Based upon His word concerning His death, the Lord went on in 9:23-26 to teach the disciples to take up their cross and follow Him by denying their soul life. It is necessary for us to do this in order to participate in the jubilee. The jubilee has been carried out by the death of Christ. Now for us to participate in this jubilee we must be identified with His death. He died to accomplish the jubilee, and now we die with Him to participate in the enjoyment of the jubilee. On the one hand, there was the need of Christ’s death to carry out the jubilee. On the other hand, there is the need for us to identify ourselves with His death so that we may enjoy the jubilee.
To identify ourselves with Christ’s death is to bear the cross, and to bear the cross is to deny our soul life. As we shall see in a later message, the disciples were still quite natural. In order to participate in the jubilee accomplished by Christ’s death, it was necessary for them to bear the cross and deny the soul life.
In 9:23 the Lord says, “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” The cross here is not merely a suffering; it is also a killing. It kills and terminates the criminal. Christ first bore the cross and then was crucified. We, His believers, have first been crucified with Him and then bear the cross today. To us, bearing the cross is to remain under the killing of the death of Christ for the terminating of our self, our natural life, and our old man. In so doing we deny our self that we may follow the Lord.
Before the Lord’s crucifixion, the disciples followed Him in an outward way. But after His resurrection, we follow Him in an inward way. Because in resurrection He has become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45) dwelling in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22), we follow Him in our spirit (Gal. 5:16-25).
In Luke 9:24 the Lord goes on to say, “For whoever wants to save his soul life will lose it, but whoever loses his soul life for My sake, this one shall save it.” To save the soul life is to allow the soul to have its enjoyment and not to suffer. To lose the soul life is to cause the soul to suffer the loss of its enjoyment. If the followers of the Man-Savior allow their soul to have its enjoyment in this age, they will cause their soul to suffer the loss of its enjoyment in the coming kingdom age. If they allow their soul to suffer the loss of its enjoyment in this age for the sake of the Man-Savior, they will cause their soul to have its enjoyment in the coming kingdom age. They will share the Lord’s joy in ruling over the earth (Matt. 25:21, 23).
In Luke 9:25 the Lord continues, “For what is a man profited, having gained the whole world, but having lost or forfeited himself?” Matthew 16:26 speaks of forfeiting the soul life, but Luke 9:25, of forfeiting “himself.” This indicates that our soul life is our self.
In Luke 9:1-26 we see that in order to spread the jubilee, the Man-Savior sent out the twelve to proclaim the kingdom of God, to cast out demons, and to heal diseases. Then the Man-Savior performed a miracle to indicate that to all the needy ones He applies the jubilee. He may have applied the jubilee to more than ten thousand people. We have also seen that for the jubilee there is the need of the Christ. Christ is the One who carries out the jubilee. Furthermore, it was necessary for Christ to die and be resurrected. Then in order to participate in the jubilee and enjoy it, we, the followers of the Man-Savior, need to identify ourselves with His all-inclusive death and live in His resurrection.
The actual experience and enjoyment of the jubilee by the believers is found not in the Gospels but in the Acts and the Epistles. In the book of Acts and in the Epistles we see that the real jubilee was enjoyed by the early disciples. In particular, Paul was in the enjoyment of the jubilee. Paul was once a captive, but he was released from sin, Satan, the world, and the Jewish religion and was brought into the enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ as the embodiment of God. Through Christ with His death and resurrection Paul was released from his captivity into the enjoyment of the jubilee. His fourteen Epistles, therefore, are a complete description, definition, and explanation of his enjoyment of the jubilee through death and in resurrection.