Commentary - Luke 9:23-27

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, the Lord Jesus lays out the unvarnished terms of discipleship. This is not a suggestion for an advanced course, but rather the foundational requirement for anyone who would even begin to follow Him. Having just accepted Peter's great confession that He is "The Christ of God," and having just announced His impending suffering, death, and resurrection, Jesus now turns to the crowd to explain what it means to follow such a Messiah. It is a call to a crucifixion, a calculated loss, and a courageous confession. The logic is straightforward: the servant is not greater than his master. If the Master is headed to a cross, His followers must be prepared to walk the same road. The passage moves from the personal cost of discipleship (vv. 23-25) to the public testimony it requires (v. 26), and concludes with a promise of the kingdom's visible power (v. 27).

This is the great paradox of the Christian faith, the central transaction that undergirds everything else. To live, you must die. To gain, you must lose. To be exalted, you must be humbled. Jesus is not offering a path of self-improvement, but rather a path of self-abandonment. He calls for men and women to make a sober calculation about the value of their own souls and to conclude that the only way to secure that value is to hand it over to Him entirely.

Outline

Context In Luke

This section of Luke's gospel comes at a pivotal moment. Immediately prior to this, Peter makes his famous confession at Caesarea Philippi, identifying Jesus as the Messiah (Luke 9:20). Jesus then does two things that completely upend the disciples' expectations. First, He strictly charges them not to tell anyone (Luke 9:21). Second, He reveals for the first time that He, the Son of Man, must suffer, be rejected, be killed, and on the third day be raised (Luke 9:22). The disciples were likely thinking of a political kingdom, of glory and thrones. Jesus slams the brakes on all that. The path to glory is the path of suffering. The way to the crown is the way of the cross. Our text, then, is the direct application of this reality to His followers. If this is what the Messiah's path looks like, what do you think the path for a Messiah-follower will look like? It is in this context of shattered worldly expectations that Jesus delivers the radical demands of discipleship.

Verse by Verse Commentary

Luke 9:23

And He was saying to them all, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me."

And He was saying to them all... This is crucial. These are not secret instructions for the elite twelve. This is a public address to the entire crowd. The terms of discipleship are the same for every single person, from the most prominent apostle to the newest hanger-on. There is no tiered system, no discount membership. The front door to the kingdom is the same for all.

If anyone wishes to come after Me... The invitation is a genuine one, conditioned on the will of the individual. God does not drag anyone into the kingdom against his will. The desire must be there. But this desire is immediately met with a set of non-negotiable conditions. It is an "if/then" proposition. If you desire the end (to come after Christ), then you must embrace the means.

let him deny himself... This is the first great requirement, and it is the absolute repudiation of our modern therapeutic culture. This is not a call to deny yourself certain pleasures, like giving up chocolate for Lent. This is a call to deny your self. It is to abdicate the throne of your own life. It means to say "no" to your own claims, your own rights, your own ambitions, and your own autonomy. The self, as the center of your universe, must be disowned. You must fire yourself from the position of being your own god.

and take up his cross daily... The second requirement is equally stark. A cross in the first-century Roman world was not a piece of jewelry. It had one function: it was an instrument of torturous execution. To take up one's cross meant to begin the death march to one's own crucifixion. Jesus adds the word "daily," which is unique to Luke's account. This is not a one-time decision made at an altar call, but a continuous, daily orientation of the soul. Every morning, the disciple wakes up and recognizes that he is a dead man walking. He reaffirms his sentence of death upon his own sinful nature and rebellious will. The cross is not your chronic illness or your difficult mother-in-law; it is your willing embrace of death to self for the sake of Christ.

and follow Me. This is the third requirement, and it gives the first two their meaning and direction. We do not deny ourselves for the sake of denial. We are not called to be ascetics. We do not take up a cross for the sake of morbid introspection. We do all this in order to follow Him. He is the destination. The denial and the cross are the necessary preparations for the journey, but the journey itself is one of joyful pursuit of Jesus Christ. We die to self so that we might truly live in Him and for Him.

Luke 9:24

"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it."

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it... Here Jesus explains the logic behind His radical demands. He presents a spiritual paradox that stands in direct opposition to all worldly wisdom. The natural human impulse is self-preservation. We want to save our lives, our reputations, our comfort, our security. But Jesus says that the man who makes this his ultimate goal will, in the final analysis, lose everything. The life he sought to protect will be the very thing he forfeits. To clutch your life is to lose it.

but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. This is the other side of the paradox. True preservation comes through surrender. But notice the crucial qualifier: "for My sake." This is not a call to throw your life away for just any cause. It is not a celebration of recklessness. The surrender of your life, your will, your ambitions, must be for the sake of Jesus Christ. When you hand over the title deed of your life to Him, He keeps it safe for you for all eternity. You give Him what you cannot keep, and He gives you what you cannot lose.

