John 12:25Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

These words seem at first to be a riddle. Yet they are no riddle, for great wisdom is contained in them. How, then, will he who loves his life lose it? When a man fulfills its improper desires and indulges it more than he ought.

For this reason someone gives this instruction: "Do not follow after the desires of your soul" (Sir. 18:30). By doing this you will destroy it, because desire turns it away from the path leading to virtue.

In the same way, conversely, he who "hates" his life "in this world" will save it. What does "hating his life" mean? It means not listening to it when it suggests something harmful.

Yet He did not say, "he who does not listen to it," but "he who hates" it. Just as we cannot hear the voice of those we hate, nor look calmly upon their face, so we must utterly turn away from the soul when it suggests anything displeasing to God.

Since Christ was about to speak with His disciples about death, and about His own death, and foresaw their sorrow and despondency, He uses forceful speech. He says, in effect: why speak of your inability to bear My death firmly? If you yourselves do not die, it will profit you nothing.

But see how He also softens His speech. For a man who loves his life, it was very hard and grievous to hear that he must die. Nor need we speak only of ancient times.

Even now we find many people who are convinced of the future life, yet gladly decide to endure anything in order to enjoy the present life. Looking at buildings, inventions, and works of art, they say with tears: how much man devises, and yet he turns to dust.

So strong is attachment to the present life. Therefore, to loose these bonds, Christ says: "He who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life."

That He said this to the disciples in order to encourage them and remove fear from them is clear from the following words: "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me." Here He speaks of death and demands following in deed.

A servant must necessarily follow the one whom he serves. Notice also the time when He speaks to them about this. It is not when they were being persecuted, but when they were entirely at peace.

They were receiving honor and service from many, and considered themselves wholly secure. Then they could be strong in spirit and hear: "Take up your cross and follow Me" (Mt 16:24).

That is, one must always be ready for dangers, for death, and for departure from this life. Then, since He had spoken sorrowful words, He offers the reward. What is this reward? That they will follow Him and be where He is.

By this He showed that resurrection will follow death. "Where I am," He says, "there My servant will be also." Where is Christ? In the heavens. Therefore, let us pass there in soul and mind even before the resurrection.

By the words “who hates his life in this world,” He shows the temporary character of the matter. This commandment seemed deadly and inconsistent with love for life. He softened it by adding: “in this world.” I do not command you always to hate the soul, He says. But in this unfaithful world, turn away from it when it commands you “to do what is not fitting,” Rom 1:28. He also adds the benefit: “he will keep it for eternal life.” You will hate it for a time, but you will keep it alive forever for divine life.

Let God weigh them. He knows neither how to deceive nor how to be deceived. See how He weighs, and hear the result: "What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul?" (Mt 16:26).

You wished to lose your soul in order to gain the earth. Yet it weighs more than heaven and earth together. You do this because, having abandoned God and loved yourself, you have also abandoned yourself. You value something else more than yourself.

Return to yourself. And when you have returned to yourself, do not remain in yourself. First return to yourself from what is around you. Then return to Him who made you, who sought you when you were lost, and found you when you were fleeing.

If you love your soul, then lose it. Sow here, and you will reap in heaven. Unless the farmer loses the wheat as grain, he will not love it in the harvest. [...] Do not love your soul in such a way that you lose it.

Those who fear death seem to love their souls. But if the martyrs had loved their souls in this way, they would certainly have lost them. [...] What profit is there in clinging to the soul in this life and losing it in heaven?

And what does clinging mean? How long will you cling? What you cling to will slip away from you. But if you lose it, you will find it in yourself. [...] The martyrs lost their souls to great advantage. They lost straw and gained a crown.

They gained a crown, I repeat, and a life that has no end.

Take care that, when you understand "he who hates his life in this world will keep it," the thought does not creep in that you must destroy yourself. Wicked and corrupt men, savage murderers of themselves, sometimes give themselves to fire, drown themselves in water, or throw themselves from a precipice and perish.

But Christ did not teach this. To the devil who tempted Him and urged Him to throw Himself from a height, He said: "Away from Me, Satan" (Mt 4:10). Augustine combines Mt 4:7-10 and Mt 16:23.

