The Hard Sayings: Mark 8:38

If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.

This article is part of a series explaining the sayings of Jesus that are hard to understand. This list was put together by the Lord's Library. To see the list of hard verses, explained and awaiting explanation, go to this page.

The context for this verse is that Jesus was addressing a crowd including his students, explaining what it means to be his follower. This section begins with Mark 8:34, (“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”), which is analyzed here. Then, Jesus talks about exchanging our souls for the whole world and asks what we can give in exchange for our souls. He goes on to this verse, Mark 8:38

NIV If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

The words in boldface are those that are discussed in this article.

This is the third verse in a row with the word usually translated as "because" or "for" introducing it. This word is left out of modern translations, but it makes these three verses seem like a series of explanations answering unrecorded questions.

This verse is a contrast of two types of recognition. The first type is social recognition. The second type is more personal.

Shame

The first keyword in this verse is "ashamed", which is used only twice by Jesus, here and in the parallel verse in Luke 9:26. The verb means "to be ashamed at or of", "to be ashamed of doing or having done something," and "to feel or show shame." The difference between “shame” and “guilt” is that guilt is an internal judgment, what we feel about ourselves, while shame is the feeling of social censure. Guilt is felt and often only known by the individual while shame is felt not only by the individual but by their whole family and those associated with them. Not everyone feels ashamed at social censure but many of us do, even if we have not done anything wrong to justify it.

The first part of this verse is about those who feel embarrassed socially about following Jesus and his ideas. The word translated as “words” is closer in meaning to “ideas” (see this article). The Greek word has a range of meanings, from “computation” to “discussion”, and Jesus uses it in many different ways though it is almost always translated as “word.” The English words that come closest to capturing its meaning, as Jesus uses it, are "idea", "concept", “lesson,” “analysis,” or "explanation." The words “idea" and “concept” work best in most contexts because they are simple, broad, and to the point.

The text says “in this…generation,” but the “in” is better translated as “by” and the word translated as “generation” is better translated as “type.” So, we are made ashamed by certain types of people. How can we know that he wasn’t referring to his whole generation? In most cases where Jesus uses this word, the audience was on Jesus’s side against those challenging him. This was clearly the case here when he is asking people to leave society and follow him. It is not only unlikely but somewhat absurd to think that he was attacking his entire generation as wicked and unfaithful when that attack would include his audience.

His target, the “type” he meant, would have been clear to those listening to him. The words "adulterous" and "sinful" make more sense translated as "untrustworthy" and "mistaken." These words are commonly used to describe the types of person that challenges Jesus. See this article on Jesus’s use of this Greek word translated as “generation.

Reputation

The word “shame” is contrasted with the word translated as “glory.” This is lost in translation because the verse reads as though the “glory” here it is a description of the Divine. But the Greek word doesn’t means splendor or magnificence. The general meaning of the word translated as “glory” is “expectation. A person’s reputation tells us what we might expect from them. It is what we recognize about each other. Another meaning of this “glory” is, as a verb, "recognize," and, as a noun, "recognition." This is how Jesus usually used it. The phrase “in his Father’s glory” literally means “by that recognition of that Father of his. This is the same “in” that we saw earlier in the verse that is better translated as “by this type.”

"Recognizing" someone’s reputation also means spreading information about them. In this context, we might say that “glorifying” someone is the same idea as "publicizing" or "promoting" a reputation. This reputation can be positive or negative, depending on whether the person’s reputation is positive or negative, but Jesus used primarily in the positive sense. See this article for more.

In English translation, “the son of man” (see this article) appears to be both the one who will feel ashamed and who will come into his Father’s glory. However, in the Greek, the person, mistranslated as “them” instead of “him,” coming into the recognition of that Father of his could also be the one of whom Jesus is ashamed. The sense is that as the Divine recognizes this individual for what he is, Jesus is ashamed of his shame at listening to Jesus. It doesn’t mean that Jesus will be the one embarrassing him to his Father.

In this second part of the verse, we have a contrast of two possibilities. If we have felt shame at censure by society for following Jesus now, we will embarrass Jesus in the future in front of his Father. Jesus’s expectation of his followers will be proud of him, no matter what others think. Feeling that shame, we cannot share in the Divine respect that the Father gives to Jesus and his holy messengers. Usually, Jesus describes the afterlife as being the opposite of life here on earth. If we suffer here, we are rewarded there. However, in this verse, we have the afterlife sharing a characteristic of this life: shame. But there is still a reversal. If we are ashamed of Jesus in this life, he will be ashamed of us in the next. In both cases, we will feel embarrassed. The difference is in the type of recognition we are seeking: earthly, social recognition or the higher recognition of the Divine.

Listeners Heard: Because whoever is ashamed of me and these my ideas, by this type, this the untrustworthy and mistaken one, also this son of the man will be ashamed of him whenever he shows up in that recognition of that Father of his, with the messengers, the holy ones.