Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 8:36
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Mar 8:36-37
For what shall it profit a man?
The worth and excellency of the soul
The soul of man is of inestimable value.
1. In respect of its capacity of understanding.
2. In respect of its capacity of moral perfection.
3. In respect of its capacity of pleasure and delight.
4. The high price which God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost have set upon our souls. (Dr. Scott.)
The gain of the world compared with the loss of the soul
I. The gain supposed.
1. It is an uncertain gain-If.
2. It is a difficult gain.
3. It is a trifling gain.
4. It is an unsatisfactory gain,
5. It is a temporary gain.
II. The loss sustained.
1. The loss of heaven.
2. The loss of happiness.
3. The loss of hope.
III. The inquiry proposed.
1. Will the pleasures of sin compensate you for eternal pain?
2. Will any worldly gain compensate you for the loss of the soul?
3. Christ shunned the offer, you accept less.
4. Or will you ask, What must I do to be saved? (H. F. Pickworth.)
I. The manner of propounding this truth. The manner of propounding is by a continued interrogation, which not only carrieth in it more strength than an ordinary negation, but stirreth up the hearer to ponder and well weigh the matter, as if he were to give his judgment and answer; as if the Lord had said in larger speech, Tell me out of your own judgments and best understanding, let your own consciences be judges whether the whole world were a reasonable gain for the loss of the soul, or whether the whole world could recover such a loss, or no.
2. In the manner note another point of wisdom, namely, in matters of much importance, as is the losing of the soul; or else of great danger, as is the winning of the world, to use more than ordinary vehemence.
3. Our Saviour in the manner teacheth how naturally we are all of us inclined to the world, to seek it with all greediness, and so have need of many and strong back biases.
II. The matter affords sundry instructions:-
1. The more a man is addicted to gain the world, the greater is the danger of losing his soul. They that will be rich fall into many temptations and snares.
2. Desire to be rich and gain the world stuffeth the soul with a thousand damnable lusts, everyone able to sink it to hell.
3. Desire of gain threatens danger and singular detriment to the soul; because it brings it almost to an impossibility of repentance and salvation; Mat 19:20 : It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to be saved.
4. As it keeps out grace in all the means of it, so it eats out and casteth it out of the heart, as the lean kine ate up the fat, and were lean and ill-favoured still. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
Gaining the world
What a man loses this side of the grave by this unholy bargain.
1. A good conscience.
2. His communion with God.
3. His hope in the future.
Some are selling their souls-
1. For pleasure.
2. For the world.
3. For business.
4. For fear of ridicule. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
A sum in gospel arithmetic
I propose to estimate and compare the value of the two properties.
I. The world is a very grand property. Its flowers are Gods thoughts in bloom. Its rocks are Gods thoughts in stone. Its dew drops are Gods thoughts in pearl. How beautiful the spring with bridal blossoms in her hair. Oh, you say, take my soul! give me that world. But look more minutely into the value of this world. You will not buy property unless you can get a good title. You cannot get a good title to the world. In five minutes after I give up my soul for the world, I may have to part with it. There is only one way in which I can hold an earthly possession, and that is through the senses: all beautiful sights through the eye, but the eye may be blotted out-all captivating sounds through the ear, but my ear may be deafened-all lusciousness of fruits and viands through my taste, but my taste may be destroyed-all appreciation of culture and of art through my mind, but I may lose my mind. What a frail hold, then, I have upon any earthly possession! Now, in courts of law, if you want to get a man off a property, you must serve upon him a writ of ejectment, giving him a certain time to vacate the premises; but when death comes to us and serves a writ of ejectment, he does not give us one second of forewarning. He says, Off of this place! You have no right any longer to the possession. We might cry out, I gave a hundred thousand dollars for that property-the plea would be of no avail. We might say, We have a warrantee deed for that property-the plea would be of no avail. We might say, We have a lien on that storehouse-the plea would be of no avail. Death is blind, and he cannot see a seal, and cannot read an indenture. So that first and last, I want to tell you that when you propose that I give up my soul for the world, you cannot give me the first item of title. Having examined the title of a property, your next question is about insurance. You would not be silly enough to buy a large warehouse that could not possibly be insured. You would not have anything to do with such a property. Now, I ask you what assurance can you give me that this world is not going to be burned up? Absolutely none. Geologists tell us that it is already on fire, that the heart of the world is one great living coal, that it is just like a ship on fire at sea, the flames not bursting out because the hatches are kept down. And yet you propose to palm off on me, in return for my soul, a world for which, in the first place, you give no title, and in the second place, for which you can give no insurance. Oh, you say, the water of the oceans will wash over all the land and put out the fire. Oh no, there are inflammable elements in the water-hydrogen and oxygen. Call off the hydrogen, and then the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans would blaze like heaps of shavings. You want me to take this world for which you can give no possible insurance. Astronomers have swept their telescopes through the sky, and have found out that there have been thirteen worlds, in the last two centuries, that have disappeared. At first, they looked just like other worlds. Then they got deeply red-they were on fire. Then they got ashen, showing they were burned down. Then they disappeared, showing that even the ashes were scattered. And if the geologist be right in his prophecy, then our world is to go in the same way. And yet you want me to exchange my soul for it. Ah no, it is a world that is burning now. Suppose you brought an insurance agent to look at your property for the purpose of giving you a policy upon it, and while he stood in front of the house, he would say, That house is on fire now in the basement-you could not get any insurance upon it. Yet you talk about this world as though it were a safe investment, as though you could get some insurance upon it, when down in the basement it is on fire. I remark, also, that this world is a property, with which everybody who has taken it as a possession, has had trouble. Now, between my house and this church, there is a reach of land which is not built on. I ask what is the matter, and they reply that everybody who has had anything to do with that property got into trouble about it. It is just so with this world; everybody who has had anything to do with it, as a possession, has been in perplexity. How was it with Lord Byron? Did he not sell his immortal soul for the purpose of getting the world? Was he satisfied with the possession? Alas, alas, the poet graphically describes his case when he says:
Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump
Of fame; drank early, deeply drank; drank draughts
Which common millions might have drank. Then died
Of thirst, because there was no more to drink.
Oh yes, he had trouble with it, and so did Napoleon. After conquering nations by the force of the sword, he lies down to die, his entire possession the military boots that he insisted on having upon his feet while he was dying. So it has been with men who had better ambition. Thackeray, one of the most genial and lovable souls, after he had won the applause of all intelligent lands through his wonderful genius, sits down in a restaurant in Paris, looks to the other end of the room, and wonders whose that forlorn and wretched face is; rising up, after awhile, he finds that it is Thackeray in the mirror. Oh yes, this world is a cheat. Talk about a man gaining the world! Who ever gained half the world?
