Luke 9:18 - Meaning and Application

In these verses, Christ is speaking with his disciples about the great things that belong to God’s kingdom. Luke includes one detail the other Gospel writers do not mention, that Christ was alone praying, with his disciples near him, when he began this conversation (Luke 9:18).

Notice, first, that although Christ had much public work to do, he still made time to be alone. He used that time for fellowship with himself, with his Father, and with his disciples. When Christ was alone, he was praying. It is good for us to use our times alone for prayer, so that when we are alone, we are not truly alone, but have the Father with us.

Notice also that when Christ was alone and praying, his disciples were with him to join in prayer. This was a kind of family prayer. Those who lead a household should pray with those under their care, parents with children, masters with servants, and teachers with students. Christ prayed with them before he questioned them, so that his prayers for them would help and encourage them to answer. Those we teach, we should also pray for and pray with.

He then spoke to them about himself and asked what the people said about him: Who do the people say that I am? Christ already knew the answer, but he wanted his disciples to see, through the mistakes of others, how blessed they were to know the truth about him. We should notice the ignorance and errors of others so that we may be more thankful to the one who has shown himself to us and not to the world. We should also feel pity for them and do what we can to help them and teach them better.

The disciples reported the guesses they had heard from ordinary people. Ministers would know better how to shape their teaching, correction, and advice if they spent more time speaking with common people. Then they would better know how to correct wrong ideas, set right bad behavior, and remove prejudice. The more a doctor spends time with a patient, the better he knows how to help. Some said Christ was John the Baptist, who had been beheaded not long before. Others said Elijah, or one of the old prophets. People were willing to say anything except the truth.

Then Christ asked what they themselves believed. “You know better,” he was saying. Peter answered for them, “You are the Christ of God,” that is, God’s Anointed One, the promised Messiah. It is a deep comfort to us that Jesus is God’s Anointed One, because that means he has unquestionable authority and power for the work he came to do. Being anointed means both that he was appointed to the task and fully qualified for it.

One might expect Christ to command his disciples to tell everyone this immediately, but he did not. He strictly charged them not to tell anyone yet, because there is a right time for everything. After his resurrection, which fully proved the truth, Peter would openly declare that God had made this same Jesus both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). But that proof was not yet complete, so the matter was to remain hidden for the time being. While it remained hidden, we may conclude that believing it was not yet necessary for salvation in the same way it would be after the full proof was given.

Then Christ spoke about his own suffering and death, which he had not yet described much. Now that his disciples were firmly settled in the belief that he was the Christ, and able to bear more, he spoke plainly and with confidence (Luke 9:22). This also explains why they must not yet preach that he was the Christ, since the wonders surrounding his death and resurrection would give the clearest proof that he was indeed the Christ of God. It was by his being lifted up to the Father’s right hand, and by the gift of the Spirit that followed (Acts 2:33), that he was fully shown to be the Christ. So they were to wait until that was done.

He also spoke about the sufferings they would face for his sake. They must not only stop trying to prevent his sufferings, they must also prepare for their own. They must train themselves in self-denial and patience (Luke 9:23). This is the best preparation for martyrdom. We must live in self-denial, turning away from selfish desires and the pull of the world. We must not feed our comfort and appetite too much, or it will be hard to endure hard work, tiredness, and lack for Christ.

We are often exposed to trouble in the path of duty. We should not bring suffering on ourselves needlessly, but when a cross is laid on us, we must take it up, follow Christ, and bear it as well as we can. We must set the salvation and happiness of our souls above every worldly concern.

We should be sure of this: whoever denies Christ and his truth to protect liberty, property, power, advancement, or even life itself, sins against God and wrongs his own conscience. In the end, he will not be a saver, but an unspeakable loser. He may save his life outwardly for a moment, but he will lose what is far more valuable, his precious soul.

We must also firmly believe that if we lose our life for holding to Christ and our religion, we will save it to our great gain. We will be richly rewarded in the resurrection of the just, when we receive a new and eternal life again. And even if a person could gain all the wealth, honor, and pleasure in the world by turning from Christ, it would still be nothing compared with the eternal loss and ruin of the soul (Luke 9:25). If a person gains the whole world and then loses himself forever, what good is that gain?

In Matthew and Mark, the terrible result is described as losing one’s own soul. Here it is losing oneself, which shows clearly that the soul is the person’s true self. The soul is the man. A person is well or badly off according to the state of the soul. If the soul perishes forever under the weight of guilt and corruption, then the whole person is ruined. The body cannot be happy if the soul is miserable in the life to come. But the soul may be happy even when the body suffers greatly in this world.

If a person is lost himself, if he is damaged or punished, if Christ’s righteous sentence puts a penalty on his soul because he has turned traitor against Christ’s cause and interest, then where is his gain? If all his blessedness is taken away as a loss, what hope is left? The point is plain: if gaining the world costs a person his soul, the bargain is ruinous.

So we must never be ashamed of Christ or his gospel, and we must not be ashamed of any disgrace or reproach that comes from faithful loyalty to him and his truth (Luke 9:26). Anyone who is ashamed of Christ and his words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person, and rightly so. When Christ needed that person to stand up for his honor and work, he refused because Christ’s cause was despised and opposed everywhere. Then, in the great day, when that person needs Christ to stand for him, Christ will not own a cowardly, worldly, hiding spirit. He will say, “He is not mine; he does not belong to me.”

As Christ had both a time of humiliation and a time of exaltation, so his cause has the same. Only those who are willing to suffer with him when he suffers will reign with him when he reigns. But those who cannot bear to share his shame, and cannot say, “If this means being treated as worthless, I will still be more willing to be so,” will have no share in his triumph.

Christ strengthens himself and his followers under present shame by speaking of the glory of his second coming. In view of that day, he endured the cross and despised the shame. He will come in his own glory. Luke does not mention this as Matthew and Mark do. He will come in the glory of the Mediator, the one who stands between God and humanity. This includes all the glory the Father restored to him, the glory he had with God before the world began, the glory he set aside, as it were, in order to carry out his work, and then claimed again after finishing it (John 17:4-5). He will also come in all the glory the Father gave him when he seated him at his right hand and made him head over all things for the church. It is the glory given to him as the one who defended God’s honor and brings glory to all the saints.

He will also come in his Father’s glory. The Father has given him the work of judging the world, and so he will openly own him in that day as the brightness of his glory and the exact image of his being. He will come in the glory of the holy angels too. They will all attend him, serve him, and add everything they can to the splendor of his coming. What a sight the blessed Jesus will be on that day! If we really believed it, we would never be ashamed of him or his words now.

To encourage them in suffering for him, he also assures them that the kingdom of God would soon be set up, even though strong opposition was being made against it (Luke 9:27). He means that although the second coming of the Son of Man was still far off, the kingdom of God would come with power in that same age, while some of those standing there were still alive. They would see that kingdom when the Spirit was poured out, when the gospel was preached to all the world, and when nations were brought to Christ through it. They would see the kingdom of God triumph over the Gentile nations in their conversion, and over the Jewish nation in its destruction.