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Scripture Reading: Matt. 10:37-39; 16:23-25; Mark 8:34-35; Luke 9:23-24; 14:26-27; 2 Cor. 4:10; Rom. 8:13
Many Christians have the inaccurate concept that bearing the cross means to suffer or endure hardships. According to the revelation of the Bible, the emphasis on bearing the cross is not related to suffering or enduring hardships but to accepting death, that is, being put to death. The purpose of the cross is not suffering but death. The cross puts a person in the place of death, not in a place of suffering. The cross is not a suffering penalty; it is a death penalty. To hang on the cross is surely a suffering; nevertheless, the purpose of hanging on the cross is not suffering but death. Therefore, bearing the cross is not about accepting and enduring suffering but about accepting death. To bear the cross is to enter into death, to be dealt with by death, so that we stop our function and activity.
The Lord Jesus was the first person to bear the cross. On the way to being crucified at Golgotha the Lord bore a physical, visible cross (John 19:17), but He also bore an intangible, invisible cross during His entire life on earth. He put Himself under the death of the cross so that He could obey God’s will, speak what God wanted Him to speak, and do what God wanted Him to do. The Lord’s entire life on the earth was a living under the death of the cross. He did not seek His own will or do anything by Himself. He sought God’s will, and He spoke and did things according to God (5:19, 30).
When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He never left the position of death; He never abandoned the cross. He remained under the death of the cross, lived a life of the cross, and walked the way of the cross until He was nailed to the cross at Golgotha. His acceptance of the cross did not begin at Golgotha, because He bore an invisible cross within Himself throughout His entire life. Ultimately, He bore a physical, visible cross outwardly and was crucified at the end of His life.
Crucifixion was the Lord Jesus’ obedience to the will of God (Matt. 26:39, 42, 44); thus, we have no part in it. During the first three hours of His crucifixion, from 9:00 A.M. to 12:00 noon, He suffered man’s persecution for the accomplishment of God’s will (Mark 15:25-33). During the last three hours of His crucifixion, from 12:00 noon to 3:00 P.M. (Matt. 27:45), He suffered God’s righteous judgment in His bearing of our sins. The Lord Jesus was on the cross for six hours. We have no part in His suffering of God’s righteous judgment on the cross. However, when He died on the cross, He was not alone, for we died with Him (Gal. 2:20). We were included in His death. When He was crucified, we were crucified with Him (Rom. 6:6).
We do not share in the aspect of the Lord’s crucifixion related to His persecution by man, nor do we share in the aspect of His crucifixion related to His being judged by God for our sins. Our experience of the crucifixion of Christ is limited to the termination of all things. The Lord Jesus was killed by men for the accomplishment of God’s will, and He suffered God’s punishment because He bore our sins. Only the Lord Jesus was qualified to accomplish God’s will and to bear our sins. Hence, we have no part in His crucifixion to accomplish God’s will or in His being judged by God for our sins. However, we are included in the termination of all things, which was accomplished through His crucifixion. The Lord brought us with Him to the cross, and He included us in His death. We did not bear the cross with Him, but we were crucified together with Him. We have no part in His experience of bearing the cross, but we fully participated in His crucifixion. Hence, we were crucified with Him when He was crucified.
Through our union with Christ by faith, we were crucified with Him. When a person is saved, he should believe and accept his co-crucifixion with Christ, and thereafter he should live under the death of this co-crucifixion by willingly and joyfully allowing this death to be applied to him by the Spirit. Then instead of living by himself, he will live by God to obey the will of God. This is the spiritual reality of bearing the cross.
Unlike the Lord, who was crucified after bearing the cross, our crucifixion occurred before we were called to bear the cross. The Lord put Himself under the death of the cross before He was crucified, but we can put ourselves under the death of the cross because we have been crucified with the Lord. The Lord bore the cross before He was crucified, but we need to be crucified before we can bear the cross. Our bearing the cross is based on our being crucified. By the Spirit we can put ourselves under the death of the cross because we have been crucified with Christ. Our being under the killing of the cross is based on our co-crucifixion with Christ. Even though our co-crucifixion with Christ on the cross was accomplished by Christ, we need to put ourselves under the death of the cross by the Spirit. Our crucifixion is a fact already accomplished by Christ, but our bearing the cross is an experience that we continually carry out.
Our crucifixion is an accomplished fact that requires nothing from us other than seeing, believing, and accepting. Bearing the cross, however, is a personal experience. We are responsible for bearing the cross by the Spirit. We cannot and we need not crucify ourselves, but we can and we must bear the cross ourselves. We cannot crucify ourselves, but we can put ourselves under the death of the cross. Crucifixion was accomplished by the Lord on our behalf, and it requires no effort on our part. However, bearing the cross is our responsibility; it is something that we must carry out. Our bearing the cross is based on the Lord’s crucifixion. Without the fact of the Lord’s crucifixion for us, we could have no experience of bearing the cross. Crucifixion is the basis for bearing the cross, and bearing the cross is the issue of crucifixion. We see, believe, and accept the crucifixion, but we practice bearing the cross.
Seeing the crucifixion is a matter of faith, but bearing the cross is an act of faith. With our faith in the Lord’s crucifixion, we should bear the cross based on and by this faith. We receive the fact of crucifixion by faith, and we experience the bearing of the cross by this same faith. Although we did not personally experience the Lord’s crucifixion but instead accepted it by faith, we experience the bearing of the cross and carry it out by an act of faith. Bearing the cross is a personal experience that we carry out; thus, the cross that we bear is our cross. When we apply the Lord’s cross to ourselves, making it our personal experience, this cross becomes our cross.