II. Now, let us look at the other property-the soul. We cannot make a bargain without seeing the comparative value. The soul! How shall I estimate the value of it? Well, by its exquisite organization. It is the most wonderful piece of mechanism ever put together. Machinery is of value in proportion as it is mighty and silent at the same time. You look at the engine and the machinery in the Philadelphia Mint, and as you see it performing its wonderful work, you will be surprised to find how silently it goes. Machinery that roars and tears soon destroys itself; but silent machinery is often most effective. Now, so it is with the soul of man, with all its tremendous faculties-it moves in silence. Judgment without any racket, lifting its scales; memory without any noise, bringing down all its treasures; conscience taking its judgment seat without any excitement; the understanding and the will all doing their work. Velocity, majesty, might; but silence-silence. You listen at the door of your heart. You can hear no sound. The soul is all quiet. It is so delicate an instrument, that no human hand can touch it. You break a bone, and with splinters and bandages the surgeon sets it; the eye becomes inflamed, the apothecarys wash cools it; but the soul off the track, unbalanced, no human power can readjust it. With one sweep of its wing it circles the universe, and over-vaults the throne of God. Why, in the hour of death the soul is so mighty, it throws aside the body as though it were a toy. It drives back medical skill as impotent. It breaks through the circle of loved ones who stand around the dying couch. With one leap it springs beyond star, and moon, and sun, and chasms of immensity. Oh, it is a soul superior to all material things. I calculate further the value of the soul by the price that has been paid for it. In St. Petersburg, there is a diamond that Government paid two hundred thousand dollars for. Well, you say, it must have been very valuable, or the Government would not have paid two hundred thousand dollars for it. I want to see what my soul is worth, and what your soul is worth, by seeing what has been paid for it. For that immortal soul, the richest blood that was ever shed, the deepest groan that was ever uttered, all the griefs of earth compressed into one tear, all the sufferings of earth gathered into one rapier of pain and struck through His holy heart. Does it not imply tremendous value? I argue also the value of the soul from the home that has been fitted up for it in the future. One would have thought that a street of adamant would have done. No, it is a street of gold. One would have thought that a wall of granite would have done. No, it is the flame of sardonyx mingling with the green of emerald. One would have thought that an occasional doxology would have done? No, it is a perpetual song. (Dr. Talmage.)
The chief thing forgotten
So short-sighted and foolish is man! I once read of a woman whose house was on fire. She was very active in removing her goods, but forgot her child, who was asleep in the cradle. At last she thought of the poor babe, and ran, with earnest desire, to save it. But it was now too late; the flames prevented her from crossing the threshold. Judge of the agony of mind which wrung from her the bitter exclamation: Oh, my child! my child! I have saved my goods, but lost my child! So will it be with many a poor sinner, who spent all his life in the occupations of the world, while the one thing needful was forgotten. What will it then avail for a man to say, I secured a good place, or a good trade, or profession, but I lost my soul? I made many friends, but God is my enemy. I heaped up riches, but now they must all be left.
Profit and loss
What is the good of life to us if we do not live? what is the profit of being a man in form and not a man in fact? what is the worth of existence if its worth is all, or, for the most part, outside of us and not in us? There are two remarks which might be made in illustration of this question, in the sense in which I take it.
I. The gain here spoken of is nominal, imaginary.
II. The loss is real, and it is the greatest conceivable.
I. I shall only have time here to say a few words with regard to the latter point. As to the former I will only say, that to lose the soul, not to live mans higher life, is really also to lose the world, whether you mean by it the material world, or the activities and pleasures of human life. It is only in an imaginary, entirely illusory way that any man who loses his soul gains the world. We gain as much of the world as really enriches us, really enters in the shape of thought and feeling into the current of our existence, really affords us unmixed and enduring satisfaction, and we gain no more of the world than this. We have of the world not what we call our own, but what we are able to enjoy and no more. It is not to gain the world, to gain riches which can buy anything the world contains, unless you can buy along with it the power to enjoy it. Thus rich men gain the whole world and do not gain it at all. They have no delight in books, no interest in public affairs, no zest for amusements. They have gained the world, and do not possess it. Their world is almost the poorest conceivable. It does not enrich them. It does not occupy their affections, or fill up their idle hours; it does not lend stir or variety or charm or value to their existence. Cultivate and expand the mind: in proportion as you do so, though your fortunes remain stationary, you gain the world. On the other hand, an educated man may be poor-the inhabitant of a garret or of a cottage; but the world which exists for him, in which he lives, is rich and spacious. In the observation of nature, in the study of books, above all in the study of man, he finds deep, unfailing delights. The seas which break on the shores of other lands, the storms that sweep over them, the streams that flow through them, the people who inhabit them, are all full of interest to him, and possess him And are possessed by him. In comparison with that of a man devoid of intellectual life, his world is one full of a thousand various pleasures, and occupations, and possessions. Without something higher and better than even intellect and mental culture and activity, you cannot gain the world, except in a poor and illusory manner. Only if you have the soul to scorn delights and live laborious days, not for fame but for the good of others, to spend riches and health and intellect and life, not in ministering to selfish tastes, be they either fine or coarse, but in doing good, helping others to be better and happier, in being to them a minister of the things which God has given you, and a herald to them of the glad tidings of Gods love, and mans fellow feeling and charity;-only if you have such a soul can you truly gain the world, enjoy its best, purest, most various, and abundant pleasures and satisfactions, and also have the sting taken out of its worst trials and afflictions. The luxury of doing good in the love of goodness, of giving rather than receiving, is the best and richest which the world affords. It was a luxury to enjoy which the Son of Man advised one whom He loved well, one who had gained the world and had large possessions, to sell all that he had and give it to the poor, and come and follow Him. The gain here spoken of, then, is illusory.
II. The loss is real and immense.
1. In the first place, the soul is lost by not being exercised. Life which is not effort, growth, increase, is not life at all; it is life lost. Souls are not in danger of being lost when they are without such light as we enjoy. They are lost. There is no contingency in the matter. Where mans higher life has not been called forth, the loss is not what may be, but what is-it is condemnation and death. Only compare a savage of any country with a Christian of your own land, and see if the loss is nothing or little. I speak of the heathen abroad, because what is to be said of them has its application at home. Use the body, exercise your limbs, observe the laws which govern the use of your physical nature, and you will thus best secure its health and soundness. In the same way it does not save the soul to entertain, as many do, a constant and worrying anxiety as to the soul. Use the soul, exercise your higher life, and you will thus save the soul, thus promote your higher life.
2. I remark, in the second place, that the soul is lost when it is perverted and corrupted. It is perverted and corrupted in the sphere of the lower life. In this sphere souls are doubly lost, as a citadel for which contending armies strive for weeks and months is doubly lost when those who ought to hold it are driven out and those who ought not to hold it enter in. They are lost as a friend is lost who becomes a foe; they are lost as guns are lost in battle when they are turned upon their retreating owners. When, instead of a man having passions and commanding them, passions possess the man and command him, all human life, all higher life is lost; it is gradually or rapidly narrowed, curtailed, darkened, debased, emptied of its worth and value. The soul is perverted in the sphere of the lower life. It is more important, perhaps, to remark that it is perverted and corrupted in its own sphere. It reminds us that souls are perverted in their own sphere-perverted not only by passion but by religion. If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness! If your religion is false, where can you be in contact with truth? Souls lost through passion often keep a mysterious reserve of goodness in which there is hope. It is not so where religion is not love, but sect and party, selfishness, spiritual pride, bigotry; where religion, instead of demolishing every wall of partition between man and man, and between man and God, erects new barriers and new divisions. Mans higher life of faith and goodness is here under a double curse-it is cut off at once from nature and from grace, it is severed at once from the world and God, it has neither pagan health nor Christian beauty, neither natural bloom nor spiritual glory.
3. It is easy, I remark in conclusion, to exhaust the world and life in all directions but one. As for the great mass of men, they are by their very condition denied all, or almost all, that makes life attractive, beautiful, enjoyable. Even much study itself is a weariness of the flesh. As we think of all this, we are tempted to say-Surely every man walketh in a vain show; they are disquieted in vain. Other life is vain-mans true life is not vanity, nor vexation of spirit. For all men, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, for the drudge toiling in darkness in a mine, for those whose labours are in the lofty fields of science, there is a life possible, not remote, far off, unnatural, but their own life, mans true life, life of faith and goodness, Christs life in the unseen and eternal, from which vanity is remote, to which vexation cannot come, in which the rich find the true use of riches, the learned and gifted of their gifts, the poor an untold wealth in poverty, all men the grandeur, worth, sacredness of this mortal existence. In the same way, I will add, is immortality brought to light also. Flesh and blood may turn again to clay, all human glory may fade; but truth and righteousness and love are Divine and cannot die. A life which is filled by these is a part of the life of God, who inhabiteth eternity. (J. Service, D. D.)
