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Scripture Reading: Matt. 16:24-26; Gal. 5:24; Rom. 6:6; 8:13b
In the previous chapter we covered the matters of being regenerated crucified and of dying to live. The term regenerated crucified may seem strange, because the two words regenerate and crucify have opposite denotations. However, if we are regenerated, we are crucified. In our first birth there was no crucifixion. In that birth we were born to live. But in our second birth, that is, in regeneration, we were born crucified. We have been born, or regenerated, crucified. After being regenerated crucified, we continue to die.
After our baptism, every day we should live a dying life. Such a life is a continuation of our baptism. We should not forget that we are dead persons. Not only so, we should not forget that we are even buried persons. We are dead and we are buried. After our baptism, we are dying. Every day we are dead persons, and now we live by dying.
In the phrase regenerated crucified and dying to live the conjunction and conjoins regenerated and dying. We are regenerated, and we are dying. We have been regenerated crucified, and now we need to die that we may live. After our baptism, we live by dying and we die to live. Dying to live is the proper meaning of bearing the cross. From my youth I heard the teaching concerning bearing the cross. This teaching was based on the Lord’s word in Matthew 16:24: “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” However, the understanding of many Christians concerning bearing the cross is not logical. According to their understanding, to bear the cross is to suffer. Because of this wrong understanding I wrote a hymn (Hymns, #622) concerning the meaning of the cross. The first stanza of that hymn says,
In the well-known book The Imitation of Christ, the writer, considered by many to be Thomas à Kempis, taught that the way to perfection was to suffer with Christ. The teaching in that book is very close to the teaching of asceticism, which is taught strongly by Buddhism, by the Gnostics, and by the so-called Christian mystics, including Madame Guyon, Father Fenelon, and Brother Lawrence. Much of the teaching concerning bearing the cross is actually a form of asceticism. However, in Colossians 2:20-23 Paul speaks strongly against asceticism.
The teaching of asceticism seemingly has some ground in the Scriptures, for in 1 Peter 4:1, Peter says, “Since Christ therefore has suffered in the flesh, you also arm yourselves with the same mind (because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin).” In a sense, suffering does restrict people from sinning. When people are in poverty, they must work hard to earn a living, and they are restricted in their lusts. However, when people are wealthy, the amusements and the entertainments that they pursue promote their lusts. If there were no truth to this, no one could have invented asceticism. Asceticism was invented by those who found out that when people become rich, they are often corrupted. The wrong teaching concerning bearing the cross is a form of asceticism.
The main concept of the book The Imitation of Christ is erroneous. The Christian life is not an imitation of Christ but a participation in Christ. No one can imitate Christ, just as a monkey cannot imitate a man. We are fallen creatures. Sin has become our constitution. Every member of our body is a part of this sinful constitution. In Romans 7 Paul says that he had been sold under sin (v. 14). One who is sold under sin is a slave of sin. How can such a one be asked to keep the law? It is ridiculous to ask a slave of sin, one who is sold under sin, to keep the law.
The last of the Ten Commandments says, “You shall not covet” (Exo. 20:17). This commandment is not related to outward conduct but rather to the sin within man, mainly in his thoughts. Who can avoid coveting? Even a billionaire cannot avoid coveting. In Philippians 3 Paul says that as to the righteousness which is in the law, he had become blameless (v. 6). However, in Romans 7 Paul admits that he was guilty of coveting (v. 7). Thus, Paul’s boasting concerning his own righteousness is similar to David’s boasting of his integrity in the Psalms (7:8; 26:1, 11; 41:12). Although Paul and David might have considered themselves righteous according to the law, at least for a certain time they were not righteous: Paul coveted, and David murdered Uriah and robbed him of his wife, Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11), by this one act transgressing all the last five commandments in the law concerning man’s conduct toward his fellow man (Exo. 20:13-17).
David is appreciated by many Jews and Christians. However, David committed a gross sin, and the remembrance of that sin remained long after David confessed it to God (Psa. 51). Even in the genealogy of Christ in Matthew, that sin of David’s is mentioned (1:6). In a sense Paul was good; even before he was a Christian he strove to keep the law. But in Romans 7 he tells us that he did not succeed. In verse 9 he says that he was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived and he died.
