The Self Denied

And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. LUKE 9:23

MacDonald’s sermon Self-Denial is one of the longest and most demanding in the second series, and it is one of the most misunderstood words of Jesus that it sets out to explain. Everyone knows that Christ calls His disciples to deny themselves. MacDonald thought that most people had misunderstood what He meant, and that the misunderstanding had done great harm.

Not thwarting, but abandoning

Some Christians, MacDonald observed, take self-denial to mean going against one’s likings simply because they are one’s likings — refusing pleasant things because they are pleasant, and doing disagreeable things because they are disagreeable, as though misery were a virtue. He did not deny that God could bring good out of such efforts when they were made in honesty. But he thought them dangerous, because a man who sets out to master himself by his own rules may only feed a worse self — the self that is proud of its own victories. “True victory over self is the victory of God in the man, not of the man alone.”

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. LUKE 9:24

What then did Jesus mean? MacDonald’s answer was that we are not to torment the self, but to give it up as the ruler of our lives. We must refuse self “altogether as a ruling, or determining, or originating element in us.” And he put the change in one plain question that every disciple can ask: “We are no more to think, ‘What should I like to do?’ but ‘What would the Living One have me do?’”

The good gifts of God

This led MacDonald to a balanced and humane conclusion about the ordinary pleasures of life. The things God has made are good, and they are to be received with thanksgiving. It is not selfish to enjoy them. It is self-denial, rather, to enjoy them heartily when God gives them and to do without them cheerfully when He takes them away, without complaint and without clinging. The world we are to renounce is not God’s world of sun and fields and friendship, but the world men make by leaving God out — the ways of thinking and judging, in business, politics, society and even the church, that never ask what God wants.

For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving. 1 TIMOTHY 4:4

I am my own

MacDonald went to the root of the matter in another sermon, Kingship, on the words of Jesus to Pilate. There he named the one principle of the kingdom of darkness. “For the one principle of hell is—‘I am my own. I am my own king and my own subject.’” The self that will not be denied is the self that says: I am my own king; my own glory is my chief care; my thoughts begin and end with me. That is the spirit of hell, wherever it is found, and the denial of self is nothing less than the overthrow of it.

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price. 1 CORINTHIANS 6:19–20

He did not think the self would be destroyed by this. On the contrary, he believed that only the self given up to God becomes truly itself. The day will come, he wrote, when the self is so filled and enlarged by the indwelling God that it no longer needs to be denied, because it has learned to want nothing but what God wants, and to give itself gladly for others.

The way of the cross

All of this, for MacDonald, was simply following Jesus. Christ did first all He asks us to do. He did not please Himself; He came not to do His own will but the will of Him that sent Him; He took up His cross daily long before He carried it to Golgotha. The disciple who denies himself is not undertaking some private programme of self-improvement. He is walking behind his Master.

For even Christ pleased not himself. ROMANS 15:3

Weighing it

MacDonald’s teaching on self-denial is wise and searching, and there is little in it that an evangelical reader need set aside. His warning against a self-made asceticism that breeds pride is close to Paul’s warning against rules that have a show of wisdom in will-worship and humility and neglecting of the body. His insistence that the good things of creation are to be received with thanks is the plain teaching of Scripture. And his naming of the principle of hell — I am my own — goes to the root of sin as the Bible describes it.

If one point needs adding, it is the source of the power to deny self. MacDonald was clear that it must be God’s victory and not ours; the New Testament makes clear how that victory is won. The believer has been crucified with Christ, and the life he now lives he lives by the faith of the Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him. Self is denied not by effort alone, but by union with the One who died and rose.

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. GALATIANS 2:20

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Have you thought of self-denial as making yourself miserable? Read Luke 9:23–25 again in the light of this chapter.

2. Try MacDonald’s question at each decision this week: not, What should I like to do? but, What would the Living One have me do?

3. Thank God for one good gift you enjoy, and ask whether you could do without it cheerfully if He asked.

4. Where in your life is the principle I am my own still ruling? Name it and give it to God.

5. Read Galatians 2:20 and 2 Corinthians 5:14–15, and ask Christ to live His life in you.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You did not please Yourself, but came to do the will of Him who sent You.

I confess that I have said in my heart, I am my own. Forgive me, and take back the throne I have tried to keep.

Teach me to receive Your gifts with thanks and to give them up without complaint.

I have been crucified with You. Live Your life in me, and let me follow You, carrying my cross, today. Amen.