Selling ones soul
I. Let us examine, in the first place, this fine human possession, which the devil wishes to obtain, called, by all of the evangelists who report Jesus words, a mans own soul.
1. Think of this: Each of us has a whole soul to himself. There is that within us which has measureless capacities. There is within us, too, that which has marvellous susceptibilities. A human heart can weep and sing, groan and laugh, shudder and shiver. There is, also, that within us which has untold possibilities. Each birth begins a history, the pages of which are not written out at once. It can be a Nero or a Paul, a Saul or a David, a Bunyan or a Byron, a star or a shadow.
2. Think of this next: This soul is entirely each mans own. We might have expected such a thing, for all Gods gifts and creations are perfect. He gave each human creature one soul, and then he placed the individual owner in dominion over it. Hence, He respects the property title in all His dealings with it. Behold, I stand at the door and knock (see Rev 3:20). Even the devil has no power to steal away a mans soul unawares.
3. Then think of another thing: Great estimates have been set upon the value of a human soul.
4. Then, again, think of this: If lost, this soul of ours is all lost at once. When a soul is sold to the devil, it resembles real estate, in that it carries all improvements with it. For the sale of soul transfers all the powers of it. The intellect enters perdition unchanged. Moreover, this ruin carries with it all the souls sensibilities. We can suffer here; but no one can picture with language how the finally lost at last learn to suffer. The sale of the soul, furthermore, carries with it all its biographies. Our souls are our biographies incorporated in existence. Each fibre of being is a thought, a word, or a feeling. He who sells his soul to the devil sells his fathers tenderness and his mothers tears, his chances of good, his resolutions of reform, his remembrance of Sabbaths, his own fruitless remorses over sin, his educations, his embellishments-his all.
II. Now let us, in the second place, turn to consider the devils price for a soul, called, by the evangelists all alike, the whole world.
1. Observe the rather fine show it makes.
2. But now, on the other hand, it is just fair that men should note some delusive reserves concealed in this luring price. For example, remember that the devil never offered the entire world to anybody except Jesus Christ (see Mat 4:8-9). He never said anything like that to a common man. Let us give even Satan his due. One lie there is he has not yet told upon this earth. He has offered no man the whole world. Nor has any one person ever had it. Nor does anybody keep what he gets.
3. Still further: observe as you contemplate this lure of the devil, which he calls his price, the painful drawbacks one meets in the enjoyment of it after it is attained. The world we get attracts jealousy the moment we have it in possession. Mere possession of the world brings satiety. One of the kings in Europe, it is recorded, wearied and disgusted with luxurious pleasures, offered a vast reward just for the discovery of what he called a new sensation. The princes of the earth are not contented. Rasselas was restless even in the Happy Valley. The gain of this world engenders a fresh craving for more. Poetic justice at least was that when the Parthians rewarded Crassus for the infamy of his avarice by pouring melted gold down his throat until he was full of it; then he had enough, and died. Then love is lost in the strife of desire.
III. All that remains now to be considered, is the grand offer of Christ, as He attempts to arrest the ruinous bargain He sees going rapidly on toward its consummation.
1. First, What does the Saviour say? The answer is found in the context. From this we learn that Christs offer for a mans soul, is the soul itself. It is as if He said, Give Me your soul, and I will secure the everlasting possession of it to yourself; if you will lose your life-or soul-to Me, I will see that you shall save it. He will take nothing away in this transfer but our imperfections and our sins.
2. Then what will the Saviour ask? Only this: Come to Me; repent of sin; trust Me for an atonement; enter upon My service; try to do good; rest in My love; perfect yourself for heaven.
3. Can the Saviour be actually in earnest? The Son of God became the Son of man in order to make this offer for human souls. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Loss of the soul-its extent
I. It is an entire loss. When Francis
I. lost the important battle of Pavia, he described it by saying, We have lost all but honour. But there is nothing to qualify or mitigate the loss of the soul. It is the loss of losses, the death of deaths-a catastrophe unequalled in extent, and unparalleled in its amount through all the universe of God.
II. A loss without compensation. The great fire of London consumed six hundred streets, thirteen thousand dwellings, and ninety churches, and destroyed property to the amount of seven and a half millions of pounds sterling. Yet that calamity was in some sort changed into a blessing; for the rebuilding of the city, in a superior style of architecture, and with more regard to sanitary arrangements, banished forever the fearful plague which had previously made such havoc. But for the loss of the soul nothing can countervail so as to make amends for it.
III. Irreparable. Other losses may be repaired. Lost friendships may be regained or replaced; lost health may be restored; lost property recovered; but the loss of the soul can never be retrieved. When Sir Isaac Newton had lost some most important and complicated calculations, the result of years of patient thought and investigation, by the burning of his papers, the loss to him was immense; and yet, with patience equal to his genius, he could say to the favourite animal that caused it, Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the labour thou hast cost me! But what is the loss even of years of patient philosophic investigation and profound mathematical research, compared with the loss of a human soul, capable of conducting, in some degree, similar investigations, and of repeating and repairing them if lost?
IV. Cast away. The second death. (J. J. Given, M. A.)
How awful the charge of souls
Ministers have taken even the care of immortal souls, their education for eternity, their discipline for heaven! Have we ever essayed, however vain the effort, to take the dimensions of a soul, to sound its depths, and explore its vast capacities? Look at the infant child that appears but little raised above the level of mere vegetable life. Mark the gigantic strides by which he rises in a few short years to such wonders of intelligence, that he dives into the hidden mysteries of nature, calculates the distance of the stars, and, by the magic of his telescope, sees world ascending above world, and system towering above system, up to the footstool of the throne of God! Into what, then, may a soul expand, when, free from the prison house of flesh, it is let out to expatiate amidst its native heavens! Or, what may such a nature be in its ruins, in a fall corresponding to such a height! These, then, are the mighty concerns with which we have professedly engaged to intermeddle. For the perdition or salvation of beings on so immense a scale, we shall have to render an account. (H. Woodward, M. A.)
All gain is loss when a man does not save his soul
He who possesses all things without God, has nothing. No man is so foolish as to be willing to purchase an empire at the price of his life; and yet the world is full of those pretenders to wisdom, who give up salvation and immortal life for a vain pleasure, a handful of money, or an inch of land. How much are the greatest conquerors to be pitied, if, whilst intoxicated with their victories and conquests, they ravage and lay waste the earth, their own souls are laid waste by sin and passion, and destroyed to all eternity. (Quesnel.)
