LUKE 18.31-33: “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. (32) For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. (33) And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” (ESV)
The verses above record the third time Jesus told His disciples that He will be killed, and this last time, He told them it will happen in Jerusalem. A parallel account of this is recorded in Matthew 20.17-19. In the first occasion, Jesus included the idea of His disciples denying themselves, carrying their own cross, and following behind Him. Following after Jesus will mean for His disciples a trip to Jerusalem, timed for Jesus to enter the city on the Sunday of the Passover Festival Week.
The first time Jesus told His disciples about His death and resurrection, Peter would have none of it, and he told Jesus that this would not be the case. Jesus promptly put Peter in his place and in so doing established that man does not naturally look at things the way God does. That is, the way for Jesus to provide eternal life for us was through His death.
Peter’s point of stumbling regarding the requirement of the suffering of Jesus is where we also can stumble. Jesus suffered and was killed in our place, because we are incapable of living a perfect life before God the Father, and thereby earn our salvation and eternal life.
It is just as Jesus said in John 3.16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (17) For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (ESV)
Thereafter, following Jesus will mean that we will have many opportunities to deny our own personal self-interest in the course of seeking the interests of Jesus. But these times of self denial do not earn our salvation, but rather they can demonstrate that we are rightly related to Him.