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When the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross, not only did He die for the sinners, opening a living way for sinners to obtain eternal life and to come to God, He also died with the sinners on the cross. If the effectiveness of the cross were merely in the aspect of substitution so that sinners would have eternal life and be saved from perdition, God's way of salvation would not be complete. This is because a person who is saved by believing in Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31) still lives in this world; there are still many temptations. Moreover, the devil often cheats him, and the sinful nature within him operates continually. Although he has received salvation, he is not yet free from sin in this age. He does not have the power to overcome sin. Therefore, in His salvation the Lord Jesus had to accomplish both aspects: to save man from the punishment of sin and also to save man from the power of sin. When the Lord Jesus died for the sinners on the cross, He delivered man from the punishment of sin—the eternal fire of hell. When the Lord Jesus died with the sinners on the cross, He delivered man from the power of sin—the old man is dead, and man is no longer a slave of sin. Sin does not come from without but from within. If sin were to come from without, it would not have much power over us. Sin dwells in us. Therefore, it is deadly to us. Temptation comes from without, while sin dwells within. Since everyone in the world is a descendant of Adam, everyone has Adam's nature. This nature is aged, old, corrupted, and filthy; it is a nature of sin. Since this "mother" of sin is within man, when outside temptations come, that which is within responds to that which is without, and the result is the many sins. Because we have pride inside (though hidden at times), as soon as outside temptation comes, the opportunity to be proud comes, and we become proud. Because we have jealousy inside, as soon as outside temptation comes, we see others better than we are, and we become jealous. Because we have a quick temper inside, as soon as outside temptation comes, we lose our temper. All the sins that man commits come from the old man within.
This old man is truly worthless, irreparable, unchangeable, incorrigible, and incurable. The way God deals with the old man is to crucify him. God wants to give us something new. The old man has to die. God's words charge us to wash away all of our sins in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus. "The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin" (1 John 1:7). He "loves us and has released us from our sins by His blood" (Rev. 1:5). The sins here refer to the acts of sins committed by a person outwardly. The Bible never tells us that the old man within is to be washed. God's Word never says that the old man should be washed. (The blood of Jesus Christ washes our sins, not the old man.) The old man needs to be crucified. This is the word of the Bible.
God does everything in this age through the Lord Jesus Christ. He needs to punish sinners, yet He punished the Lord Jesus instead because the Lord Jesus stood in the position of and on behalf of sinners. God wants the old man to die, but He caused the Lord Jesus to die on the cross instead. By doing so, He brought all the sinners along with the Lord onto the cross. First there was a substituting death, then a participating death. This is the clear word of the Bible. Jesus Christ is the One who "died for all, therefore all died" (2. Cor. 5:14).
This point should be emphasized and should not be glossed over easily. A believer, that is, a saved one who confesses that he is a sinner and believes in Jesus, should remember that the crucifixion of his old man is not an independent activity apart from the Lord Jesus, but is done in union with the Lord Jesus. When the Lord Jesus died, our old man died together with Him and died in Him. This explains the failure of many people. Many times believers exercise their own strength to crucify their old man. However, they find out again and again that the old man is still alive. They try, mostly unintentionally, to crucify the old man independently by themselves without Christ. This can never be done. Unless one dies with the Lord Jesus, there is no crucifixion of the old man. The old man is crucified together with the Lord Jesus.
We do not die by ourselves; rather, we die together with the Lord. We were baptized "into His death" (Rom. 6:3); "we have grown together with Him in the likeness of His death" (v. 5); "we have died with Christ" (v. 8); and "our old man has been crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin as slaves" (v. 6). We cannot crucify ourselves and die. This "co-crucifixion" is an accomplished fact. It was accomplished when the Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross. The death of the Lord Jesus is a fact; that the Lord Jesus died for us is also a fact, and our being crucified together with Him is also a fact. "Has been crucified," according to the original, is a continuous word; it is in the absolute perfect tense, which means that our old man's crucifixion with the Lord Jesus is an act that was accomplished once for all when the Lord died. But what is the result of dying with the Lord? What is the goal? We know from Romans 6:6 that the result is that the body of sin is annulled, and the goal is to make us no longer the slaves of sin. Let us use an illustration to explain this fact. There are three things: the old man, sin, and the body of sin. Sin is like a master, the old man is like a housekeeper, and the body is like a puppet. Sin does not have the authority and power to take over the body of sin or to direct it to sin. Sin directs the old man; when the old man consents to it, the body becomes the puppet. So while our old man is alive, it remains in the middle. The body is outside, and sin is inside. The sin within tempts the old man, and the lust of the old man is stirred up. This causes the old man to give the order to the body to sin and to engage in transgressions. The body is most pliable; whatever you tell it to do, it will do. It is something that has no dominion over itself. By itself, it cannot do anything; it can only act according to the order of the old man. When the Lord saved us, He did not put our body to death, nor did He destroy the root of sin. Rather, He crucified our old man with Himself on the cross.
