Christians will actually have to stand trial on that great day. This hesitant doubt is suggested by passages as John 5:24, He who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life; he does not come into judgment (krìsin), but has passed from death to life. (Cf. John 5:29; 2 Peter 2:9) But even these texts can be harmonized with the more numerous and more explicit passages which picture the, believers as standing for judgment. (See passages below regarding the Judge.) They can be harmonized, since the believer accepts in Jesus Christ all the negative features of the final judgment: its revelation of the heinousness of sin, its condemnation and its sentence of punishment. These features were already accepted by him who understands the meaning of the cross, dies to himself in order to rise again to new life in the Beloved. (1 Peter 2:24) From that moment on, all that the wicked may well fear at the hands of God, has become a matter of joyfully past history for the Christian. But it is this negative side of God's justice that is the import of the word judgment (krisis) in John 5:24; John 5:29 and 2 Peter 2:9. The point is that every disciple will give account of himself before God and the criterion is settled by this text, since all other criteria mentioned elsewhere may be subsumed under these two words: confess (or deny) Christ before men.

But who will judge the world, God or Christ? The figure of Himself that Jesus presents here seems to be in the function of an Advocate. (Cf. 1 John 2:1-2) In the NT both figures are used: God is the Judge of all men (Hebrews 12:23; 1 Corinthians 4:5; 1 Corinthians 5:13; Romans 2:2-3; Romans 3:4-6; Romans 11:33; Romans 14:10; 1 Peter 1:17; 1 Peter 2:23), but we must stand before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10; John 5:22; John 5:27; John 9:39; Acts 10:42; 1 Corinthians 4:4-5; 2 Timothy 4:1). The harmony is to be found in the synthetic statement of Paul: God will judge the world by Jesus (Acts 17:31; Romans 2:16). What God does in the Person of Jesus, He may be said to do for Himself. The marvelous revelation that results from these Scriptures is what the Lord actually affirms in Matthew 10:40, that he who deals with Jesus is dealing with Almighty God, and vice versa, he who would deal with God must answer to Jesus. This is the most fundamental doctrine of Christianity: only those who are recognized by Jesus are saved. Those who would climb in any other way are thieves and robbers! (John 10:1-5; John 10:7-18; John 10:27-30; cf. Matthew 11:27; John 14:6; 1 Timothy 2:5)

В. THE SUPREME DISGRACE FOR DISLOYALTY OR COWARDICE (10:33)

Matthew 10:33 But whosoever shall deny me before men. These ominous words spell out the necessary antithesis to the glorious promise for loyalty just described. Just a glance at the sentence structure of the two declarations reveals how perfectly balanced is each element. Again the declaration is directed to any disciple, not merely the Apostles, who might be tempted to deny Christ. While this warning is specifically intended for the timorous person who, for fear of men, fails to acknowledge his allegiance to Jesus, nevertheless its practical impact will be felt by all whose lives and convictions reflect their rejection of all that He is and offers. So to deny me before men means to repudiate or disown Christ in any of the various expressions whereby one who is a loving disciple should have confessed Him. (Cf. Luke 12:8-9; Acts 3:13-14; Jude 1:4; 2 Peter 2:1; Titus 1:16; 1 John 2:22; 1 Timothy 5:8; 2 Timothy 2:11-13; Revelation 2:13; Revelation 3:8)

To deny me before men has a more ominous side than most recognize. Even amateur philosophers can become quite adept at pointing out the fatal flaw in others-' philosophies, or views of life. This fatal flaw is but that noticeable inconsistency between the official or stated conclusions of a theory, and the way that the philosopher himself lives or practices that theory. Many Christians speak loudly about the supreme lordship of Jesus of Nazareth, thinking thereby to do Him honor by so fine and public a confession. But in unguarded moments they damn themselves intellectually in the eyes of worldlings who really know something of the will of Christ, and they are probably damning themselves eternally in the eyes of Jesus, when they fail to produce in words or deeds or attitudes what their confession demands of them at those critical moments where their real religion may be tested most surely. Listen, for example, to the comments, feelings or answers a given Christian expresses to the following questions:

Do you think some people are expendable if they refuse to support your church program?

In this modern world is it possible to practice the other cheek policy, when the individual Christian is insulted?

Who do you think is really well off in this world?

Is the possession of wealth a necessary danger to a man's Christianity?

Should whites (or Negroes, Chinese, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, or any other racial group being discussed) be permitted to take an active part in your church?

These deliberately loaded questions are samples of some of the ways in which a Christian unwittingly damns himself and denies Christ by allowing himself the liberty of opinion after Jesus has already spoken. Certainly there is grace and forgiveness for this, but it is important that the saint recognize that he is doing it that he might confess it, repent and be forgiven. Perhaps the esteem of the worldling may be regained too by that intellectual honesty and genuine humility that knows how to say I have sinned, I have imperfectly represented Christ. You may judge me by Christ, but do not judge Christ by me. It is painfully obvious that I am not yet made perfect, but I thank you for pointing out my inconsistency to me! A Christian's confession is not a long string of pretences with regard to himself, but the consistent admission to allegiance to Jesus. Hence, when he is overtaken in any fault, in humility he can emphasize once again his deep need for and dependence upon Jesus. A confession of this sort, growing as it does out of a practical denial, can be the most beautiful and most vividly remembered.

But why would men who have known and loved Jesus, men who have even been saved from death by His power, ever be driven to the point where they would actually refuse to admit any connection with Him? Ask Peter. (Cf. Matthew 26:30-35; Matthew 26:69-75; Mark 14:26-31; Mark 14:66-72; Luke 22:31-34; Luke 22:54-62; John 13:36-38; John 18:15-18; John 18:25-27) In our hours of deeper reflection and honesty have we not had to weep bitterly with him, because we were not prepared for the crisis brought on by some of our own fears?

Our fear of being hated by men (Matthew 10:21-22);

Our fear of being reviled (Matthew 10:25)

Our fear of being persecuted or murdered (Matthew 10:23; Matthew 5:10-12);

Our fear of merely losing the good-will of the people upon whom our business, our profit, our advantages and ultimately our success in life are based. (Luke 6:22; John 9:22; John 16:2)

These fears and more are the precise reason why Jesus has pounded so steadily throughout this discourse on the theme: Do not be anxious. Have no fear of them. Do not fear those who kill the body! He knows that the fundamental instinct of self-preservation will be particularly strong in such crises. Yet even the most fundamental of human drives must never be permitted to loom larger than one's commitment to his God! Some disciples would certainly be tempted to prudence or compromise, when, in reality, this would mean a practical denial of their commitment to Him. All of the rationalizations that could be offered do not change the fact that those who make them are deceiving themselves. They but hide from themselves the real motive for their cowardice. The Master foresees and forestalls this by shouting the warning: If to save your neck, save face, save your business, save your family, you deny your relation to me, you will lose your soul!

