Jesus prepared his disciples for his departure from earth by telling them exactly what to expect in the final days of his ministry. Mark tells us, “And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly” (Mark 8:31-32). Jesus didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding about his intention of dying for the sins of the world. Surprisingly, Peter thought that Jesus was mistaken about the need for him to sacrifice his life in order to accomplish God’s will. Mark said of Jesus, “And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man’” (Mark 8:32-33). Jesus pointed out that Peter was being influenced by Satan and that his mind was focused on the wrong things. You might say that Peter had a temporal point of view; he wasn’t looking at the bigger picture. The thing that Peter missed was the fact that after three days, Jesus was going to rise from the dead (Mark 8:31).

Following his interaction with Peter, Jesus spoke to the crowd around him about a key principle of God’s kingdom that has to do with eternal life. Mark said of Jesus:

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.” (Mark 8:34-9:1)

Jesus was looking at things from a human perspective when used the example of gaining and losing something to explain the concept of eternal life. The thing that was at stake, that which could be gained or lost when it came to eternal life was the human soul. The Greek word that is translated soul in Mark 8:36-37 is psuche (psoo-khayˊ). “The soul, that immaterial part of man held in common with animals. One’s understanding of this word’s relationship to related terms is contingent upon his position regarding biblical anthropology. Dichotomists view man as consisting of two parts (or substances), material and immaterial, with spirit and soul denoting the immaterial and bearing only a functional and not a metaphysical difference. Trichotomists also view man as consisting of two parts (or substances), but with spirit and soul representing in some contexts a real subdivision of the immaterial. This latter view is here adopted. Accordingly, psuche is contrasted with soma (G4983), body, and pneuma (G4151), spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23). The psuche, no less than the sarx (G4561), flesh, belongs to the lower region of man’s being. Sometimes psuche stands for the immaterial part of man made up of the soul (psuche in the restrictive sense of the life element), and the spirit pneuma. However, animals are not said to possess a spirit; this is only in man, giving him the ability to communicate with God. Also breath (Sept. Genesis 1:30; Job 41:12), and in the NT, usually meaning the vital breath, the life element through which the body lives and feels, the principle of life manifested in the breath” (G5590).

One of the key indicators that is typically used to determine if a person is dead or alive is breathing. When we stop breathing, we are usually thought of as being dead. In the context of eternal life, Jesus’ statement, “whoever would save his life (psuche) will lose it, but whoever loses his life (psuche) for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:35), was referring to the soul as an indicator of spiritual life or death. Jesus said, “whoever would save his life will lose it.” The Greek word that is translated save, sozo (sodeˊ-zo) is used “specifically of salvation from eternal death, sin, and the punishment and misery consequent to sin. To save, and (by implication), to give eternal life…The participle is used substantively to refer to those being saved, those who have obtained salvation through Christ and are kept by him (Luke 13:23; Acts 2:47; 1 Corinthians 1:18; 2 Corinthians 2:15; Revelation 21:24)” (G4982). From that standpoint, losing your life would mean that you stop attempting to pay the penalty for your sins against God.

The prophet Ezekiel foretold of an everlasting covenant that God would establish after Israel broke the covenant that was associated with the Mosaic Law. Ezekiel stated:

“For thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant. Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you take your sisters, both your elder and your younger, and I give them to you as daughters, but not on account of the covenant with you. I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God.” (Ezekiel 16:59-63)

God said that he would atone for the people. The Hebrew word kaphar (kaw-farˊ), which is translated atone for, is “A verb meaning to cover, to forgive, to expiate, to reconcile. This word is of supreme theological importance in the Old Testament as it is central to an Old Testament understanding of the remission of sins. At its most basic level, the word conveys the notion of covering but not in the sense of merely concealing. Rather, it suggests the imposing of something to change its appearance or nature. It is therefore employed to signify the cancellation or ‘writing over’ of a contract (Isaiah 28:18); the appeasing of anger (Genesis 32:20[21]; Proverbs 16:14); and the overlaying of wood with pitch so as to make it waterproof (Genesis 6:14). The word also communicates God’s covering of sin. Persons made reconciliation with God for their sins by imposing something that would appease the offended party (in this case the Lord) and cover the sinners with righteousness (Exodus 32:30; Ezekiel 45:17; cf. Daniel 9:24). In the Old Testament, the blood of sacrifices was most notably imposed (Exodus 30:10). By this imposition, sin was purged (Psalm 79:9; Isaiah 6:7) and forgiven (Psalm 78:38). The offenses were removed, leaving sinners clothed in righteousness (cf. Zechariah 3:3, 4). Of course, the imposition of the blood of bulls and of goats could never fully cover our sin (see Hebrews 10:4), but with the coming of Christ and the imposition of His shed blood, a perfect atonement was made (Romans 5:9-11)” (H3722).