What is the result of crucifying the old man? The result is "that the body of sin might be annulled." In the original Greek, "annulled" means "unemployed." This means that, without the old man, the body of sin cannot do anything anymore. Formerly, the body of sin functioned daily according to the old man's order. It seemed as if to sin had become its occupation. All it did was commit sins. The old man loved sin exceedingly; it wanted to sin, craved for sin, and was fond of doing sinful things; the body followed after the old man to sin and became the body of sin. Now, after the old man is dealt with by the Lord and is crucified, the body of sin becomes unemployed; there is no more work for it to do. When the old man was alive, it was the profession and the occupation of the body of sin to commit sins every day. Thank the Lord, this hopeless old man has been crucified! The body of sin has also lost its job! Even though sin still exists and still tries to be the master, I am no longer its slave. Although time and again sin tries to instigate the body to commit sin, it cannot break through because the Holy Spirit has become the Master within the new man. As a result, sin is unable to activate the body to commit sin anymore. Hence, the goal of the crucifixion of the old man and the unemployment of the body of sin in Romans 6:6 is that "we should no longer serve sin as slaves."
We have seen these three items: one fact—"that our old man has been crucified with Him," one result—"that the body of sin might be annulled," and one goal—"that we should no longer serve sin as slaves." These three are linked together and cannot be separated. We know the fact, the result, and the goal. But how can we achieve this? What is the condition that we need to fulfill before we can have the experience of dying together with the Lord? It is to believe. There is no other condition except to believe.
The way one receives the substitutional death of the Lord Jesus is the same way he dies together with Him. Through faith, not works, one shares the result of the Lord Jesus' substitutional death, which is deliverance from eternal punishment. In the same way, through faith, one shares the result of dying with the Lord Jesus, which is freedom from sin. It is a fact that the Lord Jesus has already died for you. It is also a fact that you have already died with the Lord Jesus. If you do not believe in Christ's substitutionary death for you, you cannot partake of the effectiveness of this death—deliverance from punishment. If you do not believe in your death with Christ, you will likewise not be able to receive the effectiveness of death with Him—freedom from sin. All those who believe in the substitutional death of Christ are saved, and all those who believe in their death with Christ have overcome. To share in the death of the Lord Jesus—whether it be the substituting or the participating death— requires faith. God requires that we believe. We need to believe in the Lord's death for us and our death with Him. Romans 6:11 says, "So also you, reckon yourselves to be dead to sin." The word "reckon" is extremely important. Oftentimes we like to "sense" that our old man has died. We like to "feel" that our old man has died. If we try to sense or feel, our old man will never die in our experience. Our old man does not die from our "sensing" or "feeling." The more we "sense," the more we notice that our old man is not dead, and the more we "feel," the more we see that our old man is still alive. The old man is not crucified by "sensing" or "feeling." The old man experiences crucifixion through "reckoning." What is reckoning? "Reckoning" is an act of faith; "reckoning" is the application of faith; "reckoning" is the judgment of the will and the execution of the will. "Reckoning" is completely contrary to "sensing" and "feeling." "Sensing" and "feeling" have to do with one's feelings, while "reckoning" has to do with faith and the will. Therefore, the crucifixion of our old man is not something we have to feel. It is wrong to say, "I do not feel that my old man is dead." Whether the old man has died or not does not depend on your feeling; it depends on whether or not you have reckoned it.
How do we "reckon"? To reckon yourself dead to sin is to reckon yourself already crucified. It is to reckon that your old man has already been crucified and that the cross of the Lord Jesus was also the cross for your old man; it is to reckon that the death of the Lord Jesus is the death of your old man and to reckon that the time the Lord Jesus died nineteen hundred years ago is the time your old man died. The old man has already been crucified on the cross with Christ. This is a fact, an accomplished fact. In the eyes of God, the old man is dead. Now we reckon that our old man is dead. If we reckon in our heart the things we believe in, God will accomplish the same things. Furthermore, we should exercise our will to reckon ourselves dead to sin. If we do this, we will no longer be a slave to sin. To reckon is an act as well as an attitude. An act is a one time matter, while an attitude is something one maintains all the time. An act is a one time action toward a certain matter, while an attitude is a lasting evaluation toward something. We should reckon ourselves dead to sin. This means that we should take a definite step to reckon ourselves dead to sin. After this, we should continually maintain an attitude of being dead to sin. The act is the beginning, and the attitude is the continuation. We should have at least one time before God where, in a definite way, from that very day and hour, we reckon ourselves as dead. After that specific reckoning, we should daily maintain this attitude of a definite reckoning, an attitude that declares ourselves dead to sin. The failure of many people is this: they have reckoned themselves dead to sin and have received the word of dying with the Lord on the cross. However, they think that this matter is once for all and that once they have made such a reckoning, they will have no problem from then on. They think that just as one is dead when his physical body dies, so it is with the death of one's old man. They do not realize that the same is not true in the spiritual realm. We need to daily and hourly reckon ourselves dead with Christ. Whenever a believer stops reckoning, his old man, in experience, will not be dead. This is why many people find that their old man seems to have resurrected. If this is something that can be settled once for all, we do not need to be watchful anymore. But we know that we need to be watchful. Watchfulness is something we need to exercise moment by moment. In the same way, to reckon our old man dead is something that is continual and uninterrupted. If God's children are more aware of this, they will avoid many failures.