Luke 9:25

"For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?"

Jesus now puts the matter in terms of a business transaction, a profit and loss statement. For what is a man profited... He invites us to do the accounting. Let's run the numbers on this deal. On one side of the ledger, place the ultimate possible gain. if he gains the whole world... Imagine it. All the power, all the wealth, all the pleasure, all the fame the world has to offer is yours. You own it all. There is nothing left to acquire. This is the pinnacle of human achievement according to the world's standards.

and loses or forfeits himself? Now look at the other side of the ledger. The cost of this acquisition is "himself." You have the whole world, but you have lost your own soul. You have traded your eternal being for a collection of temporal things. It is the ultimate bad bargain. You possess everything, but there is no "you" left to enjoy it. You have become a hollow shell. The profit is zero, because the cost was infinite.

Luke 9:26

"For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels."

For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words... The issue now moves from internal surrender to external confession. Discipleship is not a private affair. The world exerts immense pressure on believers to be quiet, to be embarrassed by the exclusive claims of Christ and the moral demands of His Word. To be ashamed is to value the approval of men more than the approval of God. It is to blush at the cross, to apologize for the gospel, to treat the words of Jesus as if they were a disreputable secret.

the Son of Man will be ashamed of him... Jesus establishes a terrifying principle of reciprocity. Your posture toward Him in this life determines His posture toward you in the next. If you publicly disown Him now, He will publicly disown you then. To be ashamed of Christ now, in His humility, is to be disowned by Christ then, in His glory. This is a solemn and sobering warning.

when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. This is the context in which that final judgment will occur. The one who was meek and lowly, the one who was crucified in weakness, will return in overwhelming, tri-fold glory. His own intrinsic glory as the Son of Man, the reflected glory of the Father, and the attendant glory of the angelic host. On that day, the opinions of your unbelieving coworkers or sophisticated friends will seem like less than nothing. The only opinion that will matter is His, and to be disowned by Him in that moment is the definition of eternal ruin.

Luke 9:27

"But I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God."

But I say to you truthfully... Jesus puts His own authority and veracity behind this next statement. He is about to make a specific, time-bound promise. there are some of those standing here who will not taste death... He is speaking to His immediate audience. This is not a prophecy about some far-flung future generation. Some of the very people listening to His voice would live to see what He was about to describe.

until they see the kingdom of God. What does this mean? It does not refer to the final consummation of all things. Rather, it refers to a powerful and visible manifestation of His kingly rule. This promise was fulfilled in several ways for that generation. It was fulfilled in miniature just a few days later at the Transfiguration, where Peter, James, and John saw His glory (Luke 9:28-36). It was fulfilled powerfully in His resurrection and ascension, when He was vindicated and enthroned at the right hand of the Father. And it was fulfilled historically and geopolitically in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, which was God's definitive judgment on the old covenant order and the public demonstration to the world that Jesus, not Caesar and not the apostate temple system, was King of kings and Lord of lords. Those disciples saw the kingdom come with power, establishing the new covenant era in which we now live.

Application

The words of Christ in this passage are not meant to be admired as profound spiritual aphorisms. They are commands to be obeyed. They are the terms of surrender, and they are to be signed daily. The Christian life is not a playground; it is a battlefield. And the first territory to be conquered is the six inches between your own ears.

First, we must understand that self-denial is not optional. You cannot follow Christ and follow yourself. Every day presents a series of choices where you must deliberately choose His will over your own. This is the daily cross-bearing. It is the constant practice of saying "no" to sin and "yes" to righteousness, not in your own strength, but by the power of the Spirit who dwells in you.

Second, we must learn to do the math correctly. The world is constantly trying to sell us a bill of goods, promising fulfillment in things that can never satisfy. We must have the spiritual sense to see that gaining the whole world at the cost of our soul is a fool's bargain. This means we must be willing to lose in the short term to win in the long term. We must be willing to lose status, comfort, and the approval of men for the sake of Christ.

Finally, our faith must be a public faith. We are not called to be secret agent Christians. In an age that is increasingly hostile to the truth, we must not be ashamed of Jesus or His words. This means speaking the truth in love, living lives of holiness and integrity that adorn the gospel, and being willing to accept the scorn that will inevitably come. For the day is coming when the glory of Christ will be revealed, and on that day, the only thing that will matter is whether He is ashamed of us, or whether He welcomes us as good and faithful servants.