But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.
—Matthew 20:26-28
Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
—1 John 3:16
In speaking of the likeness of Christ’s death, and of being made conformable to it, there is one danger to which even the earnest believer is exposed. That danger is seeking after these blessings for one’s own sake. He would never attain the close conformity to Jesus’ death he hoped for. He would be leaving out that which is essential in the death of Jesus. To be made conformable to Christ’s death implies a dying to self.
To the question of how far we are to go in living for, loving, serving, and saving men, the Scriptures do not hesitate to give the unequivocal answer: we are to go as far as Jesus did, even to the laying down of our lives. We are to consider this the entire purpose for which we are redeemed and are left in the world. Like Christ, the only thing that keeps us in this world is to be the glory of God in the salvation of sinners. Scripture does not hesitate to say that it is in His path of suffering, as He goes to work out atonement and redemption, that we are to follow Him.
As the most essential thing in likeness to Christ is likeness to His death, so the most essential thing in likeness to His death is the giving up of our lives to win others to God. It is a death in which all thought of saving self is lost in that of saving others. Let us pray for the light of the Holy Spirit to show us this. We must learn to feel that we are in the world just as Christ was, to give up self, to love and serve, to live and die, “even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Oh, that God would allow His people to know that they do not belong to themselves, but to God and to their fellowmen. Even as Christ lived, they are to live only to be a blessing to the world.