The price of the soul
An appeal to the instincts of common sense, which comes specially home to a commercial nation like the English. The selling price-the market value of everything is challenged. All schemes and proposals-whether in the realm of politics or of commerce-are met with this question. The eager desire for profit carries men away till there is no room left for any other purpose in life. For money men will almost dare to die. There are men who for moneys worth will sell others lives-ship owners the lives of their sailors, mothers the happiness of their daughters. But there are more precious treasures at stake sometimes than even flesh and blood. Some will tamper, for moneys worth, with what involves the loss of the soul. This is a gain which it is dead loss to win; a price which it is suicidal to pay-selling for money that which no money can buy again; giving-like the foolish Glaucus-golden armour for brazen; trading on capital; embarking, with rotten securities, on a bubble scheme. No amount of earthly gain can free the soul from death and judgment. The moral life once gone-its vitality not destroyed but ruined and turned against itself-how shall it be recovered? Even now there is a foretaste of this awful state. At times there is within the heart a very hell of sin; jealousy, covetousness, cruelty, selfishness, all combining to make such a hell within the breast as a man would shrink from disclosing even to his most lenient friend. Plain sober reason, then, obliges us to consider Christs question. (H. B. Ottley M. A.)
What shall it profit
To be good, nay, to pursue goodness as our ruling aim, is to make, or gain our souls. To be bad, or not to follow after that which is good, is to unmake or lose the soul. And hence, whatever other aims we may lawfully, or even laudably, place before us, this should stand first with us all. For what are we profited if we should achieve the highest distinction-what are we profited should we become great poets or artists, great scholars or statesmen, if we did not use our powers for good ends? Or, to use the sacred familiar words, What is any man profited if he should gain the whole world only by the loss of his own soul? Nay, more; what is the world profited if he should lose that? I often think of Sir Walter Scott kissing Lockhart, that bitter man of the world, and saying to him with his dying breath, Be good, my dear, be good. For Scott had gone far both to gain the world, and to lose it; only to discover at last-as sooner or later you will discover-that nothing but goodness is of any real worth. To be good, to do our duty in a dutiful and loving spirit, is the crown and top of all performance. And nothing short of this, nothing apart from this, will be of much comfort to us through life or in death. For, whatever England may do, it is very certain that God expects every man to do his duty-his duty to himself, to God, and to his neighbour-not only on this exceptional day or that, but every day. (S. Cox, D. D.)
Losing the soul
If you yield to temptation and fail in the hour of trial, if you cease from the work and retire from the strife, whatever else you may gain, you will be losing your soul-losing possession of it, losing command of it, losing hope for it. You will be adjudging yourself unworthy of the life eternal, condemning yourself to live in the flesh and walk after the flesh, instead of living and walking in the spirit. All that is noblest, purest, best in you will die for want of sustenance or want of exercise. All that is loftiest and noblest in thought, in morality, in religion, in life, will lose its power over you, its charm for you, and will fail any longer to quicken responses of love and desire within you. If you would know to what depths you may sink should you relinquish your aim, you have only to recall an experience which can hardly be strange to any man of mature years who has kept his soul alive. For who has not met an early friend, after long years of separation, only to find that by addicting himself to sensuous or selfish aims, by cherishing a vulgar and worldly spirit-or, in a word, by walking after the flesh-he has belied all the fair promise of his youth, and grown insensible to the charm and power of all that you still hold to be fairest, noblest, best? Speak to him of the open secrets of beauty, of purity, of truth, of love, and he stares at you as one who listens to a forgotten dream; or perhaps-as I once saw a poor fellow do-bursts into tears, and exclaims, No one has spoken to me like that for an age! If you would waken any real interest in him, elicit any frank response, your whole talk must take a lower range; you must come down to the level on which he now lives and moves. What has the man been doing with himself all these years? He has been losing his soul, suffering it to lust in him unused. He has exchanged his immortal jewel, not for the whole world-though even that were a losing bargain-but for a little of that which even the world confesses to be vile and sordid and base. To that base level even you may sink, if, amid all trials and temptations and defeats, you do not steadfastly pursue the high spiritual aim which Christ invites and commands you to cherish; if you do not seek above all else to be good, and do not therefore follow after whatsoever things are just, true, pure, fair. Hold fast to that aim, then; that by your constancy you may gain and possess your soul. (S. Cox, D. D.)
Loss of the soul
And what is it to lose a soul? It is to let weeds grow there instead of flowers. It is to let selfishness grow, suspicious, curious tempers grow, wantonness grow, until they have all the field to themselves. Set these in full force within a being, and add, if you will, a whole universe of possession: it is hell You may think that these are only strong rhetorical words. It is just as simple literal fact as that two and two make four. I do not think that you will need to look far around you in the world for the proof of it. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Monuments of soul ruin
Often, when travelling among the Alps, one sees a small black cross planted upon a rock, or on the brink of a torrent, or on the verge of a highway, to mark the spot where men have met with sudden death by accident. Solemn reminders these of our mortality! but they led our mind still further; for, we said within us, if the places where men seal themselves for the second death could be thus manifestly indicated, what a scene would this world present! Here the memorial of a soul undone by yielding to a foul temptation, there a conscience seared by the rejection of a final warning, and yonder a heart forever turned into a stone, by resisting the last tender appeal of love. Our places of worship would scarce hold the sorrowful monuments which might be erected over spots where spirits were forever lost-spirits that date their ruin from sinning against the gospel while under the sound of it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Lost, in seeking for gain
One summer afternoon, a steamer crowded with passengers, many of them miners from California, was speeding along the Mississippi. Striking suddenly and strongly against the wreck of another vessel which, unknown to the captain, lay near the surface of the water, her bow was stove in, and she began to fill rapidly. Her deck was a scene of wild confusion. Her boats were launched, but did not suffice to carry off one-fourth of the terrified passengers. The rest, divesting themselves of their garments, cast themselves into the river, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship and so it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land. Some minutes after the last of them had quitted the vessel, another man appeared on her deck. Seizing a spar, he also leaped into the river, but instead of floating as the others had done, he sank instantly as if he had been a stone. His body was afterwards recovered, and it was found that he had employed the quarter of an hour, in which his fellow passengers had been striving to save their lives, in rifling the trunks of the miners. All around his waist their bags of gold were fastened. In one short quarter of an hour he had gained more gold than most men earn in their lifetime; but was he advantaged thereby, seeing that he lost himself? And though you should gain power, or rank, or fame, or learning, or great wealth; though your life should be one prolonged triumphal procession, all men applauding you; though all your days you should drink unrestrained of the cup of the worlds pleasures, and never reach its bitter dregs; yet what shall you be advantaged if, nevertheless, you lose yourself, and, at last, instead of being received into heaven, are cast away? (R. A. Bertram.)
Great loss for momentary gratification
When Lysimachus was engaged in a war with the Getae, he was so tormented by thirst, that he offered his kingdom to his enemies for permission to quench it. His exclamation, when he had drunk the water they gave him, is striking. Ah, wretched me, who for such a momentary gratification have lost so great a kingdom!
What shall a man give in exchange for his soul
Think what a solemn question these words of our Lord Jesus Christ contain! What a mighty sum they propound to us for calculation!
I. Every one of us has an undying soul. This is not the only life we have to do with-we have every one of us an undying soul. There is a conscience in all mankind that is worth a thousand metaphysical arguments. What though we cannot see it? Are there not millions of things which we cannot see, and of the existence of which we have nevertheless no doubt? I do ask you to realize the dignity and the responsibility of having an immortal soul; to realize that in your soul you have the greatest talent that God has committed to your charge. Know that in your soul you have a pearl above all price, the loss of which nothing can ever make up.
II. Anyone may lose his own soul. Weak as we are in all things that are good, we have a mighty power to do ourselves harm. You cannot save that soul of yours, remember that. We are all by nature in great peril of losing our souls. But someone may ask, How may a man lose his soul? The answers to that question are many. Just as there are many diseases which assault and hurt the body, so there are many evils which assault and hurt the soul. Numerous, however, as are the ways in which a man may lose his own soul, they may be classed under these three heads.
