He who loves his life will lose it. He who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life.
Parallel Translations
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He who loves his life will lose it. He who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life.
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He that loveth his lyfe shall destroye it: and he that hateth his lyfe in this worlde shall kepe it vnto lyfe eternall.
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He that loueth his life, shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world, shall keepe it vnto life eternall.
Cross-references (11)
Passages linked to John 12:25 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Matthew 10:39 He who seeks his life will lose it; and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.
- Luke 9:23-24 He said to all, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake, will save it.
- Mark 8:35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it; and whoever will lose his life for my sake and the sake of the Good News will save it.
- Luke 17:33 Whoever seeks to save his life loses it, but whoever loses his life preserves it.
- Matthew 16:25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it.
- Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to me, and doesn’t disregard his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he can’t be my disciple.
- Matthew 19:29 Everyone who has left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive one hundred times, and will inherit eternal life.
- Acts 20:24 But these things don’t count; nor do I hold my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to fully testify to the Good News of the grace of God.
- Revelation 12:11 They overcame him because of the Lamb’s blood, and because of the word of their testimony. They didn’t love their life, even to death.
- Ecclesiastes 2:17 So I hated life, because the work that is worked under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind.
- Acts 21:13 Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (16 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 25. He who loveth his soul shall destroy it.…
25. He who loveth his soul shall destroy it. To doctrine Christ joins exhortation; for if we must die in order that we may bring forth fruit, we ought patiently to permit God to mortify us. But as he draws a contrast between the love of life and the hatred of lit, we ought to understand what it is to love and hate life. He who, under the influence of immoderate desire of the present life, cannot leave the world but by constraint, is said to love life; but he who, despising life, advances courageously to death, is said to hate life. Not that we ought absolutely to hate life, which is justly reckoned to be one of the highest of God’s blessings; but because believers ought cheerfully to lay it down, when it retards them from approaching to Christ; just as a man, when he wishes to make haste in any matter, would shake off from his shoulders a heavy and disagreeable burden. In short, to love this life is not in itself wrong, provided that we only pass through it as pilgrims, keeping our eyes always fixed on our object. For the true limit of loving life, is, when we continue in it as long as it pleases God, and when we are prepared to leave it as soon as he shall order us, or — to express it in a single word — when we carry it, as it were, in our hands, and offer it to God as a sacrifice. Whoever carries his attachment to the present life beyond this limit, destroys his life; that is, he consigns it to everlasting ruin. For the word destroy (ἀπολέσει) does not signify to lose, or to sustain the loss of something valuable, but to devote it to destruction.
His soul. It frequently happens that the word ψυχή, soul, is put for life. Some consider it as denoting, in this passage, the seat of the affections; as if Christ had said, “tie who too much indulges the (desires of his flesh destroys his soul.” But that is a forced interpretation, and the other is more natural, that he who disregards his own life takes the best method of enjoying it eternally.
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In this world. To make the meaning still more clear, the phrase in this world, which is but once expressed, ought to be twice repeated, so that the meaning may be, “They do not take the proper method of preserving their life who love it in this world, but, on the other hand, they truly know how to preserve their life who despise it in this world.” And, indeed, whoever is attached to the world does, of his own accord, deprive himself of the heavenly life, of which we cannot be heirs in any other way than by being strangers and foreigners in the world. The consequence is, that the more anxious any person is about his own safety, the farther does he remove himself from the kingdom of God, that is, from the true life.
He who hateth his soul I have already suggested that this expression is used comparatively; because we ought to despise life, so far as it hinders us from living to God; for if meditation on the heavenly life were the prevailing sentiment in our hearts:. the world would have no influence in detaining us. Hence, too, we obtain a reply to an objection that might be urged. “Many persons, through despair, or for other reasons, and chiefly from weariness of life, kill themselves; and yet we will not say that such persons provide for their own safety, while others are hurried to death by ambition, who also rush down to ruin.” But here Christ speaks expressly of that hatred or contempt of this fading life, which believers derive: from the contemplation of a better life. Consequently, whoever does not look to heaven, has not yet learned in what way life must be preserved. Besides, this latter clause was added by Christ, in order to strike terror into those who are too desirous of the earthly life; for if we are overwhelmed by the love of the world, so that we cannot easily forget it, it is impossible for us to go to heaven. But since the Son of God arouses us so violently, it would be the height of folly to sleep a mortal sleep.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 25 He that loveth his life shall lose it;…
25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
Ver. 25. He that loveth his life] As Christ loved not his life to the death for us, so neither must we for him. If every hair of my head were a man, I would suffer death in the opinion and faith that I am now in, said John Ardley, martyr, to Bonner. God be praised, said Dr Taylor, since my condemnation, I was never afraid to die. God’s will be done; if I shrink from God’s truth, I am sure of another manner of death than had Judge Hales.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain We had much the same in the other evangelists,…
We had much the same in the other evangelists, Mat 10:39; Luk 14:26. Some think that our Saviour repeateth it here, to show, that as Christ first suffered, and then entered into his glory; so his disciples must also lay the foundation of their glory in their sufferings and through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God, Act 14:22. Or what if we should say, that our blessed Lord doth here prophesy what sufferings would attend the first preaching of the gospel, and encourage his disciples to what he knew they must meet with and undergo, by letting them know that the ready way to lose their share in life eternal, was to be so fond of this life, and the comforts of it, as not to be ready to lay them down for him; but if any person hated, that is, less loved his life, and all that in this world is dear to him, than Christ and his service, he should, if not be preserved from enemies’ rage, yet most certainly be recompensed with eternal life?
