Adam Hughes and Jody Dean
New Testament indicates that these are explanatory clauses.7 The use of an explanatory clause “indicates that additional information is being given about what is being described.”8 Essentially, then, these three verses are giving reasons or providing grounds for why Jesus’s disciples and, by way of application, we should have confidence to follow him even if this is a call to “come and die.” Therefore, included in these verses are three axioms that originally seem arbitrary and somewhat unrelated. Upon further examination, however, these statements are connected and are a part of an overall point of comfort that Jesus gave to those who would take up his call. First, Jesus explained that the only way to find real spiritual life is to lose one’s desire to value his or her self and life over Jesus. A person must lose his or her life for Jesus (v. 25). Second, Jesus argued that a person’s soul is his or her most prized possession. Losing one’s soul to gain the world is a net loss (v. 26). Finally, the crux of the entire argument is found in verse 27, which is the third and final of the three consecutive gar clauses. Part of the significance of this verse is that it refers to three Old Testament passages. The statement that Jesus will come in the glory of his Father with his angels is probably an allusion to Zechariah 14:5. The quote “and will then repay every man according to his deeds” is recorded in both Psalm 62:12 and Proverbs 24:12. The emphasis Jesus was making is that he is equal with the God of the Old Testament and thus his authority over man, life, death, judgment, and reward is equal to God’s as well. Therefore, the final and ultimate grounds for why an individual can follow Christ even if the call is to “come and die” is because Jesus is the ultimate judge and life giver. Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 673. 8 Wallace. 7
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