4 Then one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son (who was about to betray Him), said, 5 “Why wasn't this oil sold for 300 denarii[c] and given to the poor?” 6 (Now he did not say this because the poor mattered to him, but because he was a thief and had the money box; and used to pilfer what was put in it.)[d] 7 So Jesus said: “Let her be; she has performed this with a view to my burial. 8 For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

9 Then a large crowd of the Jews learned that He was there; and they came, not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. 10 So the chief priests decided to kill Lazarus as well,[e] 11 in that because of him many of the Jews were defecting and believing into Jesus.

12 The next day a large crowd that had come to the feast,[f] when they heard[g] that Jesus was coming into Jerusalem, 13 took branches from palm trees and went out to meet Him. And they started shouting:

20 Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the feast.[l] 21 So these men approached Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and requested of him saying, “Sir, we want to see Jesus.”[m] 22 Philip goes and tells Andrew, and in turn Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. 23 But Jesus answered them saying: “The hour has come for the Son of the Man to be glorified.[n] 24 Most assuredly I say to you, if a grain of wheat, having fallen into the ground, does not die, it remains alone;[o] but if it dies it bears a lot of fruit.[p] 25 The one ‘loving’ his life will waste it, and the one ‘hating’ his life, in this world, will preserve it into eternal life.*To understand what the Lord is saying here, let us go to the parallel passage in Luke 9:23-25. “If anyone desires to come after me let him deny himself, take up his cross each day and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it. For what will it profit a man to gain the whole world but waste or forfeit himself?” What does the Lord mean when He speaks of losing one's “life”? One does not lose one's soul for love of Christ. Nor is the reference to being killed. Rather, Jesus has in mind the life we live, the accumulated results of our living. All that I have done up to this moment plus all that I will yet do until overtaken by death or the rapture of the Church, whichever happens first—that is the “life” that is at risk (in my own case).
Let us look at our Lord's words a little more closely. There seems to be a contradiction here—if you lose, you save; if you want to save, you lose. How can it work? The following context helps us out. In verse 26 Jesus explains verses 24-25 in terms of His second coming. The parallel passage, Matthew 16:27, is clearer. “For the Son of the Man is going to come in the glory of His Father, with His angels, and then He will repay each according to his deeds.” Christ was thinking of the day of reckoning. In other words, “we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ” (Romans 14:10) and “each of us will give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12). “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive his due according to what he has done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10). I understand that 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 is referring to the same occasion, the day of reckoning. After declaring that Jesus Christ is the only foundation, Paul speaks of different materials that one might use in building on it: “gold, silver, precious stones” or “wood, hay, straw”. (Although the primary interpretation of this passage presumably has to do with the performance of teachers and leaders in the church, I believe it clearly applies to the daily life of each believer as well.) The point is, our deeds will be tested by fire. If fire has any effect upon gold or silver it is only to purify them, but its effect on hay and straw is devastating! Okay, so what?
Let us go back to the beginning. God created the human being for His glory; to reflect it and contribute to it. I suppose we may understand Psalm 19:1 and Isaiah 43:7 in this way, at least by extension. But Adam lost this capacity when he rebelled against God. For this reason the sentence that weighs against our race is that we “fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). But the Son came into the world to restore our lost potential. Ephesians 1:12 and 14 tell us that the object of the plan of salvation is “the praise of His glory” (see also 2 Corinthians 1:20). And 1 Corinthians 10:31 puts it into a command: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Now then, the point of all this is not to ‘ruin’ our lives, to take all the ‘fun’ out of them (as many seem to think). God is not being arrogant, unreasonable, too demanding. Quite the contrary—He is just trying to save us from throwing away our lives. Surely, because the glory of God is eternal (Psalm 104:31), and when I do something for His glory, that something is transformed and acquires eternal value—it becomes “gold, silver, precious stones”. Works done for the glory of God will go through the fire without harm. On the other hand, what is done with a view to our own ambitions and ideas is “straw”. We all know what fire does to straw!
So there it is. To be a slave of Christ means to live with reference to the Kingdom; it means to do everything for the glory of God. In this way the slave “saves” his life because he will be building it with “gold and silver”, which will pass through the fire at the judgment seat of Christ without loss. In contrast, the believer who refuses to be a slave of Jesus builds his life with “hay and straw”, which will be consumed by the fire—and so he “loses” his life; he lived in vain; the potential that his life represented was wasted, thrown away. What a tragedy! 26 If anyone would serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, my servant will be too.[r] Further, if anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.‡Each underlined pronoun corresponds to an emphatic pronoun in the Original Text. What the Lord did here was quite unusual; in other places He emphasized one pronoun, but not five in a row, and especially with all five referring to Himself! So what was He trying to tell us? I take it that He is telling us to focus on HIM, his person and our relationship to Him. He needs to be number one, without competition. He is talking about total commitment, but not without recompense—“the Father will honor him.”

27 “Now my soul is distressed, and what should I say—‘Father, rescue me from this hour’? But this is why I came to this hour— 28 ‘Father, glorify your name!’ ” Then a Voice came out of Heaven, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again!” 29 So the crowd that was standing by and listening said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to Him.”[t] 30 Jesus answered and said: “It was not for my sake that this Voice came, but for your sakes. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be thrown out.[u] 32 While I, if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” 33 (Now He said this to indicate by what kind of death He was about to die.)[v] 34 The people answered Him: “We have heard from the Law that the Messiah remains forever; and so how can you say, ‘The Son of the Man must be lifted up’? Who is this ‘the Son of the Man’?”[w]

35 Then Jesus said to them: “The Light will be with you just a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that darkness does not overtake you;[x] the one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. 36 While you have the Light,[y] believe into the Light, so that you may become sons of light.”[z] Jesus said these things, and going away He was hidden from them.

37 Although He had performed so many signs in their presence, they were not believing into Him; 38 so that the word spoken by Isaiah the prophet should be fulfilled:

44 Jesus called out and said: “The one believing into me believes not into me but into Him who sent me. 45 And the one seeing me sees Him who sent me. 46 I, Light,[gg] have come into the world so that everyone who believes into me will not remain in the darkness.[hh] 47 Also, if someone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge him; because I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.[ii] 48 The one who rejects me and does not receive my sayings has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken, that is what will judge him on the last day;[jj] 49 because I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me, He gave me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. 50 And I know that His command is eternal life. So whatever I say, I say it just like the Father told me.”[kk]

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