<p>12:25 <i>He that loves his life</i>- &quot;Life&quot; translates <i>psuche</i>, &quot;soul&quot;. This is surely the Gospel of John's equivalent of the parable of the rich fool, who so loved his own soul but lost it: &quot;I will say to my soul: Soul, you have many goods...&quot; (Lk. 12:19). But here in John we see that the Lord half spoke that parable to Himself; if He refused the cross, He would be loving His own soul, trying to be briefly rich for himself in this world.</p><p><i>Loses it</i>- As so often, the Lord was clearly half talking to Himself here. For in the immediate context, it was His life which was to be lost, or could be temporarily kept if He were to refuse the cross. We are right now losing our lives if we love ourselves. The final judgment is likened to a winnowing process. But right now, according to Ps. 139:3 RVmg., God winnows our path our daily living, all day (&quot;my path&quot;) and every evening (at my &quot;lying down&quot;). &quot;The Lord sat as king in judgment at the Flood. Yea, the Lord sitteth King for ever&quot; (Ps. 29:10 RV); He is just as much sitting in judgment now as He was at the flood, which is a well-known type of the judgment to come. He speaks of our death in the context of His death. Baptism is a statement that we are prepared to identify with His death as the guiding principle for the rest of our eternal existence.</p><p><i>He that hates his life in this world, shall keep it to everlasting life</i>- The Lord carefully doesn't speak of 'losing' life and then receiving it. Instead, He speaks of keeping life and that life becoming everlasting. As He made clear in the events and teaching of the resurrection of Lazarus in Jn. 11, death for Him was not death. The important thing was the kind of life we now live; for He is often recorded by John as teaching that we can live the eternal life right now. We can live the kind of life we shall eternally live. Note that we 'keep' our current spiritual life eternally; we will eternally be who we are spiritually today. In this lies the paramount and eternal importance of spiritual mindedness and character development.</p>