But when you have no choice, when the persecutor threatens death, and only two things remain, either to disobey God or to leave this life, then hate your life in this world, that you may have it in eternal life.

Urging us to follow in the footsteps of His Passion, He added: "He who loves his life will lose it." This can be understood in two ways. "He who loves will lose," that is: if you love, lose your life. If you long to have life in Christ, do not fear death for Christ.

Or the saying may be understood thus: "He who loves his life will lose it." Do not love your life, lest you lose it. Do not love it in this life, lest you lose it for eternal life.

This latter meaning seems to fit the Gospel better, for He goes on to say: "and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." Therefore the earlier saying means this.

He who loves his life, understood as loving it in this world, will certainly lose it. But he who hates it in this world will certainly keep it for eternal life. Great and wondrous saying!

How does a man's love for his soul cause him to lose it, while hatred causes him not to lose it? If you love it perversely, you hate it. If you hate it rightly, you love it.

Blessed are those who hate their life, thereby preserving it, lest by loving it they lose it. But beware lest a desire to kill yourself creep into you, if you perversely understand this saying as meaning that you must hate your life in this world.

Some evil and perverse-minded people draw a false conclusion from this and become savage and criminal murderers of themselves. They rush into fire, throw themselves into water, cast themselves from a precipice, and perish.

Christ did not teach this. More than that, when the devil tempted Him and urged Him to throw Himself from a height, He answered: "Away from Me, Satan, for it is written: You shall not tempt the Lord your God" (cf. Mt 4:7).

But to Peter He said, indicating by what death he would glorify God: "When you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you wished. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish" (Jn 21:18-19).

Here He expressed clearly enough that the one who follows in the footsteps of Christ must receive death not from himself, but from another. Therefore, when such a moment comes, and circumstances require either transgressing God's commandment or leaving this life, a man must choose between these two.

Since the persecutor threatens death, let him prefer to die while preserving the love of God, rather than remain alive and draw His wrath upon himself. Let him hate his life in this world, that he may keep it for eternal life.

Such love must be rejected. All these things are meant for use, but one must not be bound to them by the bonds of love, as though glued to them. Do not make members for yourself which will bring suffering and torment when they begin to be cut off.

What then? Rid yourself of that love by which you love what is beneath you. Begin to love what is equal, that is, what is the same as you yourself.

The Lord Himself told us in the Gospel, and clearly showed, how we ought to possess true love. Behold, He says: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (Lk 10:27).

Therefore, first love God, and then yourself. After this, love your neighbor as yourself.

But if he loves himself more than those many, and for the sake of his own welfare is ready to sacrifice their lot, then he remains untouched, yet fruitless, like the condemned fig tree.

Whoever loves his earthly life so much that he does not dare sacrifice it for the good of others in fact loses everything. Guarding this life in every way, which is only a moment in comparison with eternity, he deprives himself of the blessedness of eternal life.

But whoever considers eternal life higher than this fleeting one will not hesitate to sacrifice it, if the good of his neighbors or the triumph of truth requires it.

“He who loves his life will lose it; and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

It means to hate the condition produced in us by the fall and to mortify it by rejecting conduct according to one’s own understandings, will, and impulses. It means to graft forcibly onto one’s nature the reason and will of the nature renewed by Christ. It means to order one’s conduct according to the all-holy teaching of God and the all-holy will of God, revealed to us by God Himself in the Gospel. Our fallen nature is hostile to God. Following the understandings and impulses of fallen nature is a striving toward certain and eternal destruction. For this reason the holy desert Fathers, instructors of monasticism and of all Christianity, uttered many fearful sayings against following one’s own will and understandings. St. Poemen the Great used to say: “The human will is a bronze wall between God and man, a stone striking against the will of God. If a man abandons it, then he too can say: By my God I shall leap over a wall. My God, His way is blameless,” Ps 17:30-31. “But if justification is joined to the will, then the man becomes corrupt and perishes.” By justification one must understand our recognition of activity according to our own will as fair or righteous. This serves as a sure sign of spiritual disorder and deviation from the path of salvation. St. Abba Dorotheos says: “I know no other cause for a monk’s fall except following the will and impulses of his heart. Some say that a man falls from this or that. But I, as I said, know no other cause of falling than this. Have you seen someone fallen? Know that he followed himself.” Further, St. Dorotheos relates that while in the cenobium of Abba Seridos, he was guided in everything by the instructions of the Spirit-bearing elder John, wholly rejecting his own understandings and impulses of heart. When some thought of his own about a spiritual matter occurred to the learned and intelligent Dorotheos, he would say to himself: “Anathema to you and to your reasoning, to your understanding, and to your knowledge.” Here is an example of blessed hatred for one’s own life, the hatred commanded by the Savior of our souls and bodies. Here is an example of blessedly losing one’s life for the sake of Christ and the Gospel, in order to save the soul. Here is an example of the attitude of the Saints toward fallen nature. Let us follow, brethren, the teaching of Christ.