There is only one cross that saves — the cross of the Lord. We do not need to be nailed to this cross; we need only to bear it. We need only to accept the work that the Lord accomplished in His crucifixion, apply it to ourselves, and bear it. Our co-crucifixion was accomplished by the Lord once and for all, and we need only to accept it once, but bearing the cross is constant and continual. Although we need only to accept the Lord’s crucifixion once, we must continually bear the cross. Crucifixion requires one acceptance, but bearing the cross requires continual application. The Lord wants us to bear the cross daily in order to follow Him (Luke 9:23). We must continually put ourselves under the death of the cross by willingly accepting death and gladly bearing the cross so that we may be delivered from ourselves, live by God, and obey the will of God.
Although we are continually bearing the cross, we bear only one cross, not many crosses. This unique cross was accomplished by the Lord and is applied by us to become our cross. Contrary to what is commonly believed, this cross does not refer to many sufferings and difficulties. Many Christians consider sufferings and difficulties as “crosses” to be accepted and borne. In their understanding, to endure sufferings and difficulties is to bear the cross. Such an understanding is inaccurate. Although sufferings and difficulties can help us accept the cross, they are not “crosses.” God uses sufferings and difficulties to help us experience the cross, but He does not want us to consider sufferings and difficulties as “crosses.” Sufferings and difficulties are simply tools used by God to help us accept and experience the cross.
The cross is the Lord’s death. When we bear the cross, we are applying the Lord’s death to ourselves, putting ourselves under this death. When we do not apply or are unwilling to apply the Lord’s death to ourselves, our sufferings and difficulties force us to experience the Lord’s death. After we have accepted the Lord’s death, His cross and our outward sufferings and difficulties often work together so that we experience the Lord’s death. Thus, sufferings and difficulties are not the Lord’s death or the cross. No matter how great they may be, these blows, adversities, sorrows, and losses are not “crosses.” The Bible never says that sufferings and difficulties are “crosses.” This inaccurate and unscriptural view is a natural concept; it has no scriptural basis. I hope that we will no longer see the cross in such a way.
Bearing the cross means that we accept the Lord’s death by faith and thus apply His death to ourselves. When we bear the cross in such a way, we put ourselves into the Lord’s death and live in His death. This is to be conformed to the Lord’s death (Phil. 3:10). To be conformed to the Lord’s death is to live in His death. Being conformed to the Lord’s death is the same as bearing the cross. Bearing the cross is to live in the Lord’s death and to follow the Lord in the way of the cross. Just as the Lord remained under the death of the cross, denied Himself, and lived by God, we also need to remain in the Lord’s death, deny ourselves, and live by God. Just as the Lord chose the cross and lived under the death of the cross to establish the form of His death, we should bear the cross and live in the death of the cross to be conformed to the form of His death. To bear the cross is to be conformed to the Lord’s death.
Second Corinthians 4:10 says, “Always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus.” The phrase putting to death can also be translated as “killing.” In other words, in our bodies the death of the Lord Jesus is always doing a killing work, killing everything in us that does not match God or that hinders, frustrates, nullifies, or prevents the life of God from operating in us. This is also bearing the cross, putting ourselves into the form of the Lord’s death, allowing the Lord’s death to put us to death. If we truly put ourselves into the form of the Lord’s death and allow His death to put us to death, there will always be an operation of death in our bodies. In other words, if we truly bear the cross, we will bear about in our bodies the putting to death of Jesus, which is the killing of the cross. Hence, bearing the cross is to bear the death of the Lord Jesus in the body.
We put to death the practices of the body by the Spirit (Rom. 8:13), because we have seen, believed, and accepted the fact that we died with Christ. We apply our co-crucifixion to the flesh by the Spirit so that He can do the putting-to-death work in us. We bear the cross because we have seen, believed, and accepted the fact of the Lord’s crucifixion, and we apply the Lord’s crucifixion to ourselves by the Spirit so that the Spirit can put us to death. In principle, bearing the cross and applying the Lord’s crucifixion are the same. However, the putting to death by the Spirit is related to the practices of the body and of our sinning members, that is, the flesh and our sinful deeds; bearing the cross, however, is related to dealing with our soul-life.
The Epistles do not refer directly to bearing the cross. However, every time that the Lord Jesus spoke concerning bearing the cross, He also spoke concerning our soul-life. Bearing the cross is related to the soul-life, because bearing the cross deals with the soul-life (Matt. 10:37-39; 16:23-25; Mark 8:34-35; Luke 9:23-24; 14:26-27; John 12:24-26). The Lord’s intention in asking us to bear the cross is that we would deal with our soul-life, putting our soul-life under the death of the cross and allowing the cross to put our soul-life to death.
The soul-life is our natural life and is the biggest hindrance to our spiritual growth in the divine life. In other words, our soul-life hinders the growth of the Lord’s resurrection life in us, which is our inner man, and it also keeps us from following the Lord and obeying the will of God. Therefore, if we want our spiritual life to grow and if we want to freely follow the Lord and obey the will of God, we must bear the cross by allowing the cross to put our soul-life to death.
The Lord spoke of bearing the cross and of dealing with the soul-life, not merely because it is crucial to deal with the soul-life but because every aspect of the soul-life needs to be dealt with. In Matthew 10:37-39 and in Luke 14:26 the Lord said that the natural emotion of the soul-life needs to be dealt with. Matthew 16:22-24 shows that the natural opinions and views of the soul-life need to be dealt with. Luke 17:31-33 and John 12:24-26 speak of not preserving or loving our soul-life so that we can follow the Lord and live for God and to God by the life of the Lord.