1. You may murder your own soul by open sin, or serving lusts and pleasures.
2. You may poison your own soul by taking up some false religion.
3. You may starve your own soul to death by trifling and indecision. But, does it take much trouble to ruin a soul? Oh, no! Theres nothing you need do! You have only to sit still, etc. But are there many, you ask, who are losing their souls? Yes, indeed, there are t But, who is responsible for the loss of your soul? No one but yourself! But, where does your soul go when it is lost? There is but one place to which it can go.
III. The loss of any mans soul is the heaviest loss he can suffer. No man living can show the full extent of the loss of the soul, nor paint it in its true colours. Nothing can ever make up for the loss of the soul in the life that now is. The loss of property and character are not always irreparable; once lost the soul is lost for evermore. The loss of his soul is irretrievable! Does any one of you wish to have some clear idea of the value of a soul? Then go and see what men think about the value of a soul when they are dying. Go and read the sixteenth chapter of St. Luke. Measure it by the price that was paid for it eighteen hundred years ago. We shall all understand the value of a soul one day. Seek to know its value now. Do not be like the Egyptian queen, who, in foolish ostentation, took a pearl of great value, dissolved it in some acid, and then drank it off. Do not, like her, east away that precious soul of yours, that pearl above all price, that God has committed to your charge.
IV. Any mans soul may be saved. I dare say the proclamation is startling to some; it was once startling to me. How can these things be? No wonder you ask that question. This is the great knot the heathen philosophers could never untie-this is the problem which sages of Greece and Rome could not solve-this is a question which nothing can answer but the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1. Because Christ has died upon the cross to bear mens sins.
2. Because Christ still lives.
3. Because the promises of Christs gospel are full, free, and unconditional.
Application:
1. Do not neglect your own soul.
2. Come to Christ without delay.
3. To all who have sought to have their souls saved, and have found Jesus a Saviour, cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart, etc. (Bishop Ryle.)
The soul
The soul is excellent in its nature. It is a spiritual being, it is a kind of angelical thing. The mind sparkles with knowledge, the will is crowned with liberty, and all the affections are as stars shining in their orbs. How quick are the motions of a spark! How swift the wings of cherubim! So quick and agile are the motions of the soul. What is quicker than thought? How many miles can the soul travel in an instant? The soul being spiritual moves upward; it has also a self-moving power, and can subsist when the body is dead, as the mariner can subsist when the ship is broken; it is also immortal-a bud of eternity. (T. Watson.)
Preciousness of the soul
It is a misapplication of forces for the nobler to spend itself upon the meaner. Men do not usually care to spend a pound in the hope of getting back a groat and no more, and yet, when the soul is given up for the sake of worldly gain, the loss is greater still, and not even the groat remains. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Soul a jewel
The soul is a jewel, a diamond set in a ring of clay; the soul is a glass in which some rays of the divine glory shine; it is a celestial spark lighted by the breath of God. (T. Watson.)
Winning the world
I do verily believe, that the winning of the whole world of power, is in itself so slight a gain, that it were fair to strike the balance, and say there is little left; for even Alexander himself envied the peasant in his cottage, and thought there was more happiness on the plains among the shepherds than in his palace amongst his gold and silver. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
A witness to the worth of the world
Alexander, I summon thee! what thinkest thou: is it worth much to gain the world? Is its sceptre the wand of happiness? Is its crown the security of joy? See Alexanders tears! He weeps! Yes, he weeps for another world to conquer! Ambition is insatiable! The gain of the whole world is not enough. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Profit and loss
I. What is a man profited if he should gain the whole world? Power over extensive empires. Power over great riches. Treasures of knowledge and pleasures. What will it profit him when he comes to die? In the day of judgment? when he gets to hell?
II. The losing the soul. Its intrinsic value. Its capabilities. Where the soul must go to that is lost.
III. The practical lesson. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Gaining the world pretty sport
This world is like the boys butterfly-it is pretty sport to chase it; but bruise its wings by an over-earnest grasp, and it is nothing but a disappointment. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Luke saith, if he lose himself and be cast away. Though was rightly translated life in the former verse, the sense justifying that translation of it there, yet here it is as truly translated soul; for there are many things which men value in proportion with their lives, their honour, estates, nay, many value their lusts above their lives; and Christ himself here teacheth us that his disciples ought to value his honour and glory, and their steady profession of faith and holiness, above their life, because he that will lose his life shall save it. See the notes on these words, See Poole on “Mat 16:26“.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
For what shall it profit a man,…. In the long run, in the issue of things, who by denying Christ, and his Gospel, may not only save his life for the present, but procure for himself great riches and wealth:
if he shall gain the whole world; were that possible to be done, and which the ambitious, worldly man is desirous of; yet supposing he: had his desire, of what avail would this be in the upshot of things, should the following be his case, as it will,
and lose his own soul? which is immortal and everlasting, when the world, and the glory of it pass away, and so is of more worth than the whole world. The world can only be enjoyed for a season, and that with a great deal of fatigue and trouble; but the soul continues for ever; and if it is lost and damned, its torment always abides, and the smoke of it ascends for ever, its worm never dies, and its fire is never quenched; [See comments on Mt 16:26].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Gain – lose. See on Mt 16:26.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “For what shall it profit a man,” (ti gar ophelei anthropon) ”For what does a man profit,” what is the ultimate, the lasting advantage, the capital or dividend gain.
2) “If he shall gain the whole world,” (kerdesai ton kosmon holon) “To gain the whole world,” if it were possible, an hypothetical case, contrary to fact. No one ever has or ever will, not even the Devil, for his own, Psa 49:6-8.
3) “And lose his own soul?” (kai zernothenai ten psuchen autou) “And to be fined (zapped) of his soul-life?” lose all of life’s acquisitions, Jas 5:1-3; 2Th 1:6-9.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(36, 37) His own soul.Better, life in both verses. The word lose is not the same as in Mar. 8:35, and had, perhaps, better be rendered forfeit, as implying, what the other word does not necessarily imply, the idea of a penalty.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
‘For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?’
His question was this, is anything worth having or clinging on to if it means losing eternal life? If we gain the whole world, what is it worth if it means that we lose our hope of eternal life? There is life on offer to man, but it is like the pearl of great price. In order to obtain it, it is necessary to sacrifice everything else (Mat 13:45). At the last, then, who will have made the best bargain? The man who gains the whole world, or the man who sacrifices all that he has and obtains the pearl of great price, his place under the Kingly Rule of God for himself? Herod had gained much of this world, and John the Baptiser only a dark and dreary dungeon, but who would exchange the reward of John the Baptiser for his?
We have here translated psuche as ‘life’. It is an illusive word. It can refer to the inner life, or to the self, or to what we often call ‘the soul’, as long as by that we do not refer to a separate entity within a man. For in the end ‘body, soul and spirit’ are all aspects of the self. Thus to lose our soul is to lose our essential selves.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Ver. 36. For what shall it profit a man ] And yet many do as Shimei, that, to seek his servants, lost himself. And as Jonah, that was content to be cast into the sea, that the ship with her lading might come safe to shore.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
if he shall gain, &c. See App-118.
world. Greek. kosmos. App-129.
soul = life. Same word as life “in Mar 8:35. See Mat 16:26.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
A World for a Life
For what doth it profit a man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life (RVm. soul)? For what should a man give in exchange for his life (RVm. soul)?Mar 8:36-37.