To take such an attitude is not a mental exercise of the mind, but a lasting evaluation of ourselves in our will. One should be able "to reckon oneself as dead" whether consciously or unconsciously. God's children often find it difficult to do this. Oftentimes, they think that they have "forgotten" to reckon. They have used the wrong organ. To reckon is an exercise of the will, not a grappling in the mind. Whether or not you overcome depends on whether or not you have adopted the attitude of reckoning yourself dead. It does not depend on whether or not you remember to reckon. If you exercise your will by the Holy Spirit to maintain this attitude of death, you will find that consciously or unconsciously this attitude will be with you. The attitude is always the same whether you remember it or not. Naturally, our mind has its place, but we should not let the mind influence the will. The will should control the mind and should cause it to assist the will in maintaining this attitude.
Therefore, daily and hourly, consciously or unconsciously, no matter what we do, we should always stand on the foundation of the cross and should reckon our old man as dead. Here is the secret to overcoming sin and the devil. Sin and the devil are related to each other. If sin cannot be our king, spontaneously the devil will not have any ground in our hearts.
If the believers realize and receive the truth of the cross, there will not be so many backsliding and failing ones. Long-lasting victory can never be separated from a long- lasting stand on the foundation of the cross.
However, this is not to say that, after we have "reckoned" the old man dead in conduct and in attitude, the sin within us will be eliminated and nullified. As long as we are still in the body, sin will still be with us. To say that sin can be nullified in this life is not the teaching of the Bible. We can put our old man to death through trusting in the cross of the Lord on Golgotha, and we can cause the body of sin to be powerless, to wither, and to be paralyzed as dead; but we can never cause sin to be nullified. Whenever we are careless, unwatchful, and not standing on the death ground of Golgotha, our old man will be activated and will exercise its authority and power again. Satan is seeking an opportunity all day long to activate him. Wherever there is an opening, Satan will try to restore our old man to his original position.
This being the case, how we need to be watchful and on the alert so that the old man will never have a day to rise up again! But is not this very difficult? Surely the flesh regards this as difficult. Therefore, in order for the cross to work in the believers, they must have the empowering of the Holy Spirit. The cross and the Holy Spirit can never be separated. The cross makes it possible for the believers to overcome sin; the Holy Spirit makes real in the believers' lives what the cross has accomplished. A believer who wants to be delivered from sins must not make provisions for the flesh; he must be watchful and must be ready to pay any price. He should have less hope in himself and more trust in the Holy Spirit. With man it is impossible; with God, nothing is impossible.
The death of the cross is different from any other kind of death. This kind of death is most painful and slow. Therefore, if we truly reckon ourselves dead and take the cross of the Lord as our own cross, it will be painful and miserable as far as our flesh is concerned. The Lord Jesus hung on the cross for six hours before He died; His death was very slow. In the lives of Christians, the experiences of co-crucifixion belong often to this six-hour period. When the Lord Jesus was on the cross, He had the power to come down if He desired. The same is true for those who are crucified with the Lord. Whenever one allows his old man to leave the cross, his old man will leave the cross. The old man is hung on the cross through one's reckoning. If one maintains the attitude that the old man is dead, the old man will be as powerless as the dead. But once a person relaxes, the old man will be activated. Many of God's children often wonder why their old man keeps resurrecting. They forget that the death of crucifixion is slow.