Him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven. The consequences of one's denial of Jesus, when properly evaluated, are, as Lenski exclaims, terrible beyond all description! And not all of the consequences are future:

The nagging awareness that the former disciple has failed under fire, that he has dishonored his Lord, is something not easily shaken off. The corrosive power of unrelieved guilt is incalculable. And Jesus-' advance notice of how it will go with such a person at the judgment is deliberately calculated to produce this guilt, in the hope of hereby producing repentance. (2 Corinthians 7:8-11)

The result of a guilty conscience is a useless life, since the individual, who has once known Jesus Christ and faced the demands made upon his mind by the evidences of His Lordship, cannot find ultimate joy or contentment in lesser things. As a result he wanders from this to that, restlessly seeking some consuming passion to take the place of that Lord whom he has removed from the center of his existence. And, whether he admits, or even feels, the uselessness of his life thus lived, all the pseudo-gods he has sought to serve prove worse than useless to help him when he stands before the living God.

For the man who dies in this condition, his last hours can be nothing but terrifying, since he must know that he is about to face the only Lawyer who could have pleaded his case (1 John 2:1-2), but has now been raised to the bench to become his Judge (2 Corinthians 5:10). The sworn word of that Magistrate is: I will deny him: (Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26)

In short, from the moment of the denial, if unrepaired by repentance and vigorous confession, only a sinister future awaits this hopeless wretch. Oh my soul, can I grasp the horror, the pain and the regret of such a horrible eventuality? Can that proper fear of the Lord grip me so fast that all the menaces of men seem like the harmless barking of chained dogs?

Before my Father who is in heaven. All that has been said before about a holy God who wreaks vengeance upon impenitent sinners, and especially upon renegade disciples, is now felt in its full force. (See on Matthew 10:28) He who falls into the hands of the living God does so because of his failure to confess Jesus! Nothing is hidden that shall not be revealed! (Matthew 10:26) Denial of Jesus can be hidden for some time on earth, but it too will be unmercifully exposed with a finality that will last for eternity. Not only will Jesus deny the coward, the fearful and unbelieving before the Father, but also before the angels of God. (Luke 12:9) This suggests that, should even the slightest denial of Christ escape the notice of these ministering servants who labor continually on behalf of the saints, Jesus will expose even this. (Cf. Hebrews 1:14; Matthew 18:11; Revelation 19:9-10) Thus will God be fully vendicated in His judgment.

Barclay (Matthew, I, 403) indicated several practical ways men often deny Christ:

We may deny Him with our words. (Such a person) did not propose to allow his Christianity to interfere with the society he kept and the pleasures he loved. Sometimes we say to other people, practically in so many words, that we are Church members, but not to worry about it too much; that we have no intention of being different; that we are prepared to take our full share in all the pleasures of the world; and that we do not expect people to take any special trouble to respect any vague principles that we may have.

We can deny Him by our silence. (when there was) the opportunity to speak some word for Christ, to utter some protest against evil, to take some stand, to show what side we are on. Again and again on such occasions it is easier to keep silence than to speak. But such silence is in itself a denial of Jesus Christ.

We can deny Him by our actions. We can live in such a way that our life is a continuous denial of the faith which in words we profess. He who has given his allegiance to the gospel of purity may be guilty of all kinds of petty dishonesties and breaches of strict honor. He who has undertaken to follow the Master who bade him take up a cross can live a life that is dominated by attention to his own ease and comfort. He who has entered the service of Him who Himself forgave and bade His followers to forgive can live a life of bitterness and resentment and variance with his fellow-men. He whose eyes are meant to be on that Christ who died for love of men can live a life in which the idea of Christian service and Christian charity and Christian generosity are conspicuous by their absence.

Our General Himself has come up through the ranks, has stood Himself precisely where He expects His troops to stand. (1 Timothy 6:13; Hebrews 2:14-18! Matthew 4:14-16; Matthew 5:7-9) So He is not requiring of His men one thing more than what He Himself has done. The Christian, when standing trial for his faith and adherence to Jesus in a thousand ways across the years, can take courage and remain confident, since he knows, My Lord has stood here before!

C. THE INEVITABLE ENMITIES INVOLVED IN LOYALTY TO JESUS (10:34-36)

After having outlined the disciples-' relationships to their task, to the opposition they must expect, and to the Lord whom they serve, Jesus now describes the inescapable decisions to be made by His workers about their relationship to outsiders among whom they will live and work and to whom they are sent.

Matthew 10:34 Think not that I came to send peace on the earth. Due to their misunderstanding of certain messianic prophecies, many Jews would have been inclined to think this very thing. (Cf. Isaiah 2:2-4; Isaiah 9:6-7; Isaiah 66:12; Psalms 72:7; see notes on Rabbinic thought in Edersheim, Life, II, 710ff.) We can sense the sheer, severe honesty of Jesus better when we remember that it was a popular Jewish conviction that the Christ would usher in an epoch of great prosperity and universal peace. This concept of Jesus not only does not echo the materialistic expectations popular among His own people, but it also demonstrates the abyss that separated His vision of the Messianic Kingdom from theirs, The war pictured by Jesus, symbolized by the sword, is of an entirely different character than that envisioned by those who hoped for a monolithic national army of Hebrews only, who would march under the Messiah against the nations of the world over which they would triumph. Jesus is no creature of His period, but a revolutionary Creator whose original message comes from God. But those wild-eyed revolutionaries of every age who have attempted to claim Jesus-' good name for their cause, or who would uphold Him as their example for disrupting normal society, must beware lest they find themselves and their declared aims in open contradiction with THIS Revolutionary! It is absolutely essential therefore that Jesus-' followers not expect a fool's paradise. The painful honesty of Jesus here stands out in striking contrast to those wild enthusiasts who attract followers with seductive but delusive promises. Later, Jesus can temper the harshness of this statement, but even then, not too much: I have said this to you, that in me ye may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

I came to. What the Master now describes expresses the stated purpose of His earthly mission. So what He unfolds in this and the following verses is neither extra, optional nor unnecessary, since the result of this His work, the decisions His followers must make and the inevitable enmities which result are all intimately involved in Jesus-' intended mission.

