Christ's words about the soul, which can easily be lost but can also be saved, are sometimes understood in a somewhat spiritualistic way. People speak of the soul as a certain immortal principle within a person, which is easily lost if one cares too much about earthly life, but which can be saved if...
Christ's words about the soul, which can easily be lost but can also be saved, are sometimes understood in a somewhat spiritualistic way. People speak of the soul as a certain immortal principle within a person, which is easily lost if one cares too much about earthly life, but which can be saved if one gives it to Christ and follows Him, taking up one's cross. Yet in New Testament texts the word “soul” most often means not some immortal principle that outlives the body and must necessarily be kept intact because otherwise one would die completely, but the whole of life, in all its fullness and all its manifestations.
The problem here is not to preserve within oneself something special that must never be lost, even at the price of losing everything else, but to allow the stream of life that the Bible calls the soul to flow freely, without losing its fullness and depth. The person himself, of course, plays an enormous role here: his spiritual “self,” which the Bible calls the heart and from which come the desires and aspirations that determine the course of his life.
In the Bible these aspirations and desires are usually called thoughts or intentions. What is meant here is not thoughts themselves, as a modern reader sometimes assumes, but precisely the intentions, aspirations, and impulses that determine a person's spiritual state, the course of the stream of his life, and therefore his path. At all times, among all peoples, in every spiritual tradition, people who sought the way tried to solve this very task, the task connected with the spiritual quality of their own life. In Yahwism, and later in Judaism, the way of the inner Torah became such a solution; its roots go back to the pre-exilic period, to the time of the preaching of the prophet Jeremiah.
This way, however, proved extraordinarily difficult for a person, for the consequences of the Fall had not disappeared and prevented him from attaining perfection. Jesus offers an entirely clear and simple alternative: give your life to Me, unite it with My life, and it will not be lost. It will not only be preserved in all its fullness, but will acquire an even greater fullness of which a person in the fallen world could not even dream. This is the Christian way: the same way of the inner Torah, travelled in unity of life with the One who came to reveal the living Torah to the world in all its fullness.
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16:24 If any man be willing to come after me - None is forced; but if any will be a Christian, it must be on these terms, Let him deny himself, and take up his cross - A rule that can never be too much observed: let him in all things deny his own will, however pleasing, and do the will of God, however painful. Should we not consider all crosses, all things grievous to fleshand blood, as what they really are, as opportunities of embracing God's will at the expense of our own? And consequently as so many steps by which we may advance toward perfection? We should make a swift progress in the spiritual life, if we were faithful in this practice. Crosses are so frequent, that whoever makes advantage of them, will soon be a great gainer. Great crosses are occasions of great improvement: and the little ones, which come daily, and even hourly, make up in number what they want in weight. We may in these daily and hourly crosses make effectual oblations of our will to God; which oblations, so frequently repeated, will soon amount to a great sum. Let us remember then (what can never be sufficiently inculcated) that God is theauthor of all events: that none is so small or inconsiderable, as to escape his notice and direction. Every event therefore declares to us the will of God, to which thus declared we should heartily submit. We should renounce our own to embrace it; we should approve and choose what his choice warrants as best for us.Herein should we exercise ourselves continually; this should be our practice all the day long. We should in humility accept the little crosses that are dispensed to us, as those that best suit our weakness. Let us bear these little things, at least for God's sake, and prefer his will to our own in matters of so small importance. And his goodness will accept these mean oblations; for he despiseth not the day of small things. Mat 10:38.