Matthew 16:26

_ _ For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul — or forfeit his own soul?

_ _ or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? — Instead of these weighty words, which we find in Mark 8:36 also, it is thus expressed in Luke 9:25 : “If he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away,” or better, “If he gain the whole world, and destroy or forfeit himself.” How awful is the stake as here set forth! If a man makes the present world — in its various forms of riches, honors, pleasures, and such like — the object of supreme pursuit, be it that he gains the world; yet along with it he forfeits his own soul. Not that any ever did, or ever will gain the whole world — a very small portion of it, indeed, falls to the lot of the most successful of the world’s votaries — but to make the extravagant concession, that by giving himself entirely up to it, a man gains the whole world; yet, setting over against this gain the forfeiture of his soul — necessarily following the surrender of his whole heart to the world — what is he profited? But, if not the whole world, yet possibly something else may be conceived as an equivalent for the soul. Well, what is it? — “Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Thus, in language the weightiest, because the simplest, does our Lord shut up His hearers, and all who shall read these words to the end of the world, to the priceless value to every man of his own soul. In Mark and Luke (Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26) the following words are added: “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of Me and of My words [shall be ashamed of belonging to Me, and ashamed of My Gospel] in this adulterous and sinful generation” (see on Matthew 12:39), “of him shall the Son of man be ashamed when He cometh in the glory of His Father, with the holy angels.” He will render back to that man his own treatment, disowning him before the most august of all assemblies, and putting him to “shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). “O shame,” exclaims Bengel, “to be put to shame before God, Christ, and angels!” The sense of shame is founded on our love of reputation, which causes instinctive aversion to what is fitted to lower it, and was given us as a preservative from all that is properly shameful. To be lost to shame is to be nearly past hope. (Zephaniah 3:5; Jeremiah 6:15; Jeremiah 3:3). But when Christ and “His words” are unpopular, the same instinctive desire to stand well with others begets that temptation to be ashamed of Him which only the expulsive power of a higher affection can effectually counteract.