<p>16:26&nbsp;<i>For what shall a man be profited</i>- Mt. 16:26 records the Lord as teaching: &ldquo;What&nbsp;<i>will it</i>&nbsp;[future] profit a man [i.e. at the future judgment], if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?&rdquo;. Mk. 8:36 has: &ldquo;What&nbsp;<i>does it</i> [right now] profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?&rdquo;. Could it be that the Lord said both these things at the same time- to make His point, that the essence of judgment day is being decided right now by our decisions today? And the Lord&rsquo;s next words make the same point: &ldquo;What shall [at judgment day] a man give in return for his life?&rdquo; (Mt. 16:26) is matched by Mk. 8:37: &ldquo;What can [right now] a man give in return for his life?&rdquo;. The question we will face at judgment day, the obvious issue between winning for a moment and losing eternally, or losing now and winning eternally&hellip; this is being worked out right now. The choice is ours, hour by hour, decision by decision.</p>
<p>The metaphor is clearly of trading: profiting, gaining, exchanging, losing. The parable of trading the talents uses the same metaphor. Mt. 25:17,20,22 speak of &lsquo;gaining&rsquo; more talents- the same word used here about &lsquo;gaining&rsquo; the world. And yet the intended paradox is that by losing materially, declining to profit and gain in the material things of this world, we shall gain eternal things. The idea of not being profited by gaining the things of this life is recorded in all the Synoptics (Mk. 8:36; Lk. 9:25). John&rsquo;s equivalent is to record the Lord&rsquo;s teaching that the flesh can &ldquo;profit&rdquo; (s.w.) nothing, whereas His words are spirit and life (Jn. 6:63). The spiritual life, lived in response to His word, is the true profit. There can be no ultimate profit in any fleshly, worldly enterprise.&nbsp;</p>
<p><i>If he shall gain</i>- See on&nbsp;<i>profit</i>. We are to &lsquo;gain&rsquo; more talents for the Lord, not the world for ourselves (Mt. 25:17,20,22 s.w.). We &lsquo;gain&rsquo; our brother (Mt. 18:15)- not for ourselves, but for the Lord; Paul wanted to &lsquo;gain&rsquo; men by all means for Christ (1 Cor. 9:19-22 s.w. four times). Unspiritual husbands are to be &lsquo;gained&rsquo; by the spiritual efforts of believing wives (1 Pet. 3:1). The first century believers likely memorized the Gospels, and so Paul&rsquo;s repeated usage of the word &lsquo;gain&rsquo; regarding gaining others would&rsquo;ve been easily connected with the &lsquo;gaining&rsquo; of talents in the parable, where the same word is also repeatedly used. Instead of gaining the world for ourselves, we are to gain people for Christ. Instead of careers and long hours at work to fund a cool lifestyle, we are to spend time visiting, phoning, writing, emailing, arranging things&hellip; for the gaining of individuals for Him. The contrast is between gaining&nbsp;<i>persons</i>&nbsp;for&nbsp;<i>Christ&nbsp;</i>and gaining&nbsp;<i>things&nbsp;</i>for&nbsp;<i>ourselves</i>. Paul had clearly meditated upon the Lord&rsquo;s teaching here because he says that whatever things were once &ldquo;gain&rdquo; for him [s.w.] he now counted as&nbsp;<i>loss</i>, and even saw his death, the loss of this present life, as &ldquo;gain&rdquo; (Phil. 3:7; 1:21). The &ldquo;things&rdquo; he no longer wished to &ldquo;gain&rdquo; refer to his life of legalistic obedience and condemnation of others (Phil. 3:4-6). The call to no longer gain but lose is not simply an invitation to unload our wealth in monetary terms. If it were, then it would only apply to the minority of believers over time who have been wealthy. More essentially, the call is to lose whatever human advantage we have had, even spiritual power and advantage over others, in order to align ourselves with the life and death of our Lord. Paul continues the allusion to this section by saying that he has counted all such human advantage as &ldquo;loss&rdquo; (Phil. 3:8)- the same word used in &ldquo;lose his own soul / life&rdquo;- in order that he might &ldquo;gain&rdquo; Christ. The gaining of life which the Lord spoke of is described by Paul as a gaining of Christ- for He is our life (Col. 3:4). Our existence is eternally intertwined with His.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p><i>The whole world&shy;-&nbsp;</i>An allusion to the Lord&rsquo;s wilderness temptations. Yet again, He speaks largely to Himself in His teaching of others, as every true teacher does. The parallel records in Mark and Luke speak of suffering and loss in order to not be ashamed of the Lord&rsquo;s words and to preach those words. The work of witness is the &lsquo;gaining&rsquo; of people for Him. It is not incidental, therefore, that the only other reference in Matthew to&nbsp;<i>holos kosmos</i>, &ldquo;the whole world&rdquo; is in the context of speaking of how the Gospel is to be preached to &ldquo;the whole world&rdquo; (Mt. 26:13). With this in mind, it may also be that the Lord is warning that a preacher may indeed gain the whole world for God in a spiritual sense- and yet be cast away himself. In this case, He was more than ever speaking to Himself, He who did die in order to gain the world. What we do for others is no replacement for personal spirituality. If this is a valid interpretation, perhaps subtly built in by the Lord into His appeal to not gain the material world for ourselves, then we must re-examine the common assumption that a person must be good and spiritual because of all the good they have done for others. That good may indeed have been done, but is no guarantee of deeply personal integrity before God.&nbsp;</p>
<p><i>And forfeit his life</i>- The allusion to Mt. 10:28,29 means that no man can take life from us, but God can, at the condemnation of the last day. Therefore the &ldquo;life&rdquo; in view is not simply mortal life, which can be taken from us by men. Rather does it refer to our eternal life, potentially given to us from the foundation of the world in Christ. We cannot give anything for that, it is priceless. We are to accept it, but if we accept it, then we will not seek to gain the world for ourselves in a material sense in this life. Note the emphasis upon his &ldquo;own&rdquo; life. The eternal life which we shall eternally experience is personal to each of us. The Bible teaches personal salvation. You, and me, as the sum total of all we have experienced, we as persons&hellip; shall personally be saved. The eternal life is not therefore merely a biophysical state which can no longer die; immortality is not merely the absence of death. It is more personal than that. It is about you and me personally existing for eternity; we ourselves as persons shall be saved and eternally continue. This of course highlights the eternal importance of character development in this life; for we shall eternally be who we develop into.</p>
<p><i>Or what shall a man give in exchange</i>- The Lord is perhaps envisaging how some might think to offer their wealth in order to buy eternity at the last day- verse 27 goes on to speak of the day of judgment as if this is the scene which the Lord has had in view throughout this section. Surely nobody will actually do that- at that day. But effectively, that is how so many live today, thinking that their attempts to acquire this world can somehow be compared to the riches of eternity.</p>
<p><i>For his life</i>- The Greek and Hebrew words translated &ldquo;soul&rdquo; [&quot;life&quot;] have a very wide range of meaning. The idea is usually of the person, the life, often the natural life. But here we have one of a few usages where the word is used about the person and their life in the sense of the person and life which they could eternally be in God&rsquo;s Kingdom. The use of &ldquo;soul&rdquo; here rather than &ldquo;life&rdquo; is perhaps because the Lord has been emphasizing personal salvation- see on&nbsp;<i>his own life</i>.</p>