Here is a portion of John Piper’s article at Desiring God: Deny Yourself for More Delight.

Piper’s understanding of Jesus’ great statement in Mark 8:34 demonstrates the pervasive misunderstanding among Evangelicals regarding what Jesus meant when He said, “If anyone wishes to come after Me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” Like so many others Piper is applying Jesus’ great statement to our discipleship, when Jesus is speaking about what is necessary for our salvation. What it means to deny ourselves and to take up our cross, for our salvation, is what we must understand.

His error has caused him to paint himself into a corner. He knows that it cannot mean that in order to be saved we have to literally take up a cross. Namely, that only martyrs are saved. Instead he goes, like so many others, to a mere willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice. He reduces Jesus’ awesome requirement for salvation to: “Jesus has become more precious to us than approval, honor, comfort, and life.”

Ironically, out of a high regard for Jesus’ teaching Piper has undermined the true seriousness of Jesus’ teaching. Jesus says that we must deny ourselves and we must take up our cross in order to come after Him. How can Piper reduce it to a mere willingness to do so?

Piper says that taking up our cross is when we subject ourselves to opposition, shame, suffering, and death. Ok, go ahead and try to come after Jesus by any one of these things or all four upon a literal cross and it still will not determine your salvation. This is perfect teaching for those who are self-righteous, who think that they can merit coming after Jesus by the sad story of their life.

The problem with Piper’s understanding of equating things in our life that we could consider opposition, shame, suffering, and death, as taking up our cross, is that our bodies, our flesh, our very selves, are counted dead in sin. It is of as much value as beating a dead horse. Our flesh merits nothing, no matter what it suffers, and is useless as a medium in order to follow after Jesus. While we are to put to death sin, in doing so, our flesh has not suddenly become meritorious.

Piper’s view of taking up our cross is also incomplete because it is necessarily of an undefined measure, unless we are actually put to death! Do we say that we have taken up our cross when we have had only a little opposition, a little shame, and just a little bit of suffering? What if it is only for a short period of time? Do we still count ourselves having taken up our cross when we are enjoying life and there is no opposition, no shame, and no suffering?

Why do I feel like I am opposing a Roman Catholic? Evangelical Christians, like the Galatians, are time and again constructing idols. Idols are easily smashed by the truth of God’s Word, though they are skillfully crafted by persons who wield spiritual authority when they misrepresent the truth.

There is a reason why men teach such things. By putting people under burdening error the hearers become dependent upon false teachers and will seek them out for the false fulfillment of such errors. As Paul warned, ‘They eagerly seek you, not commendably, but they wish to shut you out so that you will seek them.’ [Galatians 4:17].

Taking up our cross cannot mean a mere willingness to suffer and to die. Jesus was speaking about what is necessary for our salvation and that means we need to be able to say concretely that we have denied ourselves and we have taken up our cross! Jesus was saying that in order to come after Him we need to deny ourselves and take up our cross in a far more profound way than what Piper would have us to do.

We need to take up a cross that causes us to die to sin and to the Law, not a cross of our own estimation that is of no fleshly value.

For more information about what taking up our cross really means, by which we can be enabled to come after Jesus, read my book, Take Up Your Cross: Our Only Power to Live and Walk by the Spirit.

Here is a portion of John Piper’s article at Desiring God: Deny Yourself for Greater Delight.

John Piper’s understanding of our Lord’s great statement in Mark 8:34 demonstrates the pervasive misunderstanding among Evangelicals regarding what Jesus meant when He said, “If anyone wishes to come after Me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” Piper’s view necessarily undermines the most important of doctrines regarding salvation.

His brief treatment of the subject of self-denial at Desiring God is shocking.

His title Deny Yourself for Greater Delight is not based on Jesus’ teaching. Jesus did not say to deny ourselves for our greater delight. He said that we need to deny ourselves and take up our cross in order that we might be saved. Piper is merely operating within his self-made world of the Christian Hedonist and is using the Lord’s teaching in order to justify his weird teaching. Piper is seeking to explain how the Christian Hedonist relates to Jesus’ great statement. It is the solemn duty of any man who speaks God’s Word to make known what the Lord would have for us, not to do our own thing. Ironically, he says, “We’re dealing with Jesus here. You don’t pull Jesus’s words apart and take your little favorite phrase or my little favorite phrase.”

His view necessarily undermines salvation by faith. The article emphasises the point, “We are not all the way saved. We are being saved.” He says regarding himself, “John Piper is not all the way saved. He is being saved. Therefore, every day, there’s stuff in me that needs to be denied for the sake of joy, for the sake of maximizing my satisfaction. Not only eternally, but in a hundred practical ways….” This is shocking! If we are not completely saved we are completely lost. If we are only a little bit not saved we are completely lost. I am not disputing the responsibility of a Christian to abstain from sin, but what Piper is saying is that we are facing this struggle in a state of uncertainty. He undermines the only power we have to then walk by the Spirit. We can only walk by the Spirit with the knowledge that we live by the Spirit (Gal. 5:25).

In explaining the verse that says, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it”, he says, “I’m telling you how to save your life. I’m telling you how to be a Christian Hedonist. Lose it. Lose it for the sake of the poor. Lose it in missions. Stand up for what is right at work. Lose it.”

We are to save our life, according to Piper, by acts of self-denial and this will give us ‘Greater Delight’. Go and lose your life for the poor, on the mission field, or by getting fired at work!

Do acts of self-denial result in salvation? Is this biblical?

If we give all of our wealth to feed the poor, if we travel over land and sea to make one proselyte, if we give our body to be burned, if we refuse to do any evil thing, will this give us a certain hope of eternal life? Piper says he is telling us how to save our life!

We are not “all the way saved” so long as there is a question regarding what we are to deny.

There will always be something else we could deny for the the sake of Christ. If our salvation depends on this then let us make an order that makes the Jesuits look like the cub scouts!

The problem with Piper’s understanding about denial is that it is merely something a Pharisee can do. In order to come after Jesus we need a denial that a Pharisee does not do!

Piper’s view creates confusion, by recklessly subjecting the hearer to the most vague understanding imaginable. Say hello to the bondage of Pharisiacal legalism, in which we never obtain peace and joy. There is nothing new under the sun, especially when it comes to doctrinal error.

There is a reason why men teach such things. By putting people under burdening error the hearers become dependent upon false teachers and will seek them out for the false fulfillment of such errors. As Paul warned, ‘They eagerly seek you, not commendably, but they wish to shut you out so that you will seek them.’ [Galatians 4:17].

What is biblical is that the people of God are to know that they are certainly saved and because they are saved they have the power to then walk according to the Spirit.

For more information about a denial that can enable you to come after Jesus read my book, Take Up Your Cross: Our Only Power to Live and Walk by the Spirit.

John Stott’s very popular book The Cross of Christ, Inter-Varsity Press (1986), has very serious error. He undermines the very gospel itself!

In part four: Living under the cross, under Self-understanding and self-giving, Stott has taken the glorious truth of the cross and made it into a works righteousness that can never be accomplished by any saint.

Under the heading Self-Denial [p. 278] Stott says, ‘First, the call to self-denial. The invitation of Jesus is plain: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’ (Mk. 8:34). Jesus has just for the first time clearly predicted his sufferings and death. It ‘must’ happen to his followers as well. He must go to the cross; they must take up their cross and follow him. Indeed, they must do it ‘daily’. And, as the negative counterpart, if anybody does not take his cross and follow him, he is not worthy of him and cannot be his disciple.’

Say hello to works righteousness! What a burden that was never intended by our wonderful Lord Jesus Christ. Stott wrote these words in a comfortable chair, perhaps in a lush office at Ridley College or the like, while the true gospel was proclaimed by Paul the apostle, while in less comfortable circumstances. It is ironic that those seated in lush offices, with all sorts of prestige and honor, burden the people of God, while our beloved apostle Paul, who was not so honored, gave us the right understanding of Jesus’ teaching!

Galatians 6:14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Stott’s error with Jesus’ teaching about denying ourselves and taking up our cross is that he applies it to our discipleship. Jesus was speaking about our conversion and that in order for us to come after Him we needed to know a profound denial of trust in ourselves and a death of our sinful selves that is to be counted as a completed event.

Stott opposed this. He says in The Cross of Christ [p. 280], ‘This death is not something which has happened to us, and which we are now told to ‘reckon’ or remember, but something which we must deliberately do ourselves, though by the power of the Spirit, putting our old nature to death.’

Go ahead and try to take anything in your life and say that this is taking up your cross. This is moralism. Putting to death sin in our lives is not a fulfillment of taking up our cross. Rather, taking up our cross, in being crucified with Christ, is the only power to then put to death the deeds of the flesh, by the Spirit.

There is a reason why men teach such things. By putting people under burdening error the hearers become dependent upon false teachers and will seek them out for the false fulfillment of such errors. As Paul warned, ‘They eagerly seek you, not commendably, but they wish to shut you out so that you will seek them.’ [Galatians 4:17].

Paul the apostle would have none of this sort of teaching by Stott and others, as he argued in Galatians. Paul only boasts in the cross of Christ. Paul does not have a cross of his own separate from Jesus’ cross. In fact, Paul understood that only by means of the cross of Christ was there a crucifixion between himself and the world.

For more information about a denial and a taking up of your cross, not as a Pharisee would have you do so, but as our Lord Jesus and Paul would have you to do, read my book, Take Up Your Cross: Our Only Power to Live and Walk by the Spirit.

John MacArthur’s Hard To Believe, Thomas Nelson (November 23, 2010), has very serious error. Here is a section from page six of his book.

MacArthur’s interpretation of the Lord Jesus Christ’s teaching in Luke 9:23-26 reflects a common misunderstanding that has very serious implications. There is a disturbing spirit of arrogance about this way of interpreting our Lord’s teaching that leaves no blessing upon the heart of a believer. His argument would seem to be correct as he contrasts ‘what Christianity is all about’ against a view that could never be supported: ‘Christianity Lite’.

It is always easy to burn a straw man.

Unfortunately, just because the object of his disdain is false does not mean that his own understanding is correct.

The problem with MacArthur’s use of our Lord Jesus Christ’s teaching is that it burdens the people of God with something that they can never fulfill. It is so easy for teachers like MacArthur to say these things that necessarily perpetuates the burden of the Pharisees.

MacArthur is saying that in order to be a Christian you must deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and to follow Him. To adhere to this teaching necessarily means that you must be able to say that you have done it. You have denied yourself and you have taken up your cross. If you are not able to say this or have in any sense failed to do so, as MacArthur says, ‘It’s pretty simple….’, there is only one answer, you are not a Christian.

If one should answer that failures in the past can be forgotten and that what matters is what is present, then even in this there is a problem. Can you really say that you are presently denying yourself and taking up your cross, in order to meet this requirement? Do you not see how impossible it is to fulfill this way of understanding Jesus’ teaching and that it could only be considered “Fulfilled” by a method that is totally subjective and prone to every contrivance?

Again, if you are going to adhere to this sort of understanding then you need to lie in the bed that you have made for yourself.

To put this great error in its proper perspective we should consider just how great and awesome is our condemnation under the Law of God. It is complete folly to think for even the slightest moment, even as Christians, that we have fulfilled that complete holiness that is required by the Law of God. Paul severely rebukes the Galatians for listening to such teaching and says, ‘For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor’ [Galatians 2:18]. In other words, if we reject Jesus as our only righteousness and seek a salvation according to the flesh, which is to rebuild what we destroyed when we believed in Jesus, then all we will accomplish is a sentence of condemnation, as the Law will find us transgressors according to the flesh.

For more information about a right understanding of Jesus teaching and why such teaching is very serious error read my book, Take Up Your Cross: Our Only Power to Live and Walk by the Spirit.

In John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, The Westminster Press (1960), (Edited by John T. McNeill, translated by F. L. Battles), there is serious error regarding the Lord Jesus’ teaching about denying ourselves and taking up our cross [Matthew 16:24].

Faith in Christ is not the sum of the Christian life, but denial of ourselves according to Calvin. John Calvin’s title for Book III, chapter VII, says, ‘The Sum of the Christian Life: The Denial of Ourselves.’

Is denial of self really the sum of the Christian life? It is most certainly a part of the Christian life, but is it the sum of it? To be the sum of the Christian life means that it is the most concise explanation of what it is to be a Christian. It is what is paramount, what is most essential, what is the very thing that defines us as Christians. The sum of the Christian life cannot be something that can merely be done in the flesh, which many monasteries are filled with.

Ironically, to make self-denial the sum of the Christian life is to fail to deny the very thing we must deny, our self-righteous.

For in making it the sum of the Christian life means that our self-denial is what makes us a Christian. It is this serious error by Calvin that has been so influential to Christians. It is not our denial of ourselves that defines us as Christians, but simply our faith in Jesus Christ. This is because no measure of self denial can equate to what we obtain when we put our faith in Jesus and His righteousness for us [Phil 3:7-9]! Paul the apostle said this about the sum of the Christian life: ‘For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”’ [Romans 1:16,17]

Calvin taught that the righteous man shall live by denial of self!

In Calvin’s treatment of this denial of self he teaches that by denial of ourselves we will be shaped, so as to be acceptable to Him. By denial we lay the foundation to be in a right relationship with God. He says, ‘We are not our own: let not our reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own: let us therefore not set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours.’ [3.7.1]

Calvin is not just saying that Christians should deny themselves for the cause of Christ, he is saying that our denial of self is the sum of what it means to be a Christian, that our denial determines if we are a Christian. We should think that we are not our own, but acts of self denial cannot make us right before God! Hence, the sum of the Christian life cannot be according to mere acts of denial throughout our life.

