(Nikolai Bodarevsky, 1875)
Compare Mark 4:22; 8:38; Luke 8:17; 9:26
This is an exhortation to absolutely fearless discipleship.
Even those who can kill the body have no real power over the followers of Christ, who should, rather, fear spiritual death or damage to their souls.
They — we — are to proclaim the Gospel openly.
If his purported disciples deny him before men, which I take to mean not only flatly rejecting Christ but also failing to proclaim him — he will deny them, or fail to acknowledge them, to his Father. Which means that they will have no advocate, no mediator, at the judgment bar of God. But if we acknowledge him before men, he will step before the Father on our behalf, claiming us as his. It’s our only hope.
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