1. The text is often spoken of as if it stated a problem in profit and loss. But the point of it may be missed in that way. For a man may have some profit and suffer some loss, and balance the one against the other. Christ says it is all profit or all loss. It is in fact an exchange. We have a life and barter it for a world. It is a double exchange, or an attempt at it. First the life is given for the worldWhat doth it profit a man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life? And then, when the bargain is seen to be a bad one, the attempt is made to barter the world for the lifeWhat should a man give in exchange for his life?
We are not to understand these two verses, says James Vaughan,1 [Note: Sermons, iv. 1.] as if they conveyed exactly the same truth. The thoughts are twoand perfectly distinct. The firstsupposing a man to have his soul, is, What shall it profit him if, for any advantage whatsoever, he loses it? And the other, supposing he has lost it, How can he get it again?
2. This does not raise the question, once much debated, whether it is possible to make the best of both worlds. In that question the two worlds are taken to mean the present and the future, and between these there is no opposition. If a man does not make the best of this world, by finding God in it and living for Him, he will not make the best of the world to come; nor will he make anything of it. In our text the question is between finding pleasure in this world apart from God, or finding God in this world and all our pleasure in Him.
So we have first the World, next the Life, and then the double exchange between these two.
I
The World
What is the World? It is this world we live in. God made the world: did He not make it to be enjoyed and used by man? Undoubtedly He did. But not that the world should be enjoyed to the exclusion of the Maker of it. Suppose that you invite some one to your table. You furnish the table. But what would you think of the guest who occupied himself entirely with the table, eating and drinking without once lifting up his head to hold conversation with you? God made man chiefly for conversation and communion with Himself. And when a man prefers to occupy himself with the good things of this world, he is gaining the world and losing his own soul.
To gain the world is to gain (1) the riches of the world, as the rich young ruler (Mar 10:22), or as Demas; (2) the honours and fame of the world, as Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 4:30), or as Herod (Act 12:21-23); (3) the sinful pleasures of the world (Heb 11:25; Pro 23:31); (4) the amusements and follies of the world (Ecc 11:9).1 [Note: R. Brewin.]
At Aix-la-Chapelle is the tomb of the great Emperor Charlemagne. He was buried in the central space beneath the dome; but the manner of his burial is one of the most impressive sermons ever preached. In the death-chamber beneath the floor he sat on a marble chairthe chair in which kings had been crownedwrapped in his Imperial robes. A book of the Gospel lay open in his lap; and as he sat there, silent, cold, motionless, the finger of the dead mans hand pointed to the words of Jesus: What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?2 [Note: H. H. Griffiths.]
I built me my own little world,
Not Godbut my world was fair;
I perfumed it fragrant with blossoms,
I hedged it around with care.
And I said, It is well; it is quarried
Strong now, as strong love dare plan;
A home for two hearts it is carven,
Built by the will of a man.
And I shouted and sang Jubilate!
The heart within me was light,
It heard not the brooding footstep
That bringeth the blinding night.
It saw not the cloud from the sun-set
A man might hold in his hand,
Yet it swam on nearer and blacker,
To darken my pleasant Land.
And a wind span out o the East
God has foura sword his breath,
And he shook my portals and pillars
With a shaking that meaneth death.
God o four winds! Thine east wind smote it;
My fair world trembled and fell:
Still I stoodat my feet in ashes
Lay the World I loved so well.1 [Note: Agnes H. Begbie, The Rosebud Wall, 21.]
II
The Life
What is the Life? The word psyche, here translated life, and often translated soul, is the equivalent of nephesh in Hebrew, the conscious life of feeling and desire. The New Testament distinguishes this life from merely physical animation on the one hand, and from the higher life of the pneuma on the other. Thus the life or soul () holds a mediating position between the body () and the spirit (), and the word is used with a lower or a higher reference in different contexts. So says Swete, and gives examples of the lower reference (Mat 2:20; Mat 6:25; Joh 10:15 ff.; Rom 11:3; Php 2:30), and of the higher (Mat 11:29; Mar 14:34; Joh 12:27; Heb 6:19; 1Pe 1:22).
Life, says Menzies, stands here, not for one of several elements of the human person, as with Paul, but for the whole sentient life of the individual. Christ does not mean, says Stopford Brooke,1 [Note: The Gospel of Joy, 266.] a personal, selfish thing inside of you which was in danger of hell-fire or punishment, and which had first to be saved from them, and then put into a comfortable position in heaven. But He did mean all those qualities and their harmonies which make up in a man, in a society or in a nation, a character like the character of God, our Father.
What an incalculable depth of gratitude we owe to our authorized English translation of the Bible! But it has done us all the same a few wrongs; and among these not the least considerable is that often, even in the same passage, it has translated one word in the original at one time soul and at another time life. The result is we have got into the habit of thinking that a mans soul is something mystical, something vague, something different from that actual, breathing, struggling human life which he knows so well. But it is not so. The soul is nothing else than the life, the sum of vital powers which we expend. To save your soul is nothing else than to preserve your life; to make the best of yourself; to lose your soul is nothing else than to defile, to spoil, to waste your vital powers, to make the worst of yourself. Of course, if this is to be true, you must remember that your soul is yourself and yours beyond the grave; and to save your soul is to make the best of yourself considered as an immortal being.2 [Note: Bishop Gore.]
What is it to lose the soul? It is (1) to lose Christ and all spiritual enjoyments; (2) to lose heaven and all its joys for ever; (3) to lose all rest and peace to all eternity (Rev 14:11); (4) to lose all hope of ever bettering our condition (Rev 9:6); (5) to lose the very world itself (Luk 16:23-24).3 [Note: R. Brewin.]
Large numbers of men hardly seem to have a life to forfeit; they can hardly be said to live; their intellect has never felt the thrill which comes with a true intellectual awakening; their conscience has never discovered how august duty is; the infinite mystery and glory of the eternal Kingdom which environs every man has never been revealed to them; there are the germs and the possibilities in them of a very great life, but the germs have never been quickened, the possibilities are remote from realisation.4 [Note: R. W. Dale.]
I remember some years ago being present at a meeting held in honour of an old teacher who was passing into retirement. A large company had gathered together, among them men who had made their mark in public life. Several of these rose and spoke in the old mans praise. He was not a man of unusual attainments or of notable gifts, but he had evidently done these men, who were paying him honour, a service they had come long distances to acknowledge. As I listened to the words of generous eulogy I discerned what it was that drew them all to respectful gratitude. The words they quoted with deepest feeling were not his pregnant comments on men and things, not his wittiest jests, and not his wisest counsels. They were the words in which they had felt the trembling of a deep passion, all the deeper for a shy mans reticence, which believed that each of them had a spiritual nature to be created anew in the image of Christ. These men, busy in the keen struggle of life, one by one bowed down in reverence before the man whose years had been spent, and whose duty had been fulfilled, under a supreme sense of the value of the soul.1 [Note: W. M. Clow.]
III
The Exchange
The exchange is to give the man himself, all that makes him a man, for the things that are without. And when the discovery is made that the exchange is a bad one, it is the futile attempt to get back the man in exchange for the things. But it may be considered in respect of the physical life, the intellectual life, the moral and social life, and the spiritual life.
