Denying Yourself — But Which Self?

Jesus said it plainly. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. The command is clear. The confusion is in what we think he means by himself.

Context matters here. It always does. And this passage has suffered from the kind of careless reading that strips a verse from its framework and hands it to anyone who happens to be listening — believer and unbeliever alike — as though the instruction lands the same way in every heart.

It doesn't.

For the person who does not yet know Christ, there is but one nature. This person, created by God in his image, is not yet reconciled to God because of humanity's fallen nature. We may not view him as evil in the way we sometimes caricature it, and yet this person is thoroughly organized around his own survival, comfort, and autonomy. He has no access to the indwelling Spirit. He has no new desires planted by God. When we tell that person to deny themselves, we are asking for self-regulation — a noble effort, a real effort, but one with no eternal foundation beneath it. Willpower dressed in spiritual language. It may produce a more manageable life. It will not produce transformation.

What is more, this same person stands as an enemy of God. Not a mild stranger. Not a distant acquaintance. An enemy. (More on that in an upcoming post.) The self-denial we ask of him has no covenant beneath it, no Spirit within it, and no resurrection power behind it.

In contrast, the new creation in Christ is something altogether different. This person is the delight of God. Reconciled. Welcomed. Invited to come to him as a little child comes to a father — without performance, without pretense, without earning the right to draw near. That is the person Jesus is speaking to in Matthew 16. And that changes everything about what he means by deny yourself.

The person in Christ is one person with two natures. Something has happened. A second nature has been born — born of the second Adam, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, carrying genuine desires for God and for others that are real and trustworthy. And that distinction changes everything about what self-denial means.

The self Jesus calls us to deny is the old self — the false self — the nature organized around the senses, the flesh, the reactive patterns that predate our new life in Christ. That self is real. It still rebels against God. And it must be denied.

but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

— Romans 8:13b

But the new self — the self in union with Christ — does not need to be denied. It needs to be fed. Formed. Fashioned into the life God made him for.

When a mentor, a pastor, or a parent tells a new believer to deny himself without that qualification, that breaks my heart. The new disciple is misled. This is unbiblical. This is unkind.

In union with Christ, the new life grows — the way a child grows into adulthood. Gradually. Naturally. In one direction.

And the new desire to walk in the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit will both inspire and empower that growth. Grace upon grace. Until the old nature is increasingly denied and the new nature increasingly formed to become more like Christ. (Galatians 4:19)

That is what Jesus had in mind. Not the rejection of the self he died to redeem. The liberation of it.

If this distinction interests you, the Icebergology™ framework explores it more fully. You can begin here.