I came not to send peace (on the earth), but a sword. But how can this obvious declaration of the Messiah Himself be harmonized with the general picture drawn of Him as the great prince of Peace? (Cf. Isaiah 9:6-7; Luke 2:14) There are two possibilities:

This is a Hebraistic expression, emphatically stated to carry a point without intending to exclude absolutely what is negated. (See e.g. notes on Matthew 9:13) Accordingly, Jesus is saying, I came not only to bring peace, but also a sword. As indicated above, due to the preconceptions of that day, it was entirely essential to the successful communication of His divine message that Jesus startle His hearers, so that this particularly unwelcome news not slip past, quite unnoticed by unwary listeners.

Then, in harmony with the foregoing, it is also unquestionably true that Jesus did not come to bring peace on earth to just any and every rebel against God's good government. Though He came to bring true harmony between God and man as well as true brotherhood among men, yet to accomplish this magnificent mission, Jesus could not leave men the way they were.

But why cannot men have peace the way they are? Plummer (Matthew, 156) is right to point out that peace cannot be enforced. Open hostility can be put down by force; but good will can come only by voluntary consent. So long as men's wills are opposed to the Gospel, there can be no peace. In fact, war, division and fire must necessarily break out where the claims of Jesus are proclaimed in a hostile world. Feel the intense emotion of the Lord as He speaks about this revolution. (Luke 12:49-51) Plummer (Luke, 334), commenting on that text, shows the vigor and depth of His language:

The history of Christ's ministry shows that (the fire) was kindled.. Christ came to set the world on fire, and the conflagration had already begun. Malachi 3:2. bàptisma dè échõ baptisthçnai. Having used the metaphor of fire, Christ now uses the metaphor of water. The one sets forth the result of His coming as it affects the world, the other as it affects Himself. The world is lit up with flames, and Christ is bathed in blood: Mark 10:38.

So long as His disciples act in their true character, they are the very conscience of society. They are the very character of God walking daily among their sinful fellows, family and friends. The embarrassing contrast between righteousness and iniquity that results from this contact, must, in a thousand different ways, cause that painful condemning of the sinful practices and attitudes of those who are accustomed to that way of life. But this being the world's conscience is not easy business, because one must suffer all the excuses, evasions and harsh abuse that is the daily experience of every individual conscience.

Jesus Himself knows that He is Himself such a conscience. He too must disturb their self-complacency, awaken their deadened fear of the living God. His influence, then, cannot be peaceful in the sense that He leaves men tranquilly undisturbed. As Rix (PHC, 259) puts it:

(His influence) was a reforming, dividing, disturbing, dissolving, revolutionary influence. It was a pungent, painful, sacrificial influence. The history of Christianity is not a peaceful history. This fact is brought forward sometimes as a proof that Christianity has been a failure. But before we admit the validity of this objection, let us consider this prior question: is the assumption upon which it is based a valid one? Is peace the first aim of Christianity? Is it the main object of the Christian religion to give you an undisturbed and placid life? It is an ignoble view of life which regards its highest good as a placid and undisturbed existence. To live is to endure and overcome, to aspire and to attain.. It is not the best thing in the world for a man to have no doubts, to ask no questions, to be free from all speculation and all wonder. It is not the best thing for a man to receive his opinions ready-made and to reiterate them unthinkingly till he comes to look upon them as infallible.

But the disturbance Christ brings produces immediate war, since men perversely cling to their sins, combat Christ and His messengers and line up against those who accept His discipline. This automatically divides the world into two hostile camps. (Cf. Luke 12:51) As Jesus will immediately point out, the lines will be drawn even in families, between those who follow Him and those who do not. But Jesus must provoke this kind of war; otherwise, men would go on to their doom perfectly satisfied with themselves, unaware of their fate.

While the figure of the sword may mean war, as explained above, it is also possible that the main emphasis of Jesus is on the use of a sword to split asunder what had before been of one piece or a unity. Commenting on this aspect, Barclay (Matthew, I, 405) says:

When some great cause emerges, it is bound to divide people; there are bound to be those who answer, and those who refuse, the challenge. To be confronted with Jesus is necessarily to be confronted with the choice whether to accept Him or to reject Him; and the world is always divided into those who have accepted Christ and those who have not.

Though He is the very bond of lasting peace and true union, Jesus Himself is the sharpest line of separation between men and the greatest disturber of easy consciences. He brought no peace to Herod or Jerusalem (Matthew 2:3). His very birth brought anguish and heartbreak to all parents in Bethlehem with boys under two. His birth brought a sword that pierced His mother's soul and signaled the rise and fall of many in Israel (Luke 2:34-35). The Babe's protection brought additional fears and frustrations to Joseph (Matthew 1:18-19; Matthew 2:13-14; Matthew 2:22). But the angels-' song is still true for this Babe has brought peace that passes understanding to men with whom (God) is well pleased. (Luke 2:14; Ephesians 2:14; Philippians 4:7) But to enjoy this peace, men have always had to decide about Jesus Christ, and this decision has involved many other choices of which the Lord now begins a short list:

Matthew 10:35 For shows that Jesus intends to illustrate concretely what He means by a sword. These examples that follow are only typical and by no means propose to exhaust the divisions possible in human relationships, since other separations are obviously conceivable in families otherwise constituted. I came to: what follows this verb expresses the purpose and result of the Lord's earthly mission. What He lists here, then, is not avoidable, since the breakdown of some of these family ties partakes of the essential nature of the life to which the Master calls us. This crisis cannot be evaded without compromise of conscience.

a man at variance against his father,
and the daughter against her mother,
and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

These words are quoted practically verbatim from Micah 7:6. Did Jesus mean for His disciples to understand Him as speaking within the framework set for them by Micah?

It might be that Jesus is merely appropriating the well-known expressions of the ancient prophet. Micah had used this language to describe the height of treachery rampant in an era of injustice at all levels of society. However, Jesus-' context is not so much general injustice as the particular heartlessness of those who refuse to accept Jesus and the religious convictions of His disciples. It may be, then, that the Master intends only to take Micah's language proverbially, as aptly describing treachery in any age, not merely that of the prophet himself. In this case, the form, not the context, suits Jesus-' purpose.

