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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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Mark 8:35
Comments
Save your life? Can we do that? Well, the sense should be obvious to us. We are talking about the old life, the life in this world, the life of material things which was our before we knew the Lord. It is the life which served my desires, hopes, and ambitions. I want to save it. I want to be a Christian on the one hand, and yet save my self-determination. I want to be a Christian and yet save all my wealthy possessions, and get even more. I want to find satisfaction in them. I want to be able to boast about where I've got in life, in this material life. I want to be seen and recognised, and have some measure of fame. I want a lot of recreation and entertainment, and this world's entertainment and pleasure. I want to save a large portion of the old life. Whoever wants to do that will lose their life. ‘Yes, but I trusted in Christ. I repented. I believed in him. I go to church every week.’ You’ve still got the old life and the old delights and the old attachments. Again, this is not a condition of salvation. The only condition of salvation by grace through faith alone, is repentance and faith in Christ. But very quickly the fruit comes, and I am willing to die to the old life. Christ was speaking not only to the disciples, but to the crowd, so there's a meaning for both. This is the standard for believers which they must constantly examine themselves by, and it is also condition of coming to Christ in the first place. ‘Whosoever shall lose his life’, the old life; part with it, say goodbye to it – ‘for my sake’, to have me as his companion, his brother, his friend, his Lord; such a one will save his life from destruction. Whosoever will do this for my sake and the gospel's sake, to make me known, to proclaim the gospel, to pray for other people, to work together with others in the church of Christ for the salvation of souls: ‘the same shall save it.’ This is the definition of a truly saved person. If we don't answer to this, we are only nominal; we have only assented; we have never found him. We haven't got a new life; we are busy saving the old one.
Application
But there are churches where lots and lots of the members are unchanged from the lives they lived before there was saved. They are still living for the pleasures of this world and for station and progress and the advancement. And the words of Christ are still true: ‘Whosoever saves the old life will lose it.’ You need fruits of salvation. We need to be all for him, and once we are saved, it dawns on us, and we become wholly his if we are really saved, and we don't want to save the old life. We want the new life which is for him, not for me.
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