Satan is very alert; he takes any opportunity to resurrect the old man and to cause the believers to commit sin. Whenever we are not watchful, his temptation and deception come. When outward temptation and deception come, the old man within is quick to respond. At such times, we should come back once again to the foundation of the cross and should once again reckon ourself dead. We should wait (through this reckoning) for the Holy Spirit to apply the power of the cross until the temptation loses its drawing power. Every believer should have this extraordinary experience. When we are about to be defeated, we should come again to the cross and reckon ourself dead; by this we will experience power coming into us, preserving us, and strengthening us to resist the temptation. However, is it not true that sometimes we reckon over and over again and still do not see any result, but instead we sin? This is the experience of many. This means that our "reckoning" has some problem. If we have truly reckoned, we will surely find extraordinary power coming into us. We should remember that this "reckoning" is not to say with our mouth, "I am dead, I am dead"; neither is it to think in the mind, "I am dead, I am dead." It is the judgment of our will to reckon ourself dead and to maintain this attitude of reckoning with a believing heart. We may say that this is a decision in our will by which we declare, "I am dead." In other words, first we are willing to die, then we reckon ourself dead. We need to learn to reckon with the will and with faith.
If we really stand on Romans 6:11, we will constantly have the experience of being free from sin. When a believer first takes this attitude, Satan will purposely try to stir up a storm and will cause the believer to feel that things are too much for him to handle. At such times, he should calmly rely on the Holy Spirit to apply to him the power of the cross. Do not struggle. Do not be anxious. Do not think that the temptation is too great, and do not encourage the enemy because of this. You should reckon yourself dead to sin. The cross has the power to overcome the world.
If unfortunately we fail, we should rise up even more and should trust more in the power of the cross. The Holy Spirit will lead us to victory in the Lord Jesus. Brothers, "sin will not lord it over you, for you are...under grace"! (Rom. 6:14).
In our experience, death to self is deeper and more advanced than death to sin. Usually God's children pay much attention to overcoming sins. They suffer much from the harassment of sin. They know very well how that after they sin, their regenerated life grieves over the evil and bitterness of sin. They have tasted much of this, and they hope very much to overcome sin and to be no longer a slave of sin. Therefore, after they have received the light and have realized how to die with the Lord and how to reckon themselves dead to sin, they rely on the power of the Holy Spirit and begin to seriously reckon themselves dead and to allow the victory of the cross to be expressed in their heart and through their body. Yet, frequently there is something lacking: after they have the experience of victory over sin, they think that this is the highest expression of life and that nothing can be higher. They pay too much attention to their sins. As a result, once they overcome them, they become satisfied. It is right for us to pay attention to our sins, and it is right for believers not to neglect their sins. Victory over sins is the basis of all righteousness and is the beginning of a proper Christian living. If sin has dominion over us, we cannot expect to have any spiritual progress. But this does not mean that we can stop at victory over sin and draw a boundary line and call an end to our advance. We have to know that this is only the first step in the experience of a Christian. There is still a long way before us. Do not consider it an end! After overcoming sins, the immediate problem facing the believers is how to overcome the "self."
Believers often misunderstand the true meaning of "self." Some confuse self with sin. They consider self as sin and believe it should be put to death. Naturally, self and sin have a lot to do with each other, but self is not sin. They use the yardstick with which they measure sin to measure every outward behavior. Anything they consider as wrong, they condemn as sin and regard as self and as the "mother" of sin. They consider that it ought to be crucified. Little do they realize that as bad as the self is, it is not always evil. It is true that everything that springs from the "mother" of sin is sin and is corrupt and defiled, and it is also true that what is expressed by the "mother" of sin through the self can in no way be good. However, sometimes when the self is expressed, it can appear very good in man's eyes and can appear very virtuous, very kind, and very righteous. If we take the yardstick with which we measure sin to measure the self, we will surely eliminate the evil part of the self and keep its good part—good, of course, according to man's view. Because believers are unaware of the source of self and do not realize that it can produce that which both God and man condemn as evil as well as that which is recognized by man as good, they remain in the realm of the "self" and fail to enter into the enjoyment of the full and rich life of God. Satan is most subtle; he hides this fact and keeps the believers in darkness, causing them to be contented with the experience of victory over sin and to stop looking for a higher experience—the experience of victory over the self.
The self life is just our natural life. The natural life has been affected by Adam's fall and has become very corrupt. Through Adam's fall, man acquired the sinful nature. This sinful nature is intimately interwoven with the natural life, which is the self. Our self is just our ego; it is what constitutes our own individual personality. In other words, it is our soul. Because the sinful nature is so intimately related to the self, it is difficult to separate the two in their operation, that is, in their acts of sins. They are so united that as soon as the "mother" of sin moves, the self agrees and executes, and man commits the outward sins.