1. The Physical Life.Does it profit a man if he gain the world and forfeit his physical life? Is the loss of bodily strength, physical vigour, nervous energy, and all the capacity for enjoyment which these things bringis that loss sufficiently offset by the gain of a whole world? The other evening I counted over in my mind no fewer than thirteen men who within recent years had died under fifty-two years of age literally from the pressure of overwork. These were all highly successful men, not licentious nor drunkards, and not all of them were irreligious men. But in gaining their little world they had simply toiled and struggled for themselves, denied themselves hours of relaxation and rest. Late and soon they were at the daily grind of getting without spending, and, physically depleted, they died, not only in the prime of manhood, but in the summit of success, when, humanly speaking, there was everything to live for. They had gained a world, and had forfeited the only life which could enjoy it. At their funerals, I doubt not, remarks were made on the mysterious Providence which had cut short their days in the meridian of their maturity. But, as a matter of fact, there was no mysterious Providence about it. The men had died by their own acts, by the surrender of the righteous claims of their physical life in the struggle to gain a world. Well, was it worth while? Does that bargain pay? Is money of so much matter to any man that he should make himself a suicide for that one end?1 [Note: D. Sage Mackay.]
One summer afternoon a steamer crowded with passengers, many of them miners from California, was speeding along the Mississippi. Striking suddenly and strongly against the wreck of another vessel, which, unknown to the captain, lay near the surface of the water, her bow was stove in, and she began to fill rapidly. Her deck was a scene of wild confusion. Her boats were launched, but did not suffice to carry off one-fourth of the terrified passengers. The rest, divesting themselves of their garments, cast themselves into the river, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land. All except one. Some minutes after the last of them had quitted the vessel, another man appeared on her deck. Seizing a spar, he also leaped into the river, but, instead of floating, as the others had done, he sank instantly, as if he had been a stone. His body was afterwards recovered, and it was found that he had employed the quarter of an hour in which his fellow passengers had been striving to save their lives, in rifling the trunks of the miners. All round his waist their bags of gold were fastened. In one short quarter of an hour he had gained more gold than most men earn in their lifetime.2 [Note: A. C. Price.]
2. The Intellectual Life.You can see men dying, dying as trees sometimes die, not from the roots but from the top. It is a melancholy sight. Their intellect is dying year by year as they become richer. Fifteen years ago their intellectual interests were vigorous, varied, and active; now they are narrow, monotonous, and languid; their whole strength has gone into the pursuit of wealth, and all their higher intellectual faculties are withering. I do not mean merely that very much of the book knowledge that they had when they left school or college has been lostloss of that kind is almost inevitable, and no great harm comes of it. I remember hearing a very able man, who was a high wrangler (I am not sure whether he was not a senior), I remember hearing him say, I should be very sorry if I remembered all the mathematics I knew when I took my degree. But men not only lose their book knowledge, they lose their very intellectual life. Through this passionate devotion to business some of the intellectual powers decay, and you can see them decaying, and that, I say, is a melancholy thing; they keep their eyesight, their hearing is as keen as ever; but their higher faculties are fast going; they are no longer able to feel the enchantment, the fascination, the wonder of the great creations of geniusMiltons majestic song, the meditative verse of Wordsworth, the sweet music of Shelley, the storm winds that sweep through the verse of Byron, the childlike charm of Charles Lamb, the political vision of Edmund Burke and the gorgeous pomp of his rhetorichave lost all power to console, to charm, to animate them.1 [Note: R. W. Dale.]
The late George Romanes, one who himself stood in the first rank of scientific knowledge, and who enjoyed a singularly large range of acquaintance among men of light, has put it on record in his posthumous thoughts about religion that he has found it in his own experience true,and he passed the greater part of his life in unbelief, though, thank God, that unbelief passed into belief at the endand in that of his friends, that wide knowledge does not make a man happy; for man is personal, he was made for God, and unquiet is the heart of man until it rests in Thee.2 [Note: Bishop Gore.]
Only the other day a well-known man told me that some years ago he had sent a copy of his first book, then just published, to a prominent master of finance, a man who, from nothing, had amassed a colossal fortune. Some time after, my friend met this man, who, in congratulating the author, remarked that he should feel particularly flattered by the fact that he had read the book at all. Why so? inquired my friend. Because, replied the millionaire, it is the only book of any kind I have read in five years!1 [Note: D. Sage Mackay.]
3. The Moral and Social Life.The records of recent days, involving the downfall of so many men high up in public estimation, have revealed, as with flaming fingers, how possible it is in these days to secure reputation and wealth and influence at the expense of integrity and honour. In the fierce struggle for wealth men have deliberately trampled their principles, and in gaining a world they have forfeited their moral ideals.
And what is true of the moral life of the individual is not less true of the social life. There is the steady effort which the capitalists in England are now making for mastery; there is the effort which labour is making against the capitalists. It is not my business here to approve or to blame either section, but it is my business to say that if either side, during the strife, or after the victory, lose their soulif they lose the sense of justice between man and man; if they forget that men, being Gods children, are brothers one of another, knit together by love; if in victory, they are greedy of self-interest or cruel; if they do wrong to freedom, if they are not magnanimous, if they become incapable of forgivenessthere will be no true advantage to themselves in their success, and they will do harm to mankind.2 [Note: Stopford Brooke.]
There was one living who, scarcely in a figure, might be said to have the whole world. The Roman Emperor Tiberius was at that moment infinitely the most powerful of living men, the absolute, undisputed, deified ruler of all that was fairest and richest in the kingdoms of the earth. There was no control to his power, no limit to his wealth, no restraint upon his pleasures. And, to yield himself still more unreservedly to the boundless self-gratification of a voluptuous luxury, not long after this time he chose for himself a home on one of the loveliest spots on the earths surface, under the shadow of the slumbering volcano, upon an enchanting islet in one of the most softly delicious climates of the world. What came of it all? He was, as Pliny calls him, tristissimus ut constat hominum, confessedly the most gloomy of mankind. And there, from this home of his hidden infamies, from this island where on a scale so splendid he had tried the experiment of what happiness can be achieved by pressing the worlds most absolute authority, and the worlds guiltiest indulgences, into the service of an exclusively selfish life, he wrote to his servile and corrupted Senate, What to write to you, Conscript Fathers, or how to write, or what not to write, may all the gods and goddesses destroy me worse than I feel that they are daily destroying me, if I know. Rarely has there been vouchsafed to the world a more overwhelming proof that its richest gifts are but fairy gold that turns to dust and dross, and its most colossal edifices of personal splendour and greatness no more durable barrier against the encroachment of bitter misery than are the babes sandheaps to stay the mighty march of the Atlantic tide.1 [Note: Farrar, Life of Christ, i. 136.]
4. The Spiritual Life.But it is of the diviner regions of life that our Lord was especially thinking. If the signs of failing health, of approaching death, are not hard to recognise in the physical, they are not harder to recognise in the spiritual, sphere. There is less reverence in worship, there is less care for it, there is less heart in it; Christ, the living Christ, is not so constantly present to the thought; there is less of exultation in Him; His glory is gradually becoming dim, and it seems to have descended from the heights, and to have taken its place with no splendours about it among common men. Faith in Christ is less vigorous and intense, and there is less concern that other men should have faith in Him. If a man who was an effective Sunday-school teacher at twenty is only a Bank Director or a Town Councillor at fifty, if he has no spiritual gift and can do no spiritual work, honourable and Christian as his present function is if fulfilled in a spirit of loyalty to Christ, he has suffered loss of life, loss of rank. If, however, with the public functions he still possesses and exercises the spiritual gift, and exercises it faithfully, then it is well with him, his life is fuller and richer than before.2 [Note: R. W. Dale.]
A man must live; we justify
Low shift and trick to treasure high
A little note for a little gold
To a whole senate bought and sold
By that self-evident reply.
But is it so? Pray tell me why
Life at such cost you have to buy?
In what religion were you told
A man must live?
There are times when a man must die.