Ezekiel went on to say that “the soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4, 20). “One prominent feature of the book of Ezekiel is the declaration of individual responsibility (Ezekiel 3:16-21; 14:12-20; 18:1-32; 33:1-20). In this passage, the Lord was setting aside an old proverb in Israel (Ezekiel 18:2, cf. Jeremiah 31:29, 30) and replacing it with one of his own: ‘The soul who sins shall die’ (Ezekiel 18:4, 20). In the Old Testament, God’s people were treated as a national unit, and their sustenance and material prosperity were often affected by sins of the minority (cf. Joshua 7:1, 4-11, 16-26). Consequently, God was just when he spoke of ‘visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children’ (Exodus 20:5). This passage, however, looks beyond material ramifications and considers the eternal results of sin. This is implied by the use of the term ‘soul’ (v. 4) and the command to ‘make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit’ (v. 31). Many righteous people were going to die in the siege, and many would be carried to Babylon (as Ezekiel and Daniel were). The eternal fate of each person, however, was determined by his or her individual relationship with God” (note on Ezekiel 18:1-32).

Paul explained in his letter to the Romans that righteousness can only be obtained through faith in Jesus Christ. After he declared that “none is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God” (Romans 3:10-11), Paul went on to state:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:21-26)

Paul indicated that Jesus was “put forward as a propitiation by his blood” (Romans 3:25), meaning that Jesus was intended to be a substitute for all who would accept his sacrifice on their behalf (G2435).

Jesus prefaced his remark about losing one’s life with the statement, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). To deny oneself means “to disown and renounce self, to disregard all personal interests and enjoyments (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34)” (G533). This stipulation might make it seem as if Jesus wanted his followers to give up all of their material possessions and to renounce any activity that brought them pleasure, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Jesus told his disciples shortly before his death on the cross, “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:9-10). The Greek word that is translated abundantly, perissos (per-is-sos) means “superabundant (in quantity) or superior (in quality); (by implication) excessive” and as an adjective perissos is used to convey “over and above” having “more than enough” (G4053). Jesus indicated that being saved is what causes a person to have an abundant life (John 10:9), but the word Jesus used for life, zoe (dzo-ayˊ) suggests that atonement changes life’s appearance or nature. Rather than one’s psuche becoming more vibrant, a zoe type of life replaces or covers over their psuche after a person is born again.

Zoe is comparable to psuche in that it represents “physical life and existence as opposed to death and nonexistence,” but it goes farther in referring to life “in the sense of existence, life, in an absolute sense and without end” and “in the Christian sense of eternal life, i.e. that life of bliss and glory in the kingdom of God which awaits the true disciples of Christ after the resurrection” (G2222). Jesus explained in his parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:13-21) that abundant life is not about having the security of material possessions, but about having the kind of security that eternal life provides. After the rich man had torn down his barns and built larger ones to store his crops, “God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you’” (Luke 12:20).

Jesus differentiated between psuche and zoe when he told his disciples, “Whoever loves his life (psuche) loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life (zoe)” (John 12:25). Losing your life in this verse seems to be connected with an acceptance or rejection of the thoughts, feelings, and desires that our souls generate with us. Paul gives us an example of hating your life in his letter to the Romans, where he confessed, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). On the other hand, an example of loving your life might be found in the words of King Nebuchadnezzar, who said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” (Daniel 4:30). Following this statement, Nebuchadnezzar lost his life from a spiritual standpoint, when God issued a decree against him. Daniel tells us, “While the words were still in his mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, ‘O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you is it spoken: “The kingdom has departed from you, and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the breast of the field. And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will”’” (Daniel 4:31-32).