Keil (Minor Prophets, I, 507) suggests an alternate view:

This verse is applied by Christ to the period of the krìsis which will attend His coming, in His instruction to the apostles in Matthew 10:35-36 (cf. Luke 12:53). in the sense, that at the outbreak of the judgment and of the visitation the faithlessness will reach the height of treachery to the nearest friends, yea, even of the dissolution of every family tie. (cf. Matthew 24:10; Matthew 24:12)

Apparently, Keil sees the Lord's use of this language as intending to point out a condition crying out for judgment. However, again the context here is not specifically eschatological, as Luke's seeming parallel might tend to suggest.

Since the Lord does not document His words as being those of Micah, and since His purpose differs somewhat from that of the prophet, it is probably better to see only a free use of appropriate language. Jesus-' intention is to bring into sharp relief the bitterness of religious intolerance.

I came to set a man at variance against. Here is one of the first intimations of the individualistic and personal character of Jesus-' religion. (Cf. Matthew 3:7-10) It makes a clear break with the patriarchal concept of religion whereby the whole family, including the children, by virtue of their birth into the family, become participants in all the religious privileges of the paternal head. There is no suggestion in the NT that baptism was intended as a substitute for circumcision, and thus to be applied to infants. Rather, Jesus insists here on the extremely personal character of our adherence to Him, by demanding the unhesitating severing of even the dearest relationships that become a hindrance to absolute fidelity to Him. This is not a concept, therefore, that can be applied in any sense to those without the faculty to make such a decision, i.e. infants. Yet it is a fundamental tenet in Jesus-' system.

At variance against. A disciple might wishfully hope that, though he be rejected, misunderstood and reviled for his new-found faith by society, yet surely his own family would understand. But McGarvey (Matthew-Mark, 94) correctly feels the psychological impact of Jesus-' statement:

When a man abandons the religion of his ancestors his own kindred feel more keenly than others the shame which the world attaches to the act, and are exasperated against the supposed apostate in a degree proportionate to their nearness to him.

Jesus is not, however, promoting here a method of missions, whereby He would be seen as deliberately extracting the individual from his people and home in order to become a disciple, ignoring, and thereby failing to retain the friendly relations whereby the family and eventually much of his former society could be won to the Lord. Even within the highly individualistic framework of Jesus-' warning it may yet be possible to attain the intriguing ideals of a People's Movement Christward, as urged and described by McGavran (The Bridges of God), wherein a chain-reaction of individual decisions to accept Christ makes it possible for larger segments of a given human community to move whole from paganism or Judaism into the new faith in Christ. Thus individuals are able to make decisions within this larger community change of faith. But while Jesus is not discussing a method of missions, yet He is talking about the necessary expectations that any given disciple of His must confront due to his own painfully individualistic allegiance to Him. While McGavran's thesis is ideally suited to making possible the wider and more rapid evangelization of a people, yet the major obstacle to such a movement is ostracism, a people's defense against any new thing felt seriously to endanger the community life.. The most successful answer to ostracism is the conversion of chains of families. The lone convert is particularly susceptible to boycott. (Bridges, 20). But this is just Jesus-' point. To this, McGavran answers (Bridges, 23):

Yet becoming a Christian also meant leaving relatives. Every such decision involved separation from those not yet convinced.. What produced this dividing force was not merely individual conviction. It was individual conviction heated hot in a glowing group movement in a human chain reaction. Very few individuals standing alone could renounce father and mother and kinsmen. But reinforced by the burning faith that our people are following the new way, such fathers and mothers and kinsmen as refused to follow the Messiah could be renounced. There were heartbreaks and tears, the parting was tremendously difficult, but to men borne forward on the way of group action it was possible.

This may be true where the wave of group action is already rolling high, but where it is not, where the evangelization has just begun, or where an apostate Church is the majority religion or the State Church, the disciple of Jesus is to expect, social intercourse to be cut off so drastically that no one will give the new convert warmth, shelter or support. If he falls sick, he can expect his former associates to have nothing to do with him, since, for all they care, he can die. It is very easy to overstate our evidence for the rapid, people-wide growth of the Church during the early days of its history, (Acts 2:41-47; Acts 4:4; Acts 4:32 ff.; Acts 6:1; Acts 6:7; Acts 8:6; Acts 8:12; Acts 9:35; Acts 9:42; Acts 11:19-26; Acts 21:20) Though it be true that the Christian Church was a movement of great numbers, so that a large enough segment of the Jewish people became Christian with the consequence that whole families and sometimes whole villages turned to the Lord (cf. Acts 9:35), nevertheless the validity of Christ's words here in this text was demonstrated time and again as the ostracism rose right within the ranks of the Jewish people itself. The horrible persecution of the Church by the Jewish religious establishment was not the only frightening prospect confronted by early converts from Jewry. (Cf. Acts 4; Acts 5:17-42; Acts 6:8 to Acts 8:4) They lost family, possessions, connections, honors and opportunities. (Cf. Hebrews 10:32-34; Matthew 19:29) The rapid people-movement was not at all trouble-free, so as to make Christ's warning here unnecessary. In fairness to McGavran, it must be said that he is not saying that had the Apostles used the techniques he outlines, the transfer from Judaism to Christianity would have been much smoother. Nor does he minimize the inevitable banishment of the Christian from intimate society of the unconverted relatives or associates, since his real antithesis is a method of missions too often used, which mistakes Jesus-' warning in our text for the norm, hence ignores important relationships within a people that could be used advantageously to produce much more rapid evangelization of that people. Let it never be said that Jesus is urging variance against one's family for variance-' sake, but rather variance for Jesus-' sake. Jesus is not willing that any perish, but that all come to repentance. (Luke 13:1-9; 2 Peter 3:9) Any disciple who has learned this cannot deliberately seek to alienate his family merely by some indiscretion thought to be showing faithfulness to Jesus.

On the other hand, there is the keen temptation, described by Barclay, (Matthew, I, 406):

The bitterest thing about this warfare was that a man's foes would be those of his own household. It can happen that a man loves his wife and his family so much that he may refuse some great adventure, some avenue of service, some call to sacrifice, either because he does not wish to leave them, or because to accept it would involve them in danger and in risk.. It has happened that a man has refused God's call to some adventurous bit of service, because he allowed personal attachments to immobilize him

The fact remains that it is possible for man's loved ones to become in effect his enemies, if the thought of them keeps him from doing what he knows God wishes and wants him to do.

Matthew 10:36 A man's foes shall be they of his own household. McGarvey (Fourfold, 367) observes:

If the Jew and the pagan thus held their religions at a higher value than the ties of kindred (so as to persecute their Christian kin, HEF), much more should the Christian value his religion above these ties.