The problem with this is simply that it is putting the cart before the horse. It is by faith that we become a Christian and it is by faith that we live out the Christian life, which includes acts of self-denial. There is no emphasis on faith under this section that Calvin says is the sum of the Christian life. He is placing denial of self as the foundation instead of faith.

In 3.7.2 he says, ‘This, then, is that denial of self which Christ enjoins with such great earnestness upon his disciples as the outset of their service [cf. Matt. 16:24]. When it has once take possession of their hearts, it leaves no place at all first either to pride, or arrogance, or ostentation; then either to avarice, or desire, or lasciviousness, or effeminacy, or to other evils that our self-love spawns [cf II Tim. 3:25]’.

He, of course, goes on and on. The point of objection that I am making here is that Calvin attributes self-denial as the means by which Jesus’ disciple then can be rid of what is sinful in their lives. If we listen to this carefully what then is the difference to listening to a Pharisee instructing us to obtain the godly life but by acts of self-denial?

He then goes on in 3.8.1-11 explaining how we can understand bearing the cross. The eighth chapter is titled: ‘Bearing The Cross: A Part of Self-Denial.’ He says ‘that each must bear his own cross [Matt. 16:24]’ and he renders it a thing that can be equated to things in our lives. He says that as Christ endured suffering so we must. He says, ‘It is the Heavenly Father’s will thus to exercise them so as to put his own children to a definite test. Beginning with Christ, his first-born, he follows this plan with all his children.’

The problem with this is not that God disciplines His children or that Christians are called to a life of self-denial, but that Calvin uses Jesus’ teaching to burden the people of God by equating cross-bearing with mere acts of self-denial and suffering found in their imperfect lives.

Calvin constructs a burdensome view of Jesus’ teaching by placing the people of God ‘under a continual cross’ that is never completely fulfilled [3.8.2]. No amount of self-denial and suffering can exhaust all that is corrupt in our flesh. Even if we are hung upon a literal cross, it is still only our sinful flesh upon a cross that merits us nothing.

According to Calvin, the cross that Jesus said we had to take up in order to come after Him becomes whatever is a trial in our life, if properly submitted to, and is then said by Calvin as that which removes what is sinful and diminishes any confidence in our flesh.

How is this not Roman Catholicism?

Why listen to John Calvin when we can learn the right way of understanding Jesus’ great teaching by studying Paul the Apostle?

Here is John Calvin’s opening up of Jesus’ great statement: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me” and he has not opened up what Paul taught on the subject!

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Paul understood Jesus’ teaching as referring to being crucified with Christ and that this singular event had ongoing and marvelous implications for his life in Christ. Calvin did not understand this.

To understand how Paul the Apostle understood Jesus’ teaching about denying ourselves and taking up our cross, read my book, Take Up Your Cross: Our Only Power to Live and Walk by the Spirit.

Nothing seems to work. You are at the end of yourself. You have had some success but you know that eventually you will fall again to temptation and you just don’t know what to do about it.

Is the Christian life a joke? A hopeless endeavor that only some can do, but not yourself?

If you are thinking like this and you are loathing yourself because of your failures, I know exactly how you feel. I am well acquainted with failure after failure and knowing complete discouragement and a sense of hopelessness.

I tell you the truth, there is a real answer to resisting temptation. Yes, I am presently experiencing such wonderful and real power to walk by the Spirit. Truly, my life now is like the miracle of walking on water. I want you to know this miracle in your life as well!

My answer is only useful to born again, bible believing, evangelical Christians. You know Jesus, you love Jesus, and if He were to suddenly appear before you, you would weep unceasingly before His loving countenance because you do not want to sin against Him.

What I am going to tell you you may think you have heard before. Please hear the answer and then patiently pursue a deeper understanding of it. It may take some time for you to truly get it. The Lord showed it to me in 2014 and it took a few years before I could say that I had truly learned how to put it into use. It is a spiritual answer that requires the exercise of faith and that is where weakness and understanding will impact your success.

I have written a book on this subject, but though I am going to give you the answer now, you may benefit from reading the book.

The Answer: the real power to resist temptation is for you to hear with faith what has happened to you upon your conversion.

Galatians 5:24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

When faced with temptation exercise faith in the truth that you have been crucified with Christ. Though you may feel all sorts of passions and desires, within your flesh tempting you to sin, you are to hear with faith that those same lusts have been crucified with Christ when you became a Christian.

My book explains what it means to walk by the Spirit and will provide you the understanding that you need so that you will know how to walk by the Spirit. You will then be able to say that you are walking by the Spirit. You will know victory and that blessed relief from your fleshly passions and desires.

My book is called Take Up Your Cross: Our Only Power to Live and Walk By The Spirit.