Self – Denial and Self – Interest - Glenn Conjurske

It is everywhere evident in the Scriptures that God continually invites and incites us to act in our own interest, while at the same time commanding self-denial—-even to the extent of forsaking all that I have and hating my own life also. This naturally raises the question, How can these things be? How can I thus deny myself, while at the same time acting universally upon the principle of self-interest? The answer is really very simple: I must deny myself in order to secure my own good. God requires us to give up our own will and our own way, but not our own interest. He asks us to give up our own way precisely to secure our own interest. “Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.” (Ezek. 18:31-32). This is giving up our own way in order to secure our own good. This is self-denial and self-interest.

We see exactly the same in the course which Moses took. “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.”(Heb. 11:24-26). Self-denial is evident here. His position, his pleasures, and his possessions were all given up, forsaken for good and all. Self-interest is also plainly evident, for he did all of this “because [this is the meaning of `for’] he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.” He did not pamper the flesh, or any way compromise with it, but gave up treasures and pleasures for affliction and reproach. But he did not do this purely for the glory of God, without any motive of personal gain, but because he looked to the reward. He gave up the present to secure the future. He gave up the temporal to secure the eternal. He gave up the seen in order to secure the unseen. He gave up the earthly in order to secure the heavenly. This is the universal way of faith, which is the real and only foundation of the self-denial which the gospel requires of us.

All of this is clearly seen also in the apostles of Christ. “Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and have followed thee; what shall we have therefore?” (Matt. 19:27). Here is self-denial and self-interest, as plain as words can make it. Peter had not learned with the modern church to expect the future reward without the present self-denial, and neither was he so hyperspiritual as to pretend that he acted purely for the glory of God, without motives of personal gain. He, with Moses, had respect unto the recompense of the reward. Did the Lord rebuke him for this? Not in the least, though it would have been the perfect opportunity. The Lord might have told him, as some of our hyperspiritual philosophers would, that all of his self-denial upon such a motive was only selfishness, and therefore the essence and epitome of sin. But not a word of this do we hear from the Lord, but only a simple assurance that he would indeed have his reward—-a hundredfold even in this life, a throne of glory in the coming regeneration of the earth, and in the world to come, eternal life. This scripture shows beyond doubt that the self-denial required of us by the gospel is completely consistent with self-interest, as well as that such self-denial is the way to secure our own interest. Those who deny themselves and follow Christ with a view to the coming reward, will certainly receive that reward. To those who seek for glory and honour and immortality he will render eternal life (Rom. 2:6-7).

Paul pursued the same course, with the same motive, as Peter did. “So run,” he says, “that ye may obtain. And every one that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.” (I Cor. 9:24-25). This plainly sets forth the principle of self-denial with a view to self-interest, and Paul goes immediately on to affirm that he lived by that principle: “I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air. But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” (Vss. 26-27). Self-denial is the course. Self-interest is the end, or motive.

Paul elsewhere sets forth the same principles at greater length. “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from the dead. . . . forgetting those things which are behind [the things which were gain to him, which he had given up for Christ], and reaching forth unto those things which are before [in the resurrection glory], I press toward the mark FOR THE PRIZE of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:7-14). Self-denial is the course, self-interest the end.

This is the way of faith. Faith always gives up the present to secure the future—-gives up the pleasures of sin for a season to secure the pleasures at God’s right hand for evermore—-gives up its own will and way in order to secure the “better thing” which God has promised. Faith is confidence in God, and it therefore apprehends the way of God to be better (though it may be painful in the extreme to the flesh) than the way of the world, the flesh, or the devil. Seeing thus, it gives up the good, the gain, the happiness, which the world and the flesh can provide, in order to secure that which is promised by God. Unbelief views things exactly the opposite. Having no confidence in God, it expects more happiness from sin and the world—-and thus from the devil—-than it expects from God. It therefore clings to the world and sin. It expects more good, more pleasure, more gain, more happiness, more fulfillment, in its own way, than in the ways of God, and therefore clings to its own way. Herein we see, by the way, the heinous evil of unbelief. At bottom unbelief is neither more nor less than attributing more goodness to the devil than to God. Thus plainly did Eve in the garden, expecting to receive greater good from the devil than God would give to her, and therefore forsaking the way of God and yielding to the way of the devil. Thus man fell from God by self-indulgence founded upon unbelief, and thus he must return to God by self-denial founded upon faith.

Faith reckons the way of God to be better than the way of the world, the flesh, and the devil, precisely because God is God, and faith has confidence in him as God—-glorifies him as God—-attributes to him the goodness and wisdom which actually belong to him. Seeing thus, faith gives up the easy way of self-pleasing and self-indulgence, and embraces the hard way of self-denial, on the principle of self-interest, trusting that the hard way must lead to the greater good, merely because it is the way of God. Thus faith gives up the broad way of self-indulgence because it “leadeth to destruction.” It pursues the narrow way of self-denial because it “leadeth unto life.” Thus faith overcomes the world, denies its claims, relinquishes its pleasures and profits, and escapes its snares.

These principles are everywhere in the Bible, and when once they are understood it becomes as clear as the day that many of the fundamentalists of our day, who prate so much about salvation by faith, know just nothing about the matter. The faith which they preach expects to win the race without ever setting foot upon the course. It expects to find eternal life at the end of the broad way. It expects to secure its own good without giving up its own way. By continuing in its own way, by clinging to the world and its ways, by continuing in sin, it says practically that the devil is better than God, and that greater good is to be found in the ways which he has devised than in the ways which God has prescribed. And this men have the effrontery to call faith.

The faith of the Bible is a different thing. The self-denial is as much a part of Bible faith as is the self-interest. This is plain enough in the case of Moses, already cited, who “by faith” not only looked to the recompense of the reward, but also gave up the position and pleasures and treasures which he had in Egypt. “By faith he forsook Egypt” (Heb. 11:27)—-as did the rest of the people of Israel. They forsook Egypt in order to secure Canaan. The modern church expects to secure the land which flows with milk and honey without giving up the land of cucumbers and melons and leeks and onions and garlic, and this they are so infatuated as to call “salvation by faith,” while they decry the self-denial which belongs to the essence of real faith, as legalism and salvation by works. If they would know the nature of real faith, let them study Hebrews 11, the great “faith chapter” of the Bible, and they will find that Moses was not alone in the way of self-denial and self-interest.

“By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.” (Heb. 11:8). He “went out.” He gave up his present place and portion, that he might secure the promised inheritance. “Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.” (Heb. 11:35). Here is self-denial and self-interest, plain and simple. Here is losing their life in this world, that they might keep it to life eternal.

This is the way everywhere preached by the Saviour of the world. “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matt. 16:25). “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” (John 12:25). All of this is just as plain as the sunshine to those who will cast the modern notions of faith to the winds, and receive the simple testimony of the Bible. These doctrines are not hidden away in some obscure corner of the Bible, but are written everywhere on the face of it, so that it is a great wonder that they are not preached from the housetops by the whole church of God. But the scriptures which set them forth are more often ignored or explained away than believed, and thus the modern church has come to the place that its very doctrine of faith is little more than systematic unbelief.

Glenn Conjurske