Even so, we must never forget that our real enemy is always and only Satan, even though he may make good use of an unknowing and unwilling tool in the person of one's own kin to do his work. (Sometimes he adopts an unsuspecting Christian to his purpose to destroy the Church from within. Is it not possible that Jesus has sometimes reflected: What do I need enemies for, when I have disciples like that one!?) But the disciple must ever recall that they of one's own household are never the ultimate enemy, but PEOPLE, even though they are blinded by bitter religious hate. These are people for whom Jesus came to die, just as much as are those who do accept Him. This is the reason why the disciples are never to respond with vitriolic invectives against the opposition. Perhaps the very meekness and consideration and constancy of Jesus-' disciples will be the very means of opening the mind of the opponents to the truth. (Cf. 1 Peter 3:1-2) Paradoxically, they are foes in one sense, but beloved in another. (Cf. Romans 11:28)

D. THE SECRET OF SUCCESS THROUGH SACRIFICE AND SURRENDER TO THE SAVIOR (10:37-39)

Fully knowing that many are willing to endure almost anything in death or life, in the realm of spirits or earthly monarchs, in the world of what happens today or in the world tomorrow, in the forces of the universe, of heaven or hell, the Lord now pictures that one influence that would be able to seduce them away from Him. He knows the danger to be found in the tender tension in families where natural affection would prove stronger than our chosen affection for Christ.

Matthew 10:37 He that loveth (ho philôn, not ho agapôn) Before beginning the exegesis of Jesus-' meaning, it is imperative that we note which words He uses, lest we miss His emphasis, not having listened to His choice of terms. He is talking about philìa, not agàpç. (See notes on Matthew 5:43-48, Vol. I, 308-322 for a study of this latter word.) The master has in mind, not that invincible good will that always does what is in the best interest of the object of one's love, even if the person thus loved remains disagreeable or becomes the enemy. Rather, He puts the emphasis on philìa (= friendship; in this connection examine James 4:4 where this noun appears the only time in the N.T.) Philéõ, while having some of the same area of meaning as agapàõ, is better understood to touch more deeply the sentiments or emotional attachment of the individual and should be translated love, have affection for, like,. kiss. (Arndt-Gingrich, 866f.) The Lord, then, is talking about cherishing what is dear to us at the expense of our loyalty to Him

He that loveth father, mother, son or daughter more than me: this is no question of our relative affection for that individual, as if we must somehow diminish our affection for each individual, in order to have sufficient affection left over for Jesus. Rather, He means the whole of our affection for any individual, which conflicts with the whole of our affection for Jesus. This is psychologically sound, for every one of us is capable of indefinite affection for each person we know, should we feel inclined so to express ourselves. Jesus does not ask that we diminish any affection we have for any person, least of all for those of our own family. He is, rather, proscribing that conflict of loyalty that prefers our selfish, unbelieving family, to His claims on the life of His disciple caught at that crisis of choice between the two.

What makes this a hard saying of Jesus is its antithesis, stated on a later occasion (Luke 14:26; Luke 14:33):

If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. So therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

This is not only difficult for most to accept, but seems to make hate the antithesis of affection, as we have it in Matthew's text. But the incisive writing of C. S. Lewis (Four Loves, 17ff., 166ff.) puts these seemingly contradictory maxims of the Lord into their proper relationship. Loving anything or anyone above God Himself, is to make an idol of the object of our love. So when our loves claim or will or would hold us back from following Him, then we must take them from the throne of our heart, even though our decision will seem to them sufficiently like hatred. Lewis is right, of course, but this is where the difficulty arises, since most people who become disciples of Jesus, do so full-grown with a rather completely developed circle of friends, relatives and loved ones, a relationship already very strong and of long duration. Jesus-' seemingly harsh (and only apparently contradictory) demands require that we put our loves into their proper order, long in advance of crises, so that when the test comes, it will be no brutal surprise to anyone. Lewis goes on to point out that it is absolutely essential that all who know us should also know, from a thousand talks, exactly what we are and how we feel about God. This helps all our loved ones to set their lives in order psychologically in relation to us, to come to understand us on this matter of our commitment to Christ, long before the crucial test of loyalty. When the crisis arises it is too late to begin telling a loved one that our love had a secret reservation all along, i.e., our commitment to the Master. It is precisely at this point that Jesus-' demands for the widest and most public confession of our adherence to Him, begin to make sense in a personal way. (See on Matthew 10:26-27; Matthew 10:32-33)

There is very keen refinement in this temptation to deny Christ because of some loved one! When we see that our attachment to Him will cause danger or death to some loved one, we hesitate to jeopardize their life or safety by taking that conscious step that would throw them into exactly that position. What should we do at that moment? We must have already learned that, with us or without us they remain in God's care, just as much as they ever were before we came along. In that moment then, let us commit them to Him. Even if our confession or our taking a special stand for Christ brings them pain or death (because of what others do to them as a direct result of our own faithfulness), it must not deter us from taking that stand or making that confession. Every loyalty must give place to loyalty to God. Peter calls persecution a refining fire (1 Peter 1:6-8), because it burns out of our attachment to Jesus all the impure motives. These trials make us examine every phase of our faith for which we are called upon to suffer. We will not willingly suffer for what we do not deem absolutely essential. Thus we examine even these closest, dearest relationships in the light of their eternal consequences. Sentiment and affection had, in better times, covered up these implications, not permitting us to evaluate them objectively. This is why Jesus unsparingly strips off that protective covering of sentiment and rigorously bares the extreme danger that these loved ones can be to us.

He that loveth father or mother, son or daughter more than me. The Lord knows the extraordinary seduction that material possessions can be, and in no uncertain terms requires that a disciple be ready to relinquish his hold on ANY possession. (Cf. Matthew 19:16-30; Luke 14:25-33; cf. Philippians 3:7) But here the Master decrees that those human relationships which we deem most truly real and valuable and would hold as most intrinsically our own, must be sacrificed, if they prove to be more than me! Any Christian who acknowledges a higher lordship than Jesus Christ, is not fit for the Kingdom of God. (Cf. John 8:31-34; Romans 6:16; Luke 9:62) There can be no prior or unbreakable commitments to any other, if Jesus be Lord.