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain If any man serve, me,.... Or is willing to…
If any man serve, me,.... Or is willing to be a servant of Christ, and to be esteemed as such;
let him follow me; as in the exercise of the graces of love, humility, patience, self-denial, and resignation of will to the will of God, and in the discharge of every duty, walking as he walked, so in a way of suffering; for as the master, so the servants, as the head, so the members, through many tribulations, must enter the kingdom; to which he encourages by the following things:
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and where I am; in heaven, as he now was, as the Son of God; or "where I shall be", as the Syriac and Persic versions render it, even as man, in the human nature, when raised from the dead:
there shall also my servant be; when he has done his work, and the place is prepared for him, and he for that, and where he shall ever abide; and as a further encouragement, he adds,
if any man serve me, him will my Father honour; by accepting his service, affording him his gracious presence here, and by giving him eternal glory hereafter, to which he has called him.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain He that loveth his life - More than the…
He that loveth his life - More than the will of God; shall lose it eternally: and he that hateth his life - In comparison of the will of God, shall preserve it. Matt. x, 39.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 25. He that loveth his life] See Clarke…
Verse 25. He that loveth his life] See Clarke on Mt 10:39; and see Clarke "Lu 14:26". I am about to give up my life for the salvation of men; but I shall speedily receive it back with everlasting honour, by my resurrection from the dead. In this I should be imitated by my disciples, who should, when called to it, lay down their lives for the truth; and, if they do, they shall receive them again with everlasting honour.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain He that loveth his life ... - This was…
He that loveth his life ... - This was a favorite principle, a sort of “axiom” with the Lord Jesus, which he applied to himself as well as to his followers. See the Mat 10:39 note; Luk 9:24 note.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain He that loveth his life shall lose it; and…
He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal--(See on Luk 9:24). Did our Lord mean to exclude Himself from the operation of the great principle here expressed--self-renunciation, the law of self-preservation; and its converse, self-preservation, the law of self-destruction? On the contrary, as He became Man to exemplify this fundamental law of the Kingdom of God in its most sublime form, so the very utterance of it on this occasion served to sustain His own Spirit in the double prospect to which He had just alluded.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 25. Loveth… life… lose it—The same law of death…
25. Loveth… life… lose it—The same law of death resulting in life which the Lord obeys his followers must also accept. A virtual death must be by us undergone in order that we may spiritually and eternally live. If we perversely maintain a worldly life and refuse martyrdom in spirit or in reality, that life we can never attain. But he that hateth his life in this world, who abhors and renounces the selfish love of life, shall keep it unto life eternal. Thus are lord and servant under the same law of death and life.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 25. loveth his life … hateth his life ……
25. loveth his life … hateth his life … life eternal] ‘Life’ is here used in two senses, and in the Greek two different words are used. In the first two cases ‘life’ means the life of the individual, in the last, life in the abstract. By sacrificing life in the one sense, we may win life in the other. See notes on Mat_10:39; Mat_16:25; Mar_8:35; Luk_9:24; Luk_17:33. A comparison of the texts will shew that most of them refer to different occasions, so that this solemn warning must have been often on His lips. The present utterance is distinct from all the rest.
shall lose it] Better, loseth it; the Greek may mean destroyeth it.
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hateth his life] i.e. is ready to act towards it as if he hated it, if need so require. Neither here nor in Luk_14:26 must ‘hate’ be watered down to mean ‘be not too fond of;’ it means that and a great deal more. The word rendered ‘life’ in ‘loveth his life’ and ‘hateth his life’ might also mean ‘soul,’ and some would translate it so: but would Christ have spoken of hating one’s soul as the way to eternal life?
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (25) He that loveth his life shall lose it.—The…
(25) He that loveth his life shall lose it.—The reading here is uncertain, and may be, perhaps with slightly more probability is, He that loveth his life loses it—i.e., that the loss of life is not in the future only, but that in the present, in every moment when a man loves and seeks to save his own life, he is then, and by that very seeking, actually losing it.
