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In 1 Corinthians 2:2 Paul says, “I did not determine to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and this One crucified.” Then in 2 Corinthians 4:7-11 he says, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us. We are pressed on every side but not constricted; unable to find a way out but not utterly without a way out; persecuted but not abandoned; cast down but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who are alive are always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”
From Paul’s word we see that a Christian’s center is Christ, the One who was crucified. Christ is the life, and the cross is the way. We have received not only Christ but also His cross; we have received not merely a life but also a way. We have received Christ as our life, and we have also received the cross as our way.
These two items, however, are often neglected in the church today. Christians preach Christ, telling people that Christ is the Savior and life of man, yet in their daily lives very few of them really experience Christ as life. Today many people in the church know and speak the truth of Christ being our life, but the experience of having Christ as life in their daily living is rare.
We really have to look to God that we may definitely know in our experience what it is to have Christ as our life and to know what is the cross of Christ. Today there are innumerable Christians all over the world, yet among them we can hardly find one whose living and work testify that he is living in the cross and that he is walking on the path of the cross.
Christ as the One who was crucified is the center of God’s salvation. Hence, Paul told the Corinthians, “I did not...know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and this One crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). Yet what was the condition of the Corinthians? We see from the book of 1 Corinthians that they paid attention to many so-called spiritual matters, such as spiritual gifts, spiritual eloquence, and spiritual power. They also paid attention to faith. Paul even said to them, “You do not lack in any gift” (1:7). In other words, the Corinthians had gifts, eloquence, faith, and various other so-called spiritual things. However, Paul wanted them to see that all these things that they paid attention to were not God’s focus. They had not touched or received God’s focus. What is God’s focus? Paul said, “I did not...know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and this One crucified.”
The central purpose of God is that He wants to become our life. However, how can He become our life? He becomes our life through the cross. Where there is the cross, there is the life of God; where there is the cross, there is the way of God’s life. We must look to God to show us what Christ and the cross will accomplish in us and how we can know Christ and the cross.
God’s life in Christ has been given to us. Every saved one has Christ and the life of God. However, whether or not this life can have a place in us, mingle with us, be constituted in us, and live out from us altogether hinges on whether or not we experience the work of the cross. The extent of the work of the cross in us determines how much ground Christ’s life has in us, how much we are mingled and constituted with Christ’s life, and how much we live out this life.
No doubt, God’s life is in us, and Christ is living in us. However, how can the life of Christ, which is in us, be constituted into us? How can His personality become our personality and His element become our element? How can His life swallow up all our natural being, fill our inner being, become our element, and be expressed through us? The only way for God to accomplish all these things is through the breaking of the cross. Only the cross enables Christ to have the position, the opportunity, and the way to do what He wants to do and to accomplish what He wants to accomplish in man.
What is the cross? Many people’s understanding of the cross is that it is a kind of suffering. Of course, the cross is painful, but this is just half of the correct understanding. The ultimate significance of the cross is not suffering but death. The slogan of the cross is, “Take Him away! Take Him away!” When the Lord Jesus was about to be crucified, people cried out, “Take Him away! Take Him away!” (John 19:15). The cross not only caused the Lord Jesus to suffer, but the ultimate purpose of the cross was to take Him away, to do away with Him, and to terminate Him; suffering is only the process. Death terminates a person, bringing him to an end. Death is the ultimate significance of the cross. The significance of the cross is to terminate, to bring to an end. The cross terminates not only sins but also you and me.
If a person is not dead or finished, it will be extremely difficult for him to be delivered from sins and the world. Only a dead person can be delivered from sins and the world. A living person cannot be separated from sins, nor can he be free from the entanglement of the world. Hence, the ultimate significance of the cross is to put man to death, to terminate man. If a person is really on the cross, the ultimate issue is that he is ended.
What is the way of the cross? The way of the cross is not merely a way of suffering pain and affliction but a way of termination. Today our spiritual knowledge and concepts are very shallow. We think that to be spiritual we have to be zealous, to love the Lord, and to conduct ourselves properly. We think that as long as we are able to deal with our temper and improve our behavior, we can satisfy God’s heart. However, God does not give us “dealings,” “improvements,” or other methods. God gives us only Christ and His cross.
