Following, Denying, and Taking Up Our Cross, Additional Thoughts

Previously I wrote a series of articles with the same title based on the following well-known words of Jesus:

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. (Matthew 16:24, NRSV. Also, see Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23)

The church often uses these words to demonstrate the Christian lifestyle. The thought is that we have a natural inclination to focus on ourselves that we must continually deny. Some people also teach that we are to deny our rights to certain ways of living, like taking revenge, hating our enemies, and living by our own rules.[1] The problem is that this view of denial for the saints is not quite right. These ways of behaving were never our right.

We tend to look at denial as if the types of attitudes mentioned above are still part of who we are after we become saints. Instead, we need to know that those behaviors are in dissonance with who we are in Christ. We will discuss other aspects of denial, and touch on how the apostles present it later in this article.

Going back to the verse above, what if Jesus’ statement refers to a different aspect of denial? As I stated in one of the pieces in my previous series, “I believe Jesus intended this [statement] as the way to become a Christian, rather than a way to behave like a Christian.”[2]

I won’t regurgitate everything from those previous articles. But I want to revisit this passage because of something I discovered in the Old Testament. I was reading the book of Numbers about the Day of Atonement and came across something interesting that brought me back to the verse above.

God gave this command to His people through Moses, “On the tenth day of this seventh month hold a sacred assembly. You must deny yourselves and do no work.”[3] After this statement, God’s direction included how Israel was to present sacrifices to atone for their sin. Another passage in Leviticus further explains the idea of Israel denying themselves on the day of atonement:

The Lord said to Moses, “The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. Hold a sacred assembly and deny yourselves, and present a food offering to the Lord. Do not do any work on that day, because it is the Day of Atonement, when atonement is made for you before the Lord your God. Those who do not deny themselves on that day must be cut off from their people. I will destroy from among their people anyone who does any work on that day. You shall do no work at all. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live. It is a day of sabbath rest for you, and you must deny yourselves. From the evening of the ninth day of the month until the following evening you are to observe your sabbath.”[4]

Are the commands about the Day of Atonement related to what Jesus said about denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following Him? Your translation of the Bible may use different words than deny, for example, humble or afflict yourselves. No matter the language, the Old Testament sense of denying self during the Day of Atonement meant not doing any work. It was a sabbath day of rest holy to the Lord. Could it be that denying ourselves, as Jesus put it, meant to rest from our efforts to achieve salvation and righteousness through our work? Would or should the disciples have connected Jesus’ statement to Moses’ words regarding the Day of Atonement?

Jesus’ death on the cross was the final day of atonement. There is nothing humanity can do to work for our salvation. Only by joining Jesus in His death does God forgive us and relieve us from the power of sin. On that holy day at Golgotha, we rested from our work while Jesus presented Himself as the ultimate sacrifice for sin. After our death with Jesus, we are raised to new life with Him. We no longer need to deny ourselves. So, to further understand denial for the saints, let’s look at how the apostles discuss it.

When the apostles wrote to the churches about denial, they predominantly discussed those who denied that Jesus was the Christ or Messiah. For example, if anyone denies Jesus, He will deny them.[5] Those who reject Jesus are detestable and disobedient.[6] They are characterized as false teachers[7] and anti-Christ.[8] The saints are to guard against such people, even to the extent of denying them access to our homes. While the bulk of discussion about denial by the apostles is devoted to those who reject Christ, do they write anything about Christians denying themselves?

There are no instructions from the apostles for the saints to deny themselves. Instead, we are to deny ungodliness and worldly desires. Jesus redeemed us from lawless deeds purifying us as a people for His possession, eager for good works. [9] You may think that this is splitting hairs, that these two descriptions of denial amount to the same thing. However, it is crucial to discern that the ungodliness we deny is not part of our identity as saints. Therefore, you deny or “consider the members of your earthly body dead to immorality, impurity, etc.”[10] You may be familiar with this verse, but your Bible may phrase it differently.

For example, the NIV translation says, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: etc.”[11] It is easy to connect these words to denying ourselves. If we still have earthly desires, perhaps that is part of our nature that we need to reject. But that is not the best way to look at this passage.

When we read further in the letter, we see that putting to death these evils is not denying ourselves in the sense of our identity. We may still have thoughts and behaviors left over from our old selves, but they no longer define us. When Paul directs the saints to consider themselves dead to earthly things, he says we do it because of our new self, which is being renewed into the image of our creator. [12] We are not renewing our old self; that self is dead. We are growing or maturing as our new selves, becoming more and more like Jesus.

I grew up in a tradition that seemed to thrive on denial. Perhaps you’ve heard the old mantra, “don’t drink, smoke, or chew or run with girls (or boys) who do.” When I was a teenager, suffice it to say I wasn’t the best at following these instructions. Later, I went to a Christian college that forbade dancing and drinking, even for those of age. There was a kind of asceticism that masqueraded as holiness. The problem was that these rules focused on limiting particular behaviors that were arbitrarily thought to ensure righteousness, or at least help prevent sinning. These are the kind of human commands that Jesus railed against[13], and that Paul chastised the Colossians about,

Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.[14]

When our “Christian” institutions impose human rules in the name of godliness, they do a disservice to the saints. We live as if we still have a sinful nature that requires systems and structures to regulate. I am not saying we shouldn’t focus on behaviors consistent with being saints, but we should always link them to who we are in Christ.[15] It is easy to think we need to deny ourselves because part of our nature is still sinful. But this is not true of the saints. God has changed our nature through our rebirth from above. We are new creatures, and our desire is for righteousness.[16] Yes, we may experience desires or temptations that seem to be what we want, but we recognize those behaviors are not part of us anymore. The point is this, we don’t deny ourselves; we deny anything that is opposed to our new self in Christ.

Sometimes, I believe the church forgets that we have died with Jesus. We forget that we denied ourselves to follow Him to the cross. Then we were raised from death to new life through His resurrection. We didn’t partially die – we died. We aren’t partly our old selves. We are entirely new selves. So, there is no part of ourseles to deny. We walk with Jesus in newness of life. Yes, we reject anything and everything inconsistent with our new life. But let’s take the positive perspective that we get to behave like the people we are. Let’s live confidently in our new life with Jesus and in the power of His Spirit.

[1] 13 Biblical Ways To Deny Yourself, Hope on Demand, https://hopeondemand.com/article/13-biblical-ways-to-deny-yourself
[2] Following, Denying, and Taking Up Our Cross, Part 2, Our Life in Christ, gtdavis.com
[3] Numbers 29:7, NIV
[4] Leviticus 23:26–32, NIV
[5] 2 Timothy 2
[6] Titus 1
[7] 2 Peter 2-3
[8] 1 John 2-4, 2 John, Jude 1
[9] Titus 2
[10] Colossians 3:5, NASB1995
[11] Colossians 3:5, NIV
[12] Colossians 3:6–11
[13] For example, see Mark 7
[14] Colossians 2:20–23, NIV
[15] Please read Romans 6, and Colossians 3 again
[16] Romans 6