To bear the cross means, first, that Christ has brought us to the cross and, second, that we were crucified with Him on the cross (Gal. 2:20a). Since Christ was crucified and we were crucified in Him, we should see and should not forget that from that time a cross has been on our shoulder. When I was young, I had very little awareness that a cross was upon me. However, especially in these past few years, the more I go along with the Lord, the more I feel that a cross is upon me. When I was a young Christian, I was quite free to argue with others. If I wanted to go to play a certain sport, I simply went to play. But today, especially in these past few years, a heavier cross has been upon me. Often when I want to do a certain thing, the Lord’s answer within me is no. That no is the cross. If you will check with your experience, you will admit that immediately after you were saved, in the first year of your Christian life, it was easy for you to get permission from the Lord Jesus to do certain things. Actually, the Lord Jesus did not give you the permission; it was you who gave yourself the permission. Then after much growth in the Lord, the more you followed the Lord Jesus, the more you received the answer no when you sought the Lord’s permission. You might ask the Lord if you can speak to a certain brother, and the Lord might say, “No! I want you to read the Bible.” Then you might ask the Lord if you can go to sleep, but deep within you know that what the Lord wants you to do is to kneel down and pray. You would never propose that to the Lord. If you asked the Lord if He would like you to pray for an hour, He would surely say yes. Actually, there is no need for Him to say yes; you know deep within that that is what He wants you to do. However, you do not like to pray. Eventually, you agree with your own proposal, and thus you become the lord. At such a time there is no cross upon you. You have thrown the cross off your shoulder. That is not to bear the cross.
In my early ministry I was not free from the teaching of asceticism. At times I told the brothers that when they got married, they received a big cross, and that cross was their wife. I also told them that just one big cross was not adequate. Hence, after two years the Lord added a smaller cross, that is, a daughter. After another three years the Lord added another cross, a naughty son. That was my speaking in my earlier ministry. But today I would say that in the whole universe there is only one cross that can save us. This cross is not our cross but the cross of Christ. However, in Matthew 16 the Lord said that we must take up our own cross. This means that we must make the cross of Christ our cross. We were put on that cross already, and that cross was put on us. When we went to the baptistery to be baptized, we testified that we desired to take the way of the cross. We confessed that we had been crucified, crossed out, by the cross of Christ. After such a baptism, we need to be a person who bears the cross continually. The cross simply means that we have been put to death, and now we still need to be under that death. We need to realize that today we are not a living person but a dying person, and we have died already. The cross is upon us.
The first stanza of Hymns, #622 says that the meaning of the cross is not to suffer; rather, the meaning of the cross is to terminate our self. If we are living, actually, we are dying. On the other hand, if we are dying, in reality, we live. The apostle Paul teaches this in Romans 8:13: “If you live according to the flesh, you must die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, you will live.” If we still live in our flesh, we must die, but if we bear the cross by dying throughout the day, we will live.
We need to bear the cross of Christ as our cross in dealing with our soul-life, that is, our self (Matt. 16:24-26; Luke 9:23-25). The most difficult thing for us to deal with is not sin in our body but our self in our soul. The brothers who have been in the eldership for some time have found out that the most difficult thing in the church life is to deal with certain saints in their disposition. Likewise, the most difficult thing for a wife to deal with is her husband. It seems that a wife can deal with anything but not with her husband’s character and disposition. The more a wife lives with her husband, the more she finds out that her husband, with his disposition, his character, and his being, is a problem to her. This is the trouble that creates first a separation and then a divorce. The reason why there are so many separations and divorces today in America is that every American desires to be free; every American claims freedom as his human, civil right. This indicates that in a country such as the United States, which is full of Christians, very few people are living under the cross. Very few are dying under the cross; instead, most people are very living and very active in the flesh. It is very difficult for two people who are still living and active to remain together. The Bible teaches not only obedience but also submission (Heb. 13:17; Eph. 5:21-22; Rom. 13:1). Everyone must submit to someone. To teach that there is no deputy authority is a serious error. Under God’s divine administration, there is layer upon layer of deputy authority. If there is no submission, there is no cross.
At a certain point the Lord Jesus turned to His disciples and said, “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matt. 16:24). In the universe there is an economy. According to God’s economy, first He created mankind (Gen. 1:26-28). God created all the living creatures according to their own kind (vv. 21, 24-25). Then He created man in His image and according to His likeness; that is, He created man according to His kind. Man was created according to God’s kind, but God’s intention in creating man was not to use the natural man. His intention was to use Himself within this man. Therefore, this man has to die so that God can live in this man. The created man should die so that the creating God can live within the created man. This is accomplished by the created man dying so that the creating God can enter into the created man to raise him up from his death. This is resurrection, and this is regeneration. The regenerated man is a living being with two natures, the human nature and the divine nature, and with two lives, the human life and the divine life. The natural nature and the natural life die, and man’s second nature, his second life, lives. This kind of living is God living in the living of the second nature and the second life in resurrection. This is God’s economy. The Christian life is a life of dying and living, a life in which the natural man dies, and God lives in the resurrected man.
If this matter is not clear to us, we may make many mistakes. We need to see the basic principle and the basic factor of God’s economy. We need to realize that when we were baptized, we were all buried in our baptistery. Therefore, we should remain in the baptistery, resting, sleeping, and dying there. That death is not a quick death. In man’s eyes dying is nearly instantaneous, but in God’s eyes dying takes a long time. We were all buried with Christ in His tomb (Rom. 6:4). That was the beginning of our dying. The dying that began in Christ’s tomb has continued for the past twenty centuries. Today we are still dying. Whoever is not dying will be a troublemaker in the church life. If all the members of the church are dying and sleeping in their tomb, there will be no problems in the church life. All the problems in the church come from those who are still living.
The church life keeps us continually in the baptistery. To remain in the baptistery to die is to bear the cross. To bear the cross is to deal with us, the person — the Chinese person, the Mexican person, the American person, the German person. The cross deals with our being; it deals with what we are. This is to deal with the soul. However, many believers, after being saved for ten or twenty years, have never allowed their being to be touched by the Lord. It is impossible for such believers to experience any growth in life. As long as we live and do not die, we cannot grow. To grow means to have the Lord added into us (Col. 2:19). Merely believing in the Lord is not adequate; we need to experience the Lord’s adding Himself into us. However, it is difficult for the Lord to add Himself into us because we are too strong and too full. Every inch of space in our being is ours; it is not Christ’s. Thus, there is very little opportunity for the Lord to add Himself into us, and consequently there is very little growth in life. Growth in life is always in resurrection, and resurrection cannot come without crucifixion. Crucifixion is the threshold of resurrection. Once we enter into crucifixion, we will reach resurrection. In resurrection we enjoy Christ living in us. In resurrection Christ lives not only in us but also with us, and not only with us but also one with us. He makes Himself one with us.
According to God’s eternal economy, we, the created creatures, should die so that God can come in to raise us up so that we may live with God and God may live one with us, that is, in a way that makes Him and us one. First Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” Such a spirit mentioned in this verse is the resurrection. One spirit means one resurrection, for in resurrection the Spirit of Christ equals the resurrection of Christ. In resurrection these two are one. Now all this has been transfused into our being, but we still insist on remaining in the old man. We still insist on living by our self in the old man. Thus, it is impossible for us to have a Christian life. On the earth it is difficult to see one person who is living a Christian life. We can see Christianity, but we cannot see a proper, genuine, Christian life. A proper and genuine Christian life is a life in which the created man dies so that God, the Creator, can come in to live with this one who has died, to live with him as one. This is altogether in resurrection. Here we can realize the Christian life. This is why in the four Gospels the Lord stressed the matter of bearing the cross very much. We need to bear our cross to remain in the death that has been allotted to us. In our human life, in our natural life, we are good for nothing (Rom. 7:18). Thus, God would not give us anything but would assign to us a death. We must remain there. If we remain in this death, we will be brought into resurrection, and in resurrection we will live God, and He will live in us and with us; He will even live one with us. This is the Christian life.