Of course, we can never make too clear a separation between self and sin. With an unbeliever, self and sin are as one, and it is very hard to separate them. The self is already able to transgress by itself. But sin, being so powerful, affects the self, dominates the self, suppresses the self, and forces the self to come up with more ways to sin. Under the influence of Adam's fall, the self is already corrupt to the uttermost. Now when it collaborates with sin, the two have little reason for conflict. Even though sometimes the conscience makes a very faint protest, it is so short and weak that it disappears in no time. The self and sin cooperate with each other so well that in unregenerated persons, the two are mixed together. To them, sin is just self incarnated. To them, self is just the many evils that appear in the fallen human life; it is the root, the branches, and the leaves of sin. To them, self is not only the origin of sin, but the very life of sin. To them, sin is self, and self is sin. After a man is regenerated, in the initial stage of his Christian life, he still finds it difficult to differentiate in experience between sin and self. Later, as he receives more grace from God, and as the work of the cross and the power of the Holy Spirit become more apparent in him, he begins to separate sin from the self. Along the way in their Christian life, God's children are gradually able to differentiate the self from sin. Those who have experienced Romans 6:11 will realize that though a man may have overcome sin, he may still not have overcome the self. To those believers who are advanced in life, victory over sin is easy, while victory over the self is very difficult. If a believer has the full experience of victory over the self, he will have attained the life that the apostles had.
The self-life is just the soul-life. The self is our personality and everything contained in our personality. Out of the self grow our personal opinion, taste, thought, longing, bias, love, and hatred. The self-life is the power by which one lives. We must keep in mind that the self is just ourself plus our likes and dislikes. Its life is the natural power by which we perform good and do work. The self is a life, because it lives in the believers whose self has not been removed. Even in the believers who have died to their self, it often attempts to rise up. The self-life is a life that centers on one's own self.
After the believers receive the dealing of the cross with respect to sin, the body of sin will be paralyzed and will not be able to act anymore. However, because no attention has yet been paid to the self-life, the latter still lives. At this stage, the self-life is like the life of Adam before the fall. It was not spiritual because it was not transformed by the fruit of the tree of life, and it was not fleshly because it had not sinned. It belonged to itself, and as such it could sin if it wanted to sin, and it could be spiritual if it wanted to be spiritual. The believer's life at this time is very similar to this. It is not spiritual because his spirit is still not free, and it has not reached a walk according to God's higher life. It is not fleshly because the person has received the accomplishment of the cross and has reckoned himself dead to sin. He is of the self, soulish, natural, and untransformed. If he is not careful, he will fall and will be contaminated by the sin of the flesh. If he goes forward and claims the accomplishment of the cross, he will become completely spiritual. Nevertheless, if believers stay in the realm of the self, they will mostly fall and will many times become fleshly.
At this time believers are in a most vulnerable condition in their Christian life. On the one hand, they must protect themselves from falling; on the other hand, they must resolve to have some practical righteous works. The danger then is to do good by self effort. It may not necessarily be obvious; sometimes it can be very obscure and hidden. Sometimes it takes God a long time to show the believers that they are still in the self and are still trying to carry out God's will by their self effort.
The self includes many things. Our will, emotions, love, and intelligence are within its domain. The self is our ego. The life of the self is the power by which we live. The self is also the soul; it is an organ. The life of the self is the life of the soul; it is the power that motivates this organ. When a man is in the self, the life of the self will impart power, that is, the self's own power, into the various parts of the man—the will, the emotions, the love, the intelligence, etc., and will cause the man to do good and to work. Its will is strong enough to resist the outward temptations. Its emotions make one happy and cause one to think that God is very close to him. Its love to the Lord is deep and sincere. Its intelligence causes him to come up with many wonderful Bible teachings and many methods for doing God's work. But, after all, these are done by the self, not by the spiritual life of God. During this time, God often gives special grace to the believers so that they receive many wonderful gifts. By realizing that all these gifts are from God, it is hoped that man will turn completely away from himself to God. However, in experience what a believer does is completely opposite to what God intends. Not only does he not turn completely to God, he takes advantage of these gifts for his own use. As a result, these gifts become a help for prolonging the life of his self. Therefore, God has to work many days and years before such a person will give up himself and turn to Him completely.
After a believer is brought by God to a deep realization of the evil of the self, he will be willing to put his self to death. But what is the way for the self to die? There is no other way but by the cross. We have to read two passages of Scripture to understand the relationship between the cross and the self.
"I am crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2:20).
"If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me" (Luke 9:23).
What Galatians 2:20 speaks of is something accomplished once for all. After we realize that our self needs to be put to death, we should then by faith acknowledge in a definite way that "I am crucified with Christ." The word in the original text is ego, the "I," the self. Besides the cross, there is indeed no other way to put the self to death. We should also pay attention to the words "with Christ." The crucifixion of the self is not an independent act of the believers. Believers are not to crucify the self on the cross by themselves in their own strength. The crucifixion of the self is to be joined to Christ and in conjunction with Christ. This is not to say that we help Christ to put the self on the cross. Rather, it means that Christ has already accomplished this fact, and we now merely acknowledge and believe its reality. Here the main focus is Christ. This is why it says, "I am crucified with Christ," not "Christ is crucified with me." It is not that we want to put the self to death, and Christ comes merely to accompany us. Rather, it was Christ who in His death brought all our "ego," our self, to the cross and nailed it there. Therefore, we are not crucifying the self again but are merely acknowledging the fact. The word "am" shows us that it is a fact and not a wish. A life that dies to the self is possible, real, and attainable. The apostles in the ancient time obtained this kind of life already; their self passed the test. Therefore, it is possible for us to obtain this life also. However, we should remember that this is "crucified with" and not "crucified alone." Apart from the Lord we can do nothing. To crucify the self with the strength of the self is an impossible task and can never be done. If we are not united with the Lord in His death, our self will never die. Christ alone brought all the old creation, every part of it, to the cross in His death. If we try to find another way besides the Lord's way and try to accomplish anything besides the Lord's accomplishment, we are not only foolish but also wasting our time. Therefore, we are to do nothing but come to the Lord with full assurance of faith and acknowledge the Lord's accomplishment as ours; following this we should pray for the Holy Spirit to apply in us the work of the Lord's cross and express this very work through us.
We should come before God to rebuke our self and offer up everything to Him. By the Spirit of the Lord, we should put to death everything that is included in our self-life. We should tell God, "Hereafter, it is no longer I, no longer my own likeness, opinions, tastes, or preconceptions. I will put all these on the cross. Starting from today, I will live only according to Your will. O Lord! It is You...not I." We should submit to the Lord in such a way as to put all we have to death. But this does not mean that from now on we will have the self exterminated. The self cannot and will not be exterminated; it always exists. Why then do we say to nail the self on the cross? Here we must know one important thing: the question before us is one that has to do with the spiritual life. For this kind of question, we must emphasize spiritual experience more than mere literary fluency. There are many things which seem to contradict one another in semantics and which seem utterly incompatible. Yet they fit very harmoniously together and have no awkwardness of any kind in the realm of the spiritual life. This is what happens here. According to the literal meaning, if the self is dead already, how can it not be exterminated? We have to know that the word "dead" here refers to a kind of process in the spiritual experience. The self being dead does not mean that the self is from now on non-existent. It means that the self will hereafter submit to God, that it will not allow its likes and dislikes to take over, but that it will allow the cross to crucify and terminate all its selfish thoughts and activities. To stop the self-life from driving the self means that the living which is derived from the self-life is dead, that there is no more self-life and self-living, and that only the shell of the self remains. The self includes the will, the emotions, the intelligence, etc. This does not mean that when we believe in our self being crucified with Christ, our will, emotions, intellect, etc., will be annulled! No one can annihilate the few faculties which make up his being just by believing in his having been crucified with the Lord! To die with the Lord simply means to no longer allow the self to be the master, to no longer act according to one's own will, emotions, and thoughts, and to no longer allow the self-life to have its way; it means to allow the Lord's Spirit to rule over everything that the self encompasses so that the person can obey God's life within. As long as the self is not dead, it will not yield to the Holy Spirit. Once the self walks away from the cross, it will right away resume its old posture. Believers have neither the power nor the way to subdue themselves. Galatians 2:20 sheds a lot of light on this point. "I [the self] am crucified with Christ;...and the life which I now live in the flesh...." Does not the Scripture speak very clearly here? In the first part of the sentence Paul made it very clear that his self was crucified on the cross, yet in the second part of the sentence, did he not say that his self still existed? Therefore, the crucifixion of the self does not mean the extermination of the self; rather, it means to cease from the activities of the self and allow the Lord to be the Master. This should be very clear.
What has been said above was achieved once for all. But is it enough for us only to believe once that we are crucified with Christ? Will this solve the problem once for all? This leads to the second passage of Scripture: "Let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me" (Luke 9:23). This verse points out that the three things we ought to do are actually not three but one thing divided into three steps. The first step is to deny the self. Denying means rejecting, discarding, ignoring, and not acknowledging one's demand. The meaning of denying the self is simply to not allow the self to be the lord. This step is a definite act; it is to believe specifically that "I am already crucified with Christ." In order to maintain the work of this step, we must carry out the second step, which is to "daily" take up the cross. This means that even though we have willingly given the self over to the cross once and have disallowed it from being the lord, we should continue to deny the self daily. Denying the self should be daily and uninterrupted. This matter of denying the self cannot be accomplished once for all. The Lord must give us a daily cross to bear. The self is very alert, and Satan who takes advantage of the self is also untiring. Every moment, the self is looking for an opportunity to restore itself and will never let even the slightest chance pass by. Therefore, it is extremely important to bear the cross daily. This is where the believers must be watchful. We should "daily" and moment by moment bear the cross the Lord has given us; we should continuously acknowledge that the Lord's cross is our cross and should not give any room to the self or allow it to assume any position. The third step is to follow the Lord; this is to positively honor the Lord as Lord and to completely obey the Lord's will. In this way, the self will have no chance or possibility to develop itself. These three steps are all based and centered upon the cross. The first step of denying the self is on the negative side. The second step of taking up the cross is negatively positive. The third step of following the Lord is on the positive side.
The teaching in these two passages should not be separated from one another. If we consider them together and practice them together, we will have the overcoming experience all the time. However, we should allow the Holy Spirit to do His own work and should allow the accomplished work of the cross to be wrought into us.
Our common thought is that we are very willing to give our bad, filthy, sinful, and satanic things over to Christ and have them nailed on the cross with Him. We are very willing to get rid of the evil things in the self. However, our frequent problem is that we think we should keep the good things of the self. In the sight of God, the self is totally corrupted and deeply affected by the fall of Adam. According to God, He cannot heal the life of the self, nor can He remedy it. There is no other way but to crucify it with Christ on the cross. The world is willing to let everything go and is willing even to sacrifice its own money and time, yet it finds it too difficult to deny the self and to crucify it. We always consider that the self is not all bad. This is the human viewpoint. Of course, the natural man has no intention of retaining only its goodness. However, unconsciously and unwittingly, one keeps the good part of the self and puts the evil part of the self to death. Little do we realize that the self is either totally alive or totally dead. If the good part of the self is kept alive, there is no guarantee that the evil part of the self will be dead. Therefore, believers have a serious lesson to learn here. They have to be willing to crucify with Christ both the good and the evil parts of their self. Many people's natural self is honest by birth. Some are very patient, and some are loving. It is very hard for those people to put all their self to death. Subconsciously, they keep their honesty, patience, and love and let the other wrong things be crucified with the Lord. These believers must be taught by God to realize that they themselves are not trustworthy. Only then will they submit themselves to the Lord. We can learn a lesson from Peter on this point. Before he experienced the death and resurrection of Christ and the filling of the Holy Spirit, he truly thought that his love toward the Lord was right. However, was his promise to die with the Lord carried out? Peter's failure was caused by his total trust in himself; he trusted in his own goodness. Yet he did not realize this. After all, it is difficult to realize the self. We should trust in God's evaluation of ourselves and should put the self on the cross.
If we consider God's evaluation of the world, we will be more sure about this fact. God said, "There is none righteous, not even one" (Rom. 3:10). To the world, is there really none righteous? There are quite a few righteous persons according to the world's point of view! The reason God considers none righteous is that all their righteousness is produced by themselves. The self is deeply cultivated by Adam's nature. "Does the spring, out of the same opening, gush forth the sweet and the bitter?" (James 3:11). Man thinks that he has what the world approves as righteousness. Yet, "because they were ignorant of God's righteousness and sought to establish their own righteousness, they were not subject to the righteousness of God" (Rom. 10:3). The self-righteous ones are not righteous. They are also sinners destined to perdition. Only those who receive the entire person of the Lord Jesus are the righteous ones.
We can look into another portion of the Word which tells us how the goodness of the self-life should be put to death before one can bring forth good fruit. This passage, however, deals more with the self-life than with the self itself.
"Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). The Lord is speaking to His believers. His word is a calling. "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me" (v. 26). After He spoke the words in verse 24, He did not leave us in darkness, but He continued by explaining, "He who loves his soul-life loses it [i.e., in eternity bears no fruit]; and he who hates his soul-life in this world shall keep it [i.e., not be barren] unto eternal life [in the original, the spiritual life]" (v. 25). The teaching here is that the self-life should be put to death.
Life is very precious. One can suffer the loss of everything except life. Yet here is a call for us to lose our life. Our self- life is endowed to us by birth; it is legitimate and is good. Yet here the Lord requires that we put it to death.
What is this life? This is a natural life, a life that we have in common with all animals, a life with mobility. Our intellect, love, and emotions are all dominated by this life. Every faculty of our body is controlled by this life. Every part of our being is controlled by this life. Although it is not wrong to exercise our intellect, love, and emotions, this dominating life, this life which comes by our natural birth, is not a spiritual life. Unless the spiritual life becomes the expression and the motivating power of all the faculties of the believers, a believer will "lose" his life, that is, he will never bear fruit.
This self-life is beautiful and attractive. Our Lord uses wheat as an illustration. The exterior shell of a grain of wheat is very attractive. Its color is golden yellow. Although it is beautiful, it is useless if it remains merely a grain. It must be separated from (or go together with) its companions and fall into the ground—a dark, hidden, suffering place—and die there. When it dies, it will lose its beauty and all it has. It will no longer be an object of man's praise as before.
If we are truly willing to die, and if we truly die, we will lose many praises of man. Our natural beauty will be destroyed. Formerly, we might have had the intelligence to come up with many new reasonings and theories. When the self dies, we will have to wait for the Lord's direction and leading and will not dare to depend upon our own intelligence anymore. Formerly, we might have had love and could have loved many. We could have motivated ourselves to love the Lord. When the self dies, we will have to let the Lord's love love through us, and we will have to allow the Holy Spirit to permeate our heart with the Lord's love. We will not dare to be motivated by our natural love. Formerly, we might have had emotions and could be joyful, angry, sad, and happy at will; we could fellowship with the Lord through our feelings and could sense His joy. With the death of the self, we will have to let the Lord control our emotions. We will be sorrowful when the Lord is sorrowful. We will be happy when the Lord is happy. We will have to let the Lord have the freedom in us. Even though at times we will lack the sense of the Lord, yet we will have to remain faithful, and we will not change our attitude. We will not dare to change because of the emotions. What seemed profitable to us before will be counted loss for Christ's sake (Phil. 3:7). When we die with the Lord to sin, we let go of the unlawful things. When we are crucified with the Lord to self, we let go of the lawful things. This step is indeed hard to take. Narrow is the gate and constricted is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it.
What kind of death is this? It is like the death of the cross that the Lord knew about (John 12:33). Therefore, we do not have any other choice except to fall into the ground willingly and die. We should die joyfully with the Lord and participate in the fellowship of His cross. Every day we should maintain the attitude of hating the self-life so that we can keep it unto life eternal, that is, bearing fruit unto life eternal and bringing forth many grains. This is not an overnight matter. If this were so, it would have been easy. But our Lord's word is, "He who hates his soul-life in this world..." (John 12:25). We should hate our self-life as long as we live in this world. If we practice this unceasingly, our craving self will be stripped of its power.
We must not consider the word "death" lightly. It is not enough to be a grain of wheat alone. As a born-again son of God (Matt. 13:38), one is merely a babe and cannot do much for God. It is not enough just to fall into the ground, for even if one is willing to suffer and to be hidden, he is still not dead and is still one grain; there is still no increase. Death is the ultimate and most important step. Death unlocks the gate of life. Death is the only requirement for fruit bearing. Death is indispensable. And yet how many are there who truly experience this death? Death terminates all activity. Death is the end to our human life. After death, there remains no room for the activity of the self-life. This death is not a reluctant death, because the Lord said we should "hate" this self-life. To hate is a kind of attitude; it is a lasting attitude. Therefore, we should willingly put this life to death; we should have a full understanding of the poverty of this life and should hate it.
What is the result of the death of this life? The result is many grains. The reason, the very reason, the Lord cannot use us is that we work by our intellect, love, etc. This soul- life is a low-level life; it is not a high-level life. As such it can hardly bear fruit. Although it contains some merits, only "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." The self-life, and everything that comes with it, is completely useless. If we really put ourselves, our self-life, that is, all that we can do and all that we are, completely on the Lord's cross, we will see how the Lord will use us. If we are empty within, there will not be any blockage to the gushing out of God's living water from us. This kind of fruit bearing is different from ordinary fruit bearing because the fruit that we bear will be plentiful. Our fruit bearing depends totally on our death.
Therefore, believers, just as our self once filled us, even so now must Christ fill us. Otherwise, we have not yet received full salvation. The key for us to receive our salvation and the key for us to be saved is to be delivered from the self. It is easy for a believer who is in the self to fall into sin. This is why in order to die completely to sin, one must die completely to self. Christ is not only our Savior who frees us from sin; He is also our Savior who saves us from the self. To die to self is the only pathway for our spiritual living. Yet, besides God, no one can put our self-life to death. However, if we are not willing, God can do nothing. The activity of the self is sometimes quite hidden under a spiritual veil. A believer may not recognize it at first by himself. This is why God has to remove the veil through all kinds of outward circumstances in order that the believer will come to know himself. The most difficult thing for a person to do is to know himself. We do not know ourselves. This is why we have to go through God's dealing hand before we realize the evil of the self. If in our experience we have not died to self, we have not made any real progress in our spiritual life. If you and I are willing to let the Holy Spirit of the Lord apply the death of the self in us and to work it out of us today, we will see great progress in our lives.
Brothers! May we declare together in one accord, "Not as I will, but as You [the Father] will" (Matt. 26:39).
The above article deals with questions on the spiritual life. May the reader not consider this as a theory. One should compare his spiritual experience with the words here. If he does this, he will understand these words. We are all babes in Christ. May the Lord guide us step by step. If we do not have the experience of the death of the self, it is better to say we do not have it. But we must never take the self-life as the spiritual life. May God bless us.