Worthy of me. But who could pretend to be actually worthy of Jesus? (Cf. 2 Corinthians 2:16) No one can stack up merits or earn credits with God, merely by accumulating any number of good deeds to be remembered in a ledger of merit. (Cf. Colossians 1:12-13; 2 Corinthians 3:5-6; John 15:5) Arndt-Gingrich-' (77) translate it: He does not deserve to belong to me, or perhaps, he is not suited to me. Worthy of me, however, is the disciple's goal, because it describes a manner of life that would be a credit to Jesus. Living worthy of Him means having that same intransigence before temptations, that same love of righteousness, that same mercifulness with sinners, that same patience under trial, that reflects so well what He would have done under similar circumstances. Bystanders could see in their mind's eye and remember Jesus, precisely because they would be able to see His attitudes and actions duplicated in His people.

Matthew 10:38 And he that doth not take his cross and follow after me, is not worthy of me. Whereas before, Jesus had presented influences that perhaps could have allured us away from Him, here He unmasks the one that would repel us from Him: the suffering of shame and death. Rather than speak of crowns and glory to these disciples who were expecting any day to participate in a glorious messianic procession that would signal the beginning of the messianic kingdom, Jesus flashes before the startled Apostles a vision of the real procession in which they will march, a vision as shocking as it is terrible. To appreciate the spectacle Jesus-' words convey, imagine the Lord, with His own cross on His shoulders, waving His men on up Golgotha's height, shouting, Come on, it's over the top we godo you expect to live forever?

How many times had these very men witnessed a straggling line of condemned Galileans shuffling along to their tortured death, bearing their crosses, hurried along by Roman guards? How often had these men watched the death agony of human beings nailed to those wooden trees while their pain, thirst and anger mingled with blood, sweat and flies in the hot Palestinean sun? The Roman general, Quintilius. Varus, quelled the uprisings Simon and Judas, and crucified 2000 Jews that had supported these insurrections in Galilee. He lined the roads of Galilee with these gruesome markers. To the Apostles, then, Jesus-' challenge put in these words is no less than the demand that they pronounce and execute the death sentence upon themselves. Any astute political observer or sociologist who had listened to Jesus very long could have observed that anyone who took Jesus seriously enough to enlist in His movement would be committing political, religious and commercial suicide. And Jesus would agree. This is why the Master, at this point in their discipleship, requires that His men finish the funeral, so they can get on with more important things.

The genius of such a requirement is immediately obvious: no enemy can, through threats of death, stop a revolutionary movement made up of men and women who have already accepted their own death as an accomplished fact, a justified judgment and a willing surrender! (Cf. Romans 6:1-11; Galatians 2:20; Galatians 5:24; Galatians 6:14; Galatians 6:17) The disciple is to see that there are two ways of obeying the will of Christ:

Actively, by doing what He has bound us to say and do, whereinsofar we are free to do it, i.e. so long as others permit us to express our commitment to Christ.

Passively, by suffering the opposition, the persecution and martyrdom at the hands of those who do not permit us to do His bidding in any other way. (Philippians 1:29)

But already the literal cross has passed from a means of physical execution, into that figurative, spiritual reality that all Christian theology has come to recognize. Anyone who has signed his own death warrant by accepting the risk of losing all for Jesus, even his own life on a wooden stake along a public highway, has already begun to arrange his life spiritually in the very direction Jesus intends. (See on Matthew 16:24-28) The cross is painfully personal and must be willingly assumed, since no other can either shoulder it for us or even lay it on our shoulders. Each must take his cross, i.e. do what he must for Christ's sake, even at the price of the most heartbreaking sacrifices or the most excruciating death, This is precisely what doing the will of God cost Jesus.

This willing self-crucifixion of our own will, emotions, ambitions and desires means, as Barclay (Matthew, I, 408) says:

The Christian many have to sacrifice his personal ambitions, the ease and comfort that he might have enjoyed, the career he might have achieved; he may have to lay aside his dreams, to realize that the shining things of which he caught a glimpse are not for him. He will certainly have to sacrifice his will, for no Christian can ever again do what he likes: he must do what Christ likes.

The impressive list Jesus had already given explained the various ramifications of the cross, as suffering:

being dragged before hostile religious and civil authorities (Matthew 10:17)

receiving an inhospitable reception when trying to bring the Gospel of peace to others (Matthew 10:14)

being betrayed to death by relatives (Matthew 10:21)

being tempted to fear men more than God (Matthew 10:8)

facing the constant allurement of denying everything just to have a moment's peace (Matthew 10:33)

slander that tears at the heart (Matthew 10:25)

There is another reason for this drastic demand as part of this commission of the Twelve as Jesus sends them out on their first trial run. How badly they needed this special teaching regarding the cross in their own future, is seen in the fact that they have studied under Jesus many months now. They have just enough training to make them cocksure but not great rabbis. They have every temptation now to out-pharisee the Pharisees, i.e. to be proud, sectarian, more argumentative than convincing, more self-seeking than useful to others. They will be tempted to defend themselves instead of preach the Gospel. To them these words may well mean:

He who loves his own opinions, his own group more than me, is not worthy of me.
No man is worthy of me who prides himself in his debating ability, forgetting that his opponents are people for whom I came to die, forgetting his great responsibility to make the truth known in love, forgetting that people can be changed if they are not battered into the ground.
He who confuses opposition raised by honest doubters for bitter persecution is not worthy of me.
He that confuses his own interests for mine, thinking that those who oppose him, for whatever reason, are thereby opposing me, is not worthy of me.
He who knows he is right and remains uncompromising, but is unkind to those yet in the wrong, is unworthy of me.
He who deceives himself into thinking he is standing for me, when actually he has never taken the trouble to study both sides of an issue so he will have responsible reasons for what he believes to be my meaning, or when he has made his conclusion out of selfish or deceptive motives, is not worthy of me.

Matthew 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it;

and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

The key to this paradox is the definition and importance one puts upon his life. Life (psychç) is a many-sided word, a fact which may create problems for all who would understand and decide aright in which way they wish to preserve their life. Arndt-Gingrich (901, 902) define psychç:

literallya. of life on earth in its external, physical aspects. (breath of) life, life-principle, soul. earthly life itself. b. the soul as seat and center of the inner life of man in its many and varied aspects. c. the soul as seat and center of life that transcends the earthly. d. Since the soul is the center of both the earthly (1a) and the supernatural (1c) life, a man can find himself facing the question in which character he wishes to preserve it for himself. Mark 8:35. Cf. Matthew 10:39; Matthew 16:25; Luke 9:24; Luke 17:33; John 12:25.

by metonymy that which possesses life or a soul. a living creature. Pl. persons, lit. souls.