What is Christ? Christ is the expression of God. What is the cross? The cross is the termination of man. The cross terminates man, and Christ expresses God. Just as Christ and the cross are inseparable, the experiences of God’s expression in man and the cross’s termination of man are also inseparable. Christ brings God to us, and the cross terminates us. The purpose of God’s salvation is not for us to improve our behavior, to be zealous, to be loving, or to have the highest morality; instead, the purpose of God’s salvation is for us to be terminated through the experience of the cross. We need to be terminated and brought to an end. We deserve only to be hanged on the cross.
Here we need the light to see that the cross is an experience. This experience is always to terminate man, to bring man to an end, to bring man to nought, and to bring man to zero. The word zero is not welcomed by people. Businessmen do not want their business to become a “zero”; students do not like to get a “zero” on their tests; and bank depositors do not like to have a “zero” balance. No one likes the word zero. God’s salvation, however, is to bring man to zero, to bring man to an end, and to terminate man through the cross.
Those who do not know God’s salvation like to exhort people to reject evil, to turn to good, and to improve their behavior. The ultimate purpose of God’s salvation, however, is to bring man to death, to bring man to the cross. Does one who is hanging on the cross, dying on the cross, still need to improve himself or reject evil and turn to good? Does he still need man’s exhortation? We all know that there is no such thing as exhorting a dead person. We can exhort only a living person. If we know God’s salvation to a higher extent, we will see where we are. We will see that not only our sins and our behavior but also we ourselves were hanged on the cross.
Now every one of us knows that we are those who are on the cross. However, here is the question. Since we are on the cross, is our living also on the cross? The cross is not a doctrine. If it were so, it would take us only five minutes to understand it. One day God will open our eyes and grant us His view to see that we are already on the cross. This light will nail us down so that, like a nail, we are unable to move. After we have seen this light, the light will follow us, accompany us, and keep a close watch on us. From that time on, we will reject even good, not to mention sin and evil.
Some people may not understand what this means. Many times we commit sins by ourselves. In addition, we also perform good deeds by ourselves. We do evil things by ourselves, and we also do good things by ourselves. However, today God wants us not only to reject evil but also to reject good. God wants us to reject our evilness as well as our goodness. If we do not reject our goodness, then God’s goodness and God’s life will not be able to come out from us.
A certain elderly brother was a very good man. One day he said, “It is definitely good to live out God’s love, but to live out man’s love is better than to live out man’s hatred.” He said such a word because he did not see that only one kind of person can live out God’s love. What kind of person is this? This is a person who rejects himself. A person who rejects himself will reject not only his hatred but also his love. God’s love cannot be expressed in someone who lives in his hatred; likewise, God’s love cannot be expressed in someone who lives in his own love. God’s love is as bright as pure gold, but man’s love cannot be compared even with yellowish clay. The Bible tells us that even our righteousnesses are like a soiled garment (Isa. 64:6), not to mention our sins. In God’s light we cannot but confess that even our love is not complete and that our inner motive is not pure. Our inward element is mixed. However, God’s love is not like this. Like pure gold, God’s love is pure, unblemished, boundless, immeasurable, and without motive.
In short, if what is of man is not rejected or broken, then what is of God will not be expressed in man. If we are not terminated, no matter what kind of help we ask of God, He will not answer. God never helps us to do anything. Whenever we do something by ourselves, God will not move His hand or do anything to help us.
After a person is saved, he thinks that he should never lose his temper or speak any idle word. Hence, he prays, “O God, give me the strength, and help me not to lose my temper or speak any idle word.” However, God listens to every kind of prayer except this kind. We all may have had such an experience. We asked God to help us not to lose our temper, but in the end, we lost our temper in a bigger way. This is because the purpose of God’s salvation is not to help us but to crucify us and terminate us. Suppose a bad-tempered person is dead. Will he still ask for help to not lose his temper? When a person is dead, his temper is dealt with. When a person is dead, his idle words are gone.
In the same principle, if a meek person is dead, can he still be meek? Regardless of whether a person is irritable or meek, once he is dead, there will be no more irritability or meekness. Only those who are alive have all kinds of expressions and problems. With those who are dead, all their problems are gone and over. If we see that we are on the cross, our temper will be gone, and our meekness will be over. If we see that we are on the cross, our hatred will be terminated, and our love will come to an end. When we are dead, everything is finished. The meaning of the cross is death, and the experience of the cross is the termination of our entