In our study of Mark last time we stopped in Mark 8:35; Where Jesus is addressing the disciples along with the crowd regarding what it means to follow Him.
Jesus describes the dynamics of the Christian life as the power of the Spirit producing divine good through the application of Bible Doctrine, and that human viewpoint and human good must be rejected.
The process starts with faith in Jesus Christ alone. The one who decides to maintain a self-centered life in this world by rejecting the person of Jesus will ultimately lose his life. Conversely a person who will "lose", give over, or deny himself" his life even literally, if necessary in loyalty to Jesus and the gospel by accepting Him and His Word will actually preserve it forever.
Jesus Christ and His Word are more important than physical life is. This is a concept that the Pharisees did not understand and the disciples had trouble with. It is also a concept that emotional or legalistic or religious believers in our country today do not understand so they fall for the deception of satanic aka "progressive" propaganda.
God's Word is more important than anything else.
At salvation followers of Jesus become co-heirs with Christ and have eternal life with God forever but to receive the maximum benefit of our position in union with Christ we must lose our "good" before we can receive God's good.
This is the process of catabolism and anabolism. The tearing down of "human good" and replacing it with divine good. Gal 2:19-21;
Mark 8:36; Here Jesus is saying in effect that He has to go to the cross, because without it even if people could gain the whole world they would still lose their soul.
The expected response to Jesus' question is "nothing" He is saying that no soul can be saved unless I go to the cross and even if Jesus chose to gain the world without the cross it would be of no benefit because everyone would be lost and if anyone else chooses to gain the world without believing in Jesus then they are also lost and they really have nothing.
This would be an unintended consequence of Jesus complying with the emotional sentimentality of Peter's human good satanic thinking. The same is true for believers who choose the world rather than Jesus and His Word.
Mark 8:37; "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" The only exchange for the human soul has already been provided through God's provision of the cross. 2Cor 5:21; John 3:16; Rom 5:8;
The answer is that he can't give anything because the only way the price could be paid was the cross and Jesus paid that price at the cross. The cross excludes all human good. To gain the whole world, to make all that profit, is not enough because it was at best human good accomplished in the energy of the flesh (OSN).
There is no righteousness obtained through the energy of the flesh that is pleasing to God so there is nothing a man can give in exchange for his soul.
The only way to be saved is by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. Acts 16:31; John 3:16;
Mark 8:38; The word translated ashamed is the Greek word "epaischunomai" that also has the sense of being disillusioned. Peter and the disciples are disillusioned by Jesus discussion of the cross as His destiny even though they should have known it from the Tnach.
The disciples who are in Jesus' audience are believers so they are eternally saved so the issue in this passage is not salvation it is the spiritual life or the production of divine good rather than human good.
Those who are "ashamed of Me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation" are believers who reject divine good and cave in to the pressures of satan's cosmic system and fall for his deceitful propaganda of doing human good.
The "adulterous and sinful generation" is a generation that has rejected Jesus Christ and His Word and given itself over to the idolatry of satanic viewpoint.
This was the case with Jesus' generation. Because of their rejection of Him as their Messiah He had just switched from teaching Plan A to teaching Plan B.
Our generation is just like the one Jesus lived in. The idolatry of our generation is self absorption. Self absorption the same sin of idolatry that Satan invented. Isa 14: 13-14;
Believers while irrevocably saved become ashamed of Jesus and His Word because in their emotional sentiment they are offended by what He does and what His Word says with the result that they cave in to the satanic human viewpoint of that evil generation.
These believers will not be rewarded when Jesus returns in glory with the holy angels. This will also is the case of many believers in our generation because of their negative volition to truth that results in emotional sentimentality and human good.
This brings us to the doctrine of shame. The shame of the believer who fails to receive the conveyance of their escrow blessings at their evaluation when Jesus returns.
Shame is defined as painful feeling originating from the consciousness of something dishonorable, wrong, or sinful or something that causes regret.
In this context it is the embarrassment of failure to fulfill God's plan under the principle of the equal privilege and opportunity that God establishes in the truth of His word that results in spiritual freedom. John 8:31-32;
This is a very temporary shame because believers have no sorrow in the eternal state. Rev 21:4;
Paul describes this shame in Phil 3:18-19; "For many believers keep walking, concerning whom I have communicated to you many times and now continue communicating even though weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross whose end is destruction (the sin unto death), whose god is their emotion, whose glory (at judgment seat of Christ) is their shame, who keep thinking about earthly things."
Paul was weeping from frustration because of the negative volition of believers who were uninterested in what the Word of God had to say even though he continued to teach faithfully and accurately. These believers had not been faithful in the perception, metabolization, and application of doctrine through the use of the problem solving devices.
Their negative volition to God's word caused them to become "enemies of the cross" because they are conducting their lives on the basis of human good and human viewpoint thinking that is based on satan's lies and deceit rather than the truth of divine viewpoint thinking.
Every believer has equal opportunity to execute God plan in time but believers must be self-motivated because each believer stands or falls on his own. If believers fail to glorify God in time through the function of the spiritual skills because of wrong priorities and a wrong scale of values there is no glory or blessing at the judgment seat of Christ.
Without stability from the eternal truth of God's Word believers live their lives in a state of irrationality under the control of their emotions.
The basis for the emotional complex of sins is discussed in Psa 56:3-4; "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You. In God, whose word I praise. In God, I have put my trust. I will not be afraid."
The emotional complex of sins and the Christian life are mutually exclusive. 1John 4:18;