1. Christ's Teaching and Example:
In the New Testament self-surrender is still more clearly set forth. Christ's teachings and example as presented in the Gospels, give to it special emphasis. It is a prime requisite for becoming His disciple (Mt 10:38 f; Mt 16:24; Lu 9:23-24,59 f; Lu 14:27,33; compare Mt 19:27; Mr 8:34). When certain of the disciples were called they left all and followed (Mt 4:20; 9:9; Mr 2:14; Lu 5:27 f). His followers must so completely surrender self, as that father, mother, kindred, and one's own life must be, as it were, hated for His sake (Lu 14:26). The rich young ruler must renounce self as an end and give his own life to the service of men (Mt 19:21; Mr 10:21; compare Lu 12:33). But this surrender of self was never a loss of personality; it was the finding of the true selfhood (Mr 8:35; Mt 10:39). our Lord not only taught self-surrender, but practiced it. As a child, He subjected Himself to His parents (Lu 2:51). Self-surrender marked His baptism and temptation (Mt 3:15; 4:1 ff). It is shown in His life of physical privation (Mt 8:20). He had come not to do His own will, but the Fathers (Joh 4:34; 5:30; 6:38). He refuses to use force for His own deliverance (Mt 26:53; Joh 18:11). In His person God's will, not His own, must be done (Mt 26:29; Lu 22:42); and to the Father He at last surrendered His spirit (Lu 23:46). So that while He was no ascetic, and did not demand asceticism of His followers, He "emptied himself .... becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross" (Php 2:7 f).
See KENOSIS.
2. Acts of Apostles:
The early disciples practiced the virtue of self-surrender. Counting none of their possessions their own, they gave to the good of all (Ac 2:44-45; 4:34-35,37). Stephen and others threw themselves into their witnessing with the perfect abandon of the martyr; and Stephen's successor, Paul, counted not his life dear unto himself that he might finish the divinely-appointed course (Ac 20:22-24).
3. Epistles of Paul:
The Epistles are permeated with the doctrine of self-surrender. The Pauline Epistles are particularly full of it. The Christian life is conceived of as a dying to self and to the world--a dying with Christ, a crucifixion of the old man, that a new man may live (Ga 2:20; 6:14; Col 2:20; 3:3; Ro 6:6), so that no longer the man lives but Christ lives in him (Ga 2:20; Php 1:21). The Christian is no longer his own but Christ's (1Co 6:19-20). He is to be a living sacrifice (Ro 12:1); to die daily (1Co 15:31). As a corollary to surrender to God, the Christian must surrender himself to the welfare of his neighbor, just as Christ pleased not Himself (Ro 15:3); also to leaders (1Co 16:16), and to earthly rulers (Ro 13:1).
4. Epistles of Peter:
In the Epistles of Peter self-surrender is taught more than once. Those who were once like sheep astray now submit to the guidance of the Shepherd of souls (1Pe 2:25). The Christian is to humble himself under the mighty hand of God (1Pe 5:6); the younger to be subject to the elder (1Pe 5:5); and all to civil ordinances for the Lord's sake (1Pe 2:13).
So also in other Epistles, the Christian is to subject himself to God (Jas 4:7; Heb 12:9).
Edward Bagby Pollard