What is the real meaning, purpose and value of life? This question, the most practical search of the philosopher and the inevitable object of every thinking person, is here categorically answered by the Lord: Life is losing oneself in the unselfish service of someone else. This simple declaration becomes, then, the acid test of our appreciation of, and submission to, Jesus-' Lordship and wisdom. The disciple who disagrees with this fundamental principle of Jesus, either by what he thinks or by the way he runs his life, is in reality no disciple, regardless of all his pretensions to the contrary! Feel the contrast:

What men call Life:

What God calls Life:

The selfish struggle to satisfy self; self-glorification;

Doing what needs to be done, regardless of personal comfort or costs.

The praise of other men is the most satisfying goal;

Praise of God one's highest joy,

A constantly growing supply of wealth and possessions;

Losing oneself in humble, self-effacing service to God and men.

That eager grasping after more pleasures, adventures, excitement, comfort, ease, security;

Surrendering one's selfish, self-seeking life.

Fulfilment of ambitions;

Spending, not hoarding, one's powers, interest, possessions.

Hoarding life by denying one's commitment to Jesus.

Honorable, unflinching confession of Jesus, though it brings certain suffering and death.

Note the judgment Jesus pronounces upon each way of life:

He shall lose all that real life involves.

He gains all the real life that Christ's leading promises and produces.

He quit too early, satisfying himself too easily with that which is a mere substitute for life as it is meant to be lived.

He gains a place in human history and human hearts accorded the truly great who humbly served others.

The man who makes this life the end-all of his existence, really fails the more he seems to succeed.

The man who looks with unwavering confidence to the faithfulness of God, really succeeds the more he seems to fail (by worldly standards).

He loses all that makes this life valuable to others and worth living for himself.

He finds all that makes life valuable to others and makes it worth living for himself.

He must face the second death!

He has passed out of death into life!

The tragedy of the self-seeking, self-saving life is already pronounced by Jesus who knows its certain outcome: such a person shall lose his life. There is no doubt or discussion: such a course is already doomed. He who tries to save his life, his marriage, his property, his position or anything else that is important to him at the expense of his commitment to Christ, loses it all. (Cf. John 12:42-43) This principle is so far-reaching that even Jesus Himself could not escape it! (John 12:24-25) This is why He lays down the challenge of high adventure: He knows that the only way to true happiness and real life, here and hereafter, is to SPEND life, not sparing it, but serving others and so fulfilling God's purpose for us here. (See notes on Matthew 5:43-48; Matthew 7:12, Vol. I)

He that loseth his life for my sake is not necessarily, although he certainly could be, a Christian martyr. (Cf. Revelation 21:11) Obviously a person could not take up his cross daily, if this meant martyrdom the first time around! A violent death is not to be preferred to a humble, self-denying life of daily service so intent on ministering to others that one's own selfish ambitions dwindle and die from neglect. This is the real loss of one's life for Jesus-' sake. Imagine the puzzlement of the solicitous and selfish: But you don-'t have time for yourself any more! To this the saint responds: Really, I had not noticed, but, frankly, if you knew what a scoundrel I am, you would not have time for me either!

Shall find it. There is no faith where there is no risk. In this exalted promise of a proven gentleman, Jesus turns up to their maximum the test fires that try men's faith. From this point on, every one of Jesus-' listeners must decide personally whether He knows what He is talking about, whether HIS world is real. Jesus-' promises test a man's faith just as really as do His most exacting commands.

For my sake: this is the secret of Christ's power over men, the key to His ability to transform men from the self-seeking, self-complacent, self-willed, ambitious rebels they are, into saints of God. Once a man comprehends clearly who Jesus is and what He has done for that one man, once that man desires to respond in gratitude for Jesus-' self-humiliation on the cross, there is no end to what that man will do for Jesus-' sake. (See notes on Matthew 5:11, Vol. I, 226) But the secret is our commitment, not to a system nor a doctrine nor even a way of looking at religion, but our sense of belonging to Him. (1 Peter 2:20-25) Plummer (Matthew, 157) calls our attention to the audacity of Jesus-' demands and claims:

Again we have a claim which is monstrous if He who makes it is not conscious of being Divine. Who is it that is going to own us or renounce us before God's judgment-seat (32, 33)? Who is it that promises with such confidence that the man who loses his life for His sake shall find it? And these momentous utterances are spoken as if the Speaker had no shadow of doubt as to their truth, and as if He expected that His hearers would at once accept them. What is more, thousands of Christians, generation after generation, have shaped their lives by them and have proved their truth by repeated experience.

FACT QUESTIONS

List several instances in which disciples of Jesus actually denied Him before men.

List several instances in which disciples of Jesus actually confessed Him before men .

List several instances in which disciples actually felt the sword of Jesus in their own lives, as their loyalty to the Master cost them their family, friends, position, comfort, wealth or the like.

Illustrate from instances in Jesus-' life how He personally underwent all the difficulties that He here pictures for His disciples. Leave out the trials of the last week of His life and the crucifixion. Search out other poignant illustrations of His personal suffering many, many times before that last week.

Explain the meaning of the terms: peace on the earth and sword as Jesus intended them in this text. Show how this use differs from some usual connotations of these words.

When and where will Jesus confess or deny men before His Father?

Show the deeper harmony between the ancient prophecy that describes a part of Jesus-' mission to be the Prince of Peace, and the overt declaration of Jesus Himself that He did not intend to bring peace on earth.

Explain the remark Jesus made about finding and losing one's life. What is this life to which He refers?

Explain the meaning of the expression to take up one's cross. Show what this expression would have impressed on the minds of the Apostles who first heard it, and then state as well as you can the same meaning in modern English without any loss in significance or flavor that Jesus intended.

10.

Explain how Jesus-' disciples are to be worthy of Him.

11.

What is the content of the confession that Jesus requires of His disciples to make before men? In other words, what are we to say about Jesus that makes all the difference between confessing Him and denying Him?

12.

State the declarations in this section that emphasize Jesus-' authority.

SERMON

ON SELF-DENIAL AND CROSS-BEARING:
THE INFLUENCE OF THE CROSS IN THE LIFE OF THE BELIEVER
TEXT: 10:38

Introduction:

The very word cross immediately evokes the image of the instrument of torture on which Jesus died. However in the NT at least one fourth of the references to the cross (6 in 27) do not refer to His cross at all, but rather to the cross of every believer. (Matthew 10:38; Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; Luke 14:27; Galatians 6:14) But how does the cross involve the life of every Christian? To answer this question, we need to see:

The MEANING of the Cross in the Life of the Believer.

This is not simply, or only, martyrdom, a literal death on the cross.