Imagine, for a battle cry,
For soldiers, for soldiers with a sword to hold
For soldiers with the flag unrolled
This cowards whine, this liars lie
A man must live?
A World for a Life
Literature
Askew (E. A.), The Service of Perfect Freedom, 76.
Brooke (S. A.), The Gospel of Joy, 263.
Butler (H. M.), Harrow School Sermons, ii. 259.
Clow (W. M.), The Secret of the Lord, 123.
Finney (C. G.), The Way of Salvation, 48.
Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year: Lent to Passiontide, 115.
Lightfoot (J. B.), Ordination Addresses, 271.
Little (W. J. Knox), The Hope of the Passion, 130.
Mills (B. R. V.), The Marks of the Church, 164.
Mursell (W. A.), The Waggon and the Star, 32.
Neville (W. G.), Sermons, 34.
Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, vii. 177.
Ryle (J. C.), The Christian Race, 231.
Spurgeon (C. H.), New Park Street Pulpit, ii., No. 92.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), iv., No. 452.
Vaux (J. E.), Sermon Notes, 3rd Ser., 2.
Christian World Pulpit, xv. 30 (Solomon); xviii. 202 (Cuthbertson); xlvii. 161 (Gore); l. 36 (Dale); liii. 252 (Wilkin).
Churchmans Pulpit (General Advent Season), xiv. 155 (Hobhouse).
Homiletic Review, lvi. 138 (Mackay).
Preachers Magazine, [1900] 430 (Brewin).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
what: Job 2:4, Psa 49:17, Psa 73:18-20, Mat 4:8-10, Mat 16:26, Luk 9:25, Luk 12:19, Luk 12:20, Luk 16:19-23, Phi 3:7-9, Rev 18:7, Rev 18:8
profit: Job 22:2, Mal 3:14, Rom 6:21, Heb 11:24-26, Jam 1:9-11
Reciprocal: Job 27:8 – General Psa 62:10 – riches Pro 4:7 – with Ecc 1:3 – profit Ecc 5:16 – what Jer 41:8 – Slay Eze 28:18 – by the iniquity Mat 5:29 – for Mat 10:39 – General Luk 10:42 – one Luk 16:22 – the rich
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
PROFIT AND LOSS
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Mar 8:36
Christ does not ask men how they will answer at Gods bar for their lives, only how they will answer for their conduct to themselves, and how the gain and loss will stand at the final settlement.
I. The supposed gain.
(a) A limited use only of the world can be made. True, Christ speaks of the whole world, and thus gives the worldling the benefit of the supposition that he can gain it entirely. But the gain of the whole world is an utter impossibility to any man; and were it a possibility, very little use could be made of it by him. Others must necessarily share in it.
(b) The gain of a world cannot satisfy a man. An outward thing, however great and grand it may be, cannot possibly fill the inward soul.
(c) The holding, moreover, is not for ever. Supposing a man could gain the whole world, his tenure of it is short indeed; and then, when a man seems to need the world most, it gallops away from him, and leaves him to his fate. When this happens, all former profit, real or supposed, is at an absolute end.
II. The actual loss.
(a) That of a mans soul. But what is a soul? It is a mans conscious being. God is the maker of the soul; and He made it in the likeness of the Triune, filling it with life and immortality. It is, therefore, the gem of creationthe wonder of the universe!
(b) The standard of its value. The worth of a thing is tested by the price any one thoroughly understanding it will give for it, or will require as an equivalent for it. But man cannot appraise the value of his own soul (Mic 6:6-7). God has done this for him in a wonderfully gracious and perfect manner (Joh 3:16).
(c) The loss of it is beyond all calculation. As the worth of the soul immeasurably transcends all that material wealth and carnal grandeur of which the wildest ambition can form a notion, its loss, then, must rank next to the loss of its God!
Illustration
Thus sublimely but mournfully Robert Hall describes the final solemnities of a lost soul: Whatif it be lawful to indulge such a thoughtwould be its funeral obsequies? Where shall we find the tears fit to be wept at such a spectacle? or, could we realise the calamity in all its extent, what tokens of commiseration and concern would be deemed equal to the occasion? Would it suffice for the sun to veil his light, and the moon her brightness? to cover the ocean with mourning and the heavens with sackcloth? Or, were the whole fabric of nature to become animated and vocal, would it be possible for her to utter a groan too deep, or a cry too piercing, to express the magnitude and extent of such a catastrophe?
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE IMPORTANCE OF LIFE
This familiar passage is somewhat obscured in the Authorised Version.
I. There is a contrast to life and soul which the original does not contain. Life, in Mar 8:35, and soul, in Mar 8:36-37, are the same word, and ought to be translated by the same word throughout. The Authorised Version does not represent the distinction between the two words rendered lose. In Mar 8:35 a man may lose his life in his masters service; but he cannot forfeit it (Mar 8:36) except by his own default. The text teaches
II. The paramount importance of life in its fullest and highest sense. Anything a man has may perish, but he remains; or, he may perish and his possessions survive.
III. The practical application.
(a) Have we the principle of real life in us?
(b) Nothing can compensate for loss of this true life.
(c) Life in Christ, the gift of God, by the merits of Christ.
Rev. Barton R. V. Mills.
Illustrations
(1) When Lysimachus was engaged in a war with the Get, he was so tormented by thirst that he offered his kingdom to his enemies for permission to quench it. His exclamation, when he had drunk the water with which they furnished him, is striking. Ah, wretched me, who, for such a momentary gratification, have lost so great a kingdom! How applicable is this to the case of those who for the momentary pleasures of sin, part with the Kingdom of Heaven!
(2) There is such a thing as a man holding his soul in his own custody; and there is such a thingand it is no matter of fiction, but it is a thing which is happening every daythere is such a thing as a man selling his soul to the devil! It is a fearful thingthat there should be going on, every day, a traffic in the world like this! a traffic, not of material commodities, but a traffic of souls! A little pleasure, a little money taken, and the prize actually givena soul! an undying soul! a soul, with all its capacities of joy and anguish, for ever and ever!
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
6.
Profit means to obtain from an investment more than was put into it. If a man buys the whole world with the price of his soul he will be a loser, for the price paid is many times more valuable than the thing purchased.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mar 8:36-37. These verses are emended in accordance with the best readings.life, same word as in Mar 8:35, comp. Mat 16:25-26.
In exchange, lit, as a ransom price. The price which the earthly minded gives for the world is his life, in the highest sense. But after having laid that down as the price, what has he as a counter price (that is the exact sense of the Greek word), to buy the life back again?
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Our Saviour had shewn in the former verses the great danger of seeking to save our temporal life, by exposing to hazard our eternal life. This he confirms in the words before us by a double argument: the first drawn from the excellency of eternal life, or the life of the soul: the second from the irrecoverableness of this loss, or the impossibility of redeeming the loss of the soul by any way or means whatsoever. What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Learn, 1. That Almighty God has intrusted every one of us with a soul of inestimable worth and presciousness, capable of being saved or lost, and that to all eternity.
2. That the gain of the whole world is not comparable with the loss of one precious soul; the soul’s loss is an inconceivable, irrecompensible, and irrecoverable loss.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
8:36 {11} For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
(11) They are the most foolish of all men who purchase the pleasures of this life with the loss of everlasting bliss.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The psyche in these verses means the essential person. It is foolish to preserve one’s comforts now because by doing so one sacrifices something of much greater value that God would give him or her. The "whole world" comprehends earthly possessions, position, pleasure, and power-all that the world can provide. Mar 8:37 stresses the irrevocable nature of the choice.