Man is a tripartite being — spirit, soul, and body (1 Thes. 5:23). According to the fact in the Bible, Satan has corrupted man, and God has condemned sinful man, yet in God’s economy God has drawn a boundary around our spirit so that Satan cannot enter into our spirit. Satan can corrupt our body and our soul, but God has restricted Satan’s corrupting to these two parts of our being and has reserved our spirit for Himself. When God enters into us, He enters into our spirit. Satan came in to corrupt our soul and our body. In the garden of Eden the serpent came to corrupt both Eve and Adam (Gen. 3:1-7). First, he corrupted their soul, their mind; then their taking the fruit of the tree of knowledge corrupted their body. Sin was brought into the body, making the body the flesh, full of lusts and full of passions. But the spirit was preserved by God. Thus, there is still the possibility for us to repent. Repentance originates in one part of the spirit, that is, the conscience. The best way to preach the gospel is to stir up people’s conscience so that they realize that they are sinful before God. Based on such a realization, they can repent. Repentance initiates from our conscience, and our conscience is a part of our spirit. Because of the existence of the conscience in man’s spirit, the Chinese philosophers said that within human beings there is a part that they called the “bright virtue.” In their logic they discovered that there is a part in fallen man that is reserved for God’s use.
The Lord Jesus told us that we must bear the cross to deal with our soul, our self (Matt. 16:24-26; Luke 9:23-25). Then Paul says that he was crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20a). No one can crucify himself. To be crucified, one needs others to help him. It is possible for a person to commit suicide by many means, but no one can commit suicide by crucifixion, because no one can crucify himself. Yet Galatians 5:24 says, “They who are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its lusts.” Although we cannot crucify ourselves, we can crucify our flesh, our fallen body, with its passions and its lusts. This is to deal with the body of sin. In Romans 6:6 Paul writes, “Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be annulled [or, unemployed, jobless, inactive].” Then in Galatians 5:24 Paul says that we must crucify our flesh. This corresponds with Romans 8:13, which says, “If you live according to the flesh, you must die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, you will live.” If we by the indwelling Spirit put to death the practices of our fallen body, we will not only live, but the divine life will also be transfused into our mortal body (v. 11). Here is the victory over sin. Our victory over sin is not that we are able to conquer sin; our victory over sin is in our remaining under the cross. Through the entire day, by our regenerated spirit with the help of the indwelling Spirit, we need to exercise Christ’s crucifixion upon our flesh with its passions and its lusts.
Paul’s word in Galatians 5:24 indicates that within our fallen flesh, which is the body of sin, there are two categories of things. The first category is our desires, or our passions. The second category is our lusts, that is, our evil desires that issue in evil actions. First, we have our desires; then the desires usher us into lusts. Thus, lusts are worse than desires, or passions. We need to crucify these two categories of things in our fallen flesh. First, we need to crucify our fleshly desires; then we need to crucify our fleshly evils, that is, our lusts.
In the Gospels, Matthew 16:24 tells us that we must bear the cross; that is, we must keep the death of Christ on our self, on our soul, continually. Then in the Epistles we are told that we must continually crucify our fleshly desires and lusts by our exercised spirit with the Holy Spirit, the indwelling Spirit, as a great help. Galatians 5:16 and 25 tell us to walk by the Spirit and to live by the Spirit. Then we must crucify our flesh with its passions and its lusts, which means that we must put all the practices of the body to death. Because we are still fallen, we cannot do this by ourselves; we must do it by the indwelling Spirit. There is another One who is indwelling us. The consummated God lives in us as the Spirit, and we have an organ, our spirit, that was preserved and is even indwelt by God. Hence, we should not remain in our flesh. Rather, we must come back from our flesh to our spirit. We must exercise our spirit; then the indwelling Spirit will help us to put Christ’s death all the time on our flesh and on our fleshly passions and fleshly lusts. In this way we will kill all the means, all the organs, of sin. Sin will be jobless, and we will be freed from sin. Thus, these two things — dealing with our soul and dealing with our fleshly body — are both by the cross. To deal with our soul, we must bear the death of Christ, not allowing our self to live. We should always remind our self that the baptistery is a tomb where it was buried and where it should remain. This is to put the cross upon us, and this is to bear the cross. Furthermore, every day we need to exercise our spirit with the help of the indwelling Spirit to put every part of our flesh to death. Then our soul and our sinful body will be terminated. This is the way to live a victorious Christian life, and this is the Christian life.
If we practice these two things, no doubt, we will be in resurrection, and in resurrection we will enjoy the very God as the consummated Spirit, who is the pneumatic Christ as the embodiment of the processed Triune God. This is the economy of God.