This is obvious from the fact that Jesus Himself at the moment He uttered this challenge apparently did not expect any disciple to comply literally with the command.

Therefore, the cross is figurative.

But, though figurative, this cannot mean it is somehow less real.

In fact, it is something so very real that our whole discipleship and consequent salvation depends upon it! (Luke 14:27)

Nor can it mean merely martyrdom, because Jesus expected all true disciples to comply immediately as if it were a matter of life and death.

This is true, even though some disciples, who were acceptable to the Lord, never tasted martyrdom and yet they may be presumed to have borne their cross worthily.

Some disciples who were standing there immediately present did not suffer martyrdom for several years and yet may be presumed to have begun bearing their cross shortly after the Lord said this, and for some time until their death.

If the cross must be taken literally or legalistically, what do we do with those poor souls who died by decapitation, by being boiled alive or burned at the stake? Though these did not die on the cross, should it be deduced from this that they did not somehow bear their cross worthily?

Nor is bearing one's cross simply the sum total of the pains and difficulties that assault the disciple throughout life.

The Lord does not take notice of the size of the callouses on out hands. He looks rather at how we earned them.

There are large numbers of people who suffer greatly without intending for one minute to bear any kind of cross: as far as they are concerned, their suffering has nothing to do with Jesus, since they have no connection with Him.

So the cross is not simply the normal suffering in life.

The true meaning of the cross is our imitation of, and identification with, Jesus, i.e. our assuming the same attitudes He manifested throughout His life.

The cross probably has the same meaning in the life of the disciple as it had for the life of his Master. (Matthew 10:24-25; Hebrews 13:24-25)

Jesus had already felt the effects of the cross for the entire 33 years that preceded that mortal crisis that took place on Golgotha. (Hebrews 2:18; Hebrews 4:15)

All of the temptations Jesus faced and defeated are evidences of His conquest of His ego, the victory over His selfish passions.

So the meaning of cross-bearing and the nature of self-denial is putting to death in our lives all that:

hinders fellowship with our God;

harms relations with our fellowman;

holds self apart for self alone.

Having understood the meaning of the cross, we are driven to look into.

II.

The NECESSITY of the Cross in the Life of the Believer:

In order to solve society's deepest problem, man's own beastly selfishness, the cross is necessary.

Self-denial is absolutely essential to the well-being of society in all its relationships, since it is the key to the removal of selfishness, the root of all of society's problems.

It is the voluntary placing ourselves at the service of others AS IF we were their inferiors, even though in many cases we are their superiors (and too often we think we are when we are not!). Examples: parent/child; student/professor; employer/employee; government/citizens; merchant/ customer; elders/younger.

To be able to fulfil the very spirit of Jesus-' ideals, the cross is necessary.

The faith Jesus taught requires not only a belief in His doctrine or an intellectual adherence to His ideals.

Rather, He demands that conquest of the ego, that total defeat of self.

This is something much more difficult, much more profound than a superficial assent to a new creed, however well-stated, convenient but innocuous.

This is, rather, the willing execution of that rebel who would kick God off His throne, and seat himself in His place, ruling his own little universe.

This self-renunciation is more basic than that external conformity to a new, however superficial, set of ideals.

This is literally starting over, because Jesus wants to change the man from within by making him a new creature!

Jesus knows how impossible it is to require that the old man, in his present condition, reach those ideals which are absolutely necessary and obligatory to please God, and live lives worthy of sons of God.

Law, any law, could require a certain external conformity to certain norms, but it could not touch the heart, could not require that a man think or feel rightly.

For this result, it is necessary to begin again by creating the new man from within.

The result? In this way alone can we reach the spirit, not only the form, of the ideals of Jesus.

То ABLE to put Jesus-' ideals into practice, the cross is necessary:

So long as that rebel remains alive, so long will Jesus-' ideals be impracticable, unreachable.

It is when man throws down his last line of defense that barricades him against his God, when he lays himself bare to the righteous sentence of death against him, without justifications or excuses, when he DIES, only then can that new man rise in him, created in the image of Jesus. Only then is he able to be the man that, in his dreams, he might have been.

The cross is necessary in order to be able to ENJOY Christianity:

The cross rudely puts an end to that desperate clinging to two worlds, trying to grasp the best of both, but fails to win either, since he who tries it is unable, because unwilling, to pay the price and accept the discipline required to gain them. Consequently, the man who tries it remains in the middle, half-way between both worlds, deluded, frustrated, unable to reach either. So he loses the best of both,

But the cross, having put to death, put to silence the selfish cries of the old mad fool, leaves the man with his heart whole, his mind sane, his life and desires united. With one heart, undivided by contradictory claims on his attention, the man can by the grace of God confidently reach for all the fullest joys to be had in Christ's service here on earth and all the best of heaven!

The cross is necessary in order to be able to hold out to the end.

The man who has already accepted his own death as

a past fact;

a victory for true justice;

a justified execution of a notorious criminal;

and a voluntary surrender of himself to God, cannot have much sympathy with those temptations that would turn him back into the wretch he used to be.

Such a man cannot count his earthly life as dear to him, whether his persecutors would make it miserable for him or his tormenters would take it from him.

This helps us to appreciate. .

III.

The REASONABLENESS of the Cross in the Life of the Believer:

In relationship to God's character:

The death of the rebel is in perfect harmony with the solemn holiness of a just God whose righteousness has been offended.

He who has known something of the holiness of God could not seriously object to the capital punishment of anyone who would dare shake his puny, grimy fist at the Almighty.

Above all, His permission to cancel that old rebel in us and start all over is an act of pure grace and generous love!

In relation to our social relations with one another.

When selfishness if dead, where love is alive, we have nothing short of heaven on earth! (Romans 13:8-10)

This freely chosen renunciation of our own selfish desires in favor of the needs of another, automatically brings about that gentle courtesy, that thoughtfulness, that helpfulness that smoothes out all our associations with others. (Romans 15:1-7)

С.

In relation to our own final destiny:

The Lord is training us, disciplining us, for a position, an eternity of infinite value and dignity. (Hebrews 12:1-11)

Every time, therefore, that we succeed in doing the unselfish deed, we create in this way our own character.

Every time we fall again into selfish ways of thinking or acting, the Lord can help us to rise again and try it once more.

Our character, acquired in this way, accompanies us in death and right on through the resurrection. Nothing is ever lost of this discipline of the cross.

CONCLUSION: Let us affirm with the Apostle Paul Galatians 2:20; Galatians 5:24; Galatians 6:14.

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Matthew 10:32-39

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