Whoever hates his life so much that he is capable of self-sacrifice even to death for the sake of truth will preserve it for eternal life in the Kingdom of Christ, even though he loses it in this world. This is the Kingdom of love even to self-sacrifice, Jn 15:13. This is a general moral law, applicable to all. Judging by the connection of verse 23 with 24, and 24 with 25, there seems no doubt that the Lord applies this general moral law to Himself as man. As the most perfect of men, as the God-man, He must surrender His life and show self-denial even to death for such a supreme purpose as the redemption of the world, Jn 6:51 and parallels. In its particular application to the present case, one might imagine that He would wish to preserve His life in this world, go to the Greeks, teach them, and be received by them as a great sage and lawgiver. In this way He would seem to preserve His life in this world, but in reality He would lose it. He would not be Christ, the Redeemer of humanity. But since He gave Himself over to death for the redemption of all, and again received His life, Jn 10:18, He thereby accomplished the great work of the Messiah. So too, everyone must be ready for self-denial even to death for the truth.

A grain of wheat, thrown into the ground, sends out a root and wholly decays. But in place of one grain, one hundred and three hundred grains appear. The greatness of the self-sacrifice accomplished by the Son of God is beyond survey. It is not surprising if the thought of His death on the Cross seems so strange to the Gentile, 1 Cor 1:23. Yet the history of Christianity shows how fruitful this death is. “Let them not be troubled if He dies, for then especially the preaching will increase and the Gentiles will believe,” Ammonius. By the experience of life they learn that the death of the Son of God on the Cross is the only reconciliation of guilty humanity with the righteousness of God. For this reason the pagan nations receive the teaching of the Cross with such thirst. The thought of the Son of God’s self-sacrifice is a fruitful grain not only in relation to the increasing number of confessors of Christ’s name. It is the same kind of grain in relation to the process of spiritual life in every person. Thus here is the brief dogmatics for the Gentile: the teaching about the death of the Son of God. In what does the brief moral teaching for the Gentile consist? “He who loves his life will lose it.” To love one’s life means to love oneself, Lk 9:23-24. The pagan is self-loving and unbridled in the passions. How can he fail to cherish his passions, his selfhood, and his love of glory, honor, money, and pleasures? All this is his property, his very self. How can he raise his hand against himself? But as long as he loves himself and does not rise up against himself, his salvation is impossible. More than that, day by day he only multiplies disorder in his spiritual organism. Why? For what reason? Because he lives in estrangement from God, the principle and source of life. Because self-love in corrupted man does not desire man’s good, but loves only transgressions. Each of us can learn all this by experience, if he observes himself. “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me.” If anyone wishes to be a true servant of Christ, a true disciple, he must walk as He walked, 1 Jn 2:6. Like Him, he must take up his cross, Mt 16:24, and go by the sorrowful path, 1 Pet 2:21. Such is the application of the teaching about the death of the Son of God to our life. It is hard here, but there man will not regret fulfilling it. “Where I am, there My servant will be also. My Father will honor him.” The constant dwelling of the Son of God is in heaven, in eternal glory. There also will be His faithful disciple. The heavenly Father, the cause of all, will reward such a disciple. No earthly king will bestow honors and glory on a faithful servant as the heavenly King will reward him.