LOSING LIFE TO FIND IT IN MATT 10:39?
June 21, 2019
READING TIME: 3-4 MINUTES
“Dave, what did Jesus mean in Matthew 10:39 (compare 16:25-26; Mark 8:35-38; Luke 9:24-26; John 12:25) when he said, ‘He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it?’”
SUMMARY: If a believer lives for himself, he will miss the abundant life that God has for him. But if he forsakes his selfish desires, he will find the abundant life.
It is important to understand how the word “save” is used. It does not always refer to eternal salvation. It simply means to deliver, to preserve from some danger or loss. Usually, we determine its meaning from the context. Here, Jesus has just talked about losing our desires and subsuming them to His desires for us. If someone wants to hang on to his desires and agenda in this world (“save his life”) he will lose what life is all about— experiencing the will of God and the fullness of God’s life. He may gain everything this world has to offer, but miss the greater experience of God’s life now and as a reward in the future (v. 27).
Taken in this way, we see that the word “lose” (Greek, apollumi) is the opposite of “save.” It does not mean to be eternally lost in hell but has the idea of ruin or forfeit. To lose your life is to ruin it or forfeit what God would have it be. Someone can have eternal life yet waste the opportunity to enjoy life’s fullness by living for God now.
What is of interest is that this verb (translated “lose” in Matthew 10:39) is used nineteen times in seventeen verses in the Gospel of Matthew, and Matthew never uses it in the sense of damnation.
It’s enlightening to see how this same verb is used in Luke 15:32 since it sheds light on what it means in Matthew 10:39. So, in Luke 15:32 this same verb is used about the prodigal son who was “lost” (apollumi), but now he has been “found.” Because the term is used in a father/ son relationship, the lost son is still a son, and we, therefore, are not dealing with a person lost in the sense of eternal damnation but lost in the sense of broken fellowship with one’s father. In the words of Jesus, the son thought he was going to find “life,” through money and pleasure, but in actuality, he found a great loss of life; he experienced “death”— the death of goals, fulfillment, success, and family fellowship.
To give an overview if this verb, it is used 90 times in the New Testament. Its most general meaning is “to ruin, destroy” (Luke 5:37; James 1:11). A frequent meaning is to die physically (Matthew 2: 13, 8: 25, 21: 41; Mark 3: 6; Luke 13: 3, etc.). In other contexts, it refers to the loss of reward (Matthew 10:42; 2 John 8). It is also a term in some contexts for eternal damnation (2 Thessalonians 2:10).
It also sheds light on what this verb means in Matthew 10:39 if we look at what it means in other places in the NT. This verb is commonly used of a temporal perishing or psychological and spiritual ruin of believers: “Do not destroy (apollumi) with your food him for whom Christ died” (Romans 14:15); “For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined (apollumi), the brother for whose sake Christ died” (1 Corinthians 8:11).
Thus, it is clear that true believers can be “destroyed” in a spiritual/ psychological sense. Paul speaks elsewhere of this possibility when he says, “Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers” (2 Timothy 2:14).
In conclusion, gaining or forfeiting one’s soul in Matthew 10:39 refers not to gaining or forfeiting one’s eternal destiny, but to the gaining or forfeiting of true life, final significance. If we seek the things this world has to offer while avoiding the hardships that can be involved with knowing Jesus Christ, we lose the very quality of life we desire.
Sources Used
Bing, Charles C. Grace, Salvation, and Discipleship: How to Understand Some Difficult Bible Passages. Grace Theology Press.
Dillow, Joseph. Final Destiny: The Future Reign of The Servant Kings: Fourth Revised Edition. Grace Theology Press, chapters 21, 45.