The words of this verse are familiar to us from the earlier Gospels, and have been explained in Notes on Mat_10:39; Mat_16:25; Mar_8:35; Luk_9:24; Luk_17:33. The disciples had heard them laid down as the law of their own life and work. They now hear the mysterious words again, and they are asserted as the law to which even His life is submitted. There is even in His human nature a physical and emotional life which would shrink from sacrifice and death (Joh_12:27; comp. Note on Mat_26:39), but in self-sacrifice and death is His own glory and the life of the world. There is in all human nature a principle which would seek as the highest good the life of the body and of the soul, as distinct from the higher life of the spirit, and would shrink from sacrifice and death; but the true principle of life is of the spirit, and only in the sacrifice of the desires of the lower physical and emotional life is that spiritual life realised.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 25, 26. The Lord here introduces a solemn,…
Vers. 25, 26. The Lord here introduces a solemn, almost oracular utterance, which proves how close and intimate is the relationship between the synoptics and the Fourth Gospel. On several great occasions our Lord has impressed this law of the Spirit of life upon his disciples. Thus in Mat_10:37-39, in the lengthened commission given to the twelve, after calling on his followers to place his own claim on their affection as greater than that of father, mother, friend, and calling for self-sacrifice, and self-crucifixion, he said, "He that findeth his life (quch) shall lose it: he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Again, (Mat_16:25, etc.) after rebuking Peter for his unwillingness to recognize the necessity and significance of the killing of "the Son of the living God," he laid down the same law once more, calling for self-denial and daily cross-bearing, and adds, "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." (So also Luk_9:23, etc. Luk_15:26) also introduces the same solemn aphorism in our Lord"s discourse concerning the close of the Jewish national life. Surely here he is applying to his own case the law of the Divine life which he had shown to be universal, and of which he was on the point of giving the crowning and climacteric expression. He does it with amplifications and a supply of motives. If life be regarded as an end in itself; if it be treated as complete when rounded with its own individuality; if life shrink from sacrifice, if it "love itself," and will at all hazards preserve itself; if the natural and instinctive fear of death, and instinct of self-preservation, become a self-idolatry; that life will "abide alone." If it sacrifice itself for higher ends than self; if it regard the higher end as more valuable than itself; if it lose itself in the object to which it is consecrated; if it be content to "die; it abideth no longer "alone," but "bringeth forth much fruit.
He that loves his own life (quch); life used as equivalent to "self," in that totality of being which, like the life of the seed-corn, survives the accident of deathhe that loves his own life (self) is losing it; or, perhaps, destroying it, ipso facto. There are ends and objects of love so much greater than" the self," that to keep it by some act of will and recreant fear is to make it utterly valueless, is really to destroy its true vitality. And he that hateth his (quch) life (self) in this world, wherever the greater claim of Christ and of the Father would be compromised by loving it, shall veritably preserve it, viz. the self, unto eternal (zwh) life; i.e. to the blessedness of eternal being. The quch is a great possession; and "what advantageth a man if he should gain the whole world, and lose it?" But if a man persists in gaining the world, and forgets that this earthly existence is not capable of satisfying the demands or finding a sphere for the true self, and so makes the earthly reign or enjoyment of the quch the end of all striving, then he miserably fails. So far it is clear that our Lord is applying a great principle of the true life to the case of his own Messianic work and ministry. He draws, from a law of the superiority of the Divine life to the fear of death and to the fact of death, a justification of his own approaching doom. He can only by dying live his perfect life, win his greatest triumph; reap his world-wide harvest.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 25. He that loveth his life shall lose it.…
25. He that loveth his life shall lose it. He announces a principle that underlies all exaltation. He gave his life and found eternal exaltation; the grain gives its life and lives a hundred-fold; those who consecrate their lives, give them up for others, dedicate them to their holy work, will live eternally.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain kosmos = world-system.
world
kosmos = world-system.
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Joh 14:17; Joh 14:19; Joh 14:22; Joh 14:27; Joh 14:30; Joh 7:7 (See Scofield "Rev 13:8").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 He who loves his life will lose it
He who loves his life will lose it
Here "loves his life" means to consider one's own physical life to be more valuable than the lives of others. AT: "whoever values his own life more than others will not receive eternal life" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
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he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life
Here the one who "hates his life" refers to one who loves his own life less than he loves the lives of others. AT: "whoever considers the lives of others as more important than his own life will live with God forever" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
where I am, there will my servant also be
Jesus implies that those who serve him will be with him in heaven. AT: "when I am in heaven, my servant will also be there with me" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
the Father will honor him
Here "Father" is an important title for God. (See: Translating Son and Father)
translationWords
life
world
eternity
servant
servant
God the Father
honor
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 12:25 For disciples, sacrifice and self-effacement are means of…
12:25 For disciples, sacrifice and self-effacement are means of gaining the fullness of life provided by Jesus’ sacrifice. Those who renounce the world will join Jesus in eternity and be honored by God just as Jesus is.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.