[center]The Carried Cross[/center]

“Work out your salvation!” (Philippians 2:12)
“‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:24, 26)

God did not give us a Bible of inspired puzzles. It is a Book of revelations, not riddles. Any “problems” in Scripture are road signs to exciting discoveries. Here are two great verses, often quoted in evangelism. They are certainly worth thinking about. There might be something here that we should take care not skip over quickly and forget. The danger with familiar words is that we quote them without thinking too much about them. Scripture deserves to be treated differently. The words of Jesus are profound, not obvious and superficial. A question immediately springs to mind. The first verse quoted above says, “Work out your salvation” – but isn’t Jesus the Saviour?

The second verse above prompts another question. “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:24, 26). Does it mean that we are lost unless we deny ourselves and take up our cross? Is that how we “work out” our salvation?


“Losing One’s Soul”

Jesus was talking to His disciples when He gave these instructions about “losing one’s soul.” Those disciples were men whom Jesus had actually chosen – Peter, James, John and the rest. Could He possibly have intended to infer that their soul’s security rested on self-denial? Well, of course we do not tell people that they will be saved if they deny themselves and be lost if they do not deny themselves. That is not the Gospel that we preach. The Bible proclaims the true message loud and clear: “But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy” (Titus 3:4-5). It is His blood shed on the Cross that brings deliverance; there is no other way. We are saved not by the cross that we carry but by the cross that He carried. He endured unspeakable distress for us because we could not possibly “work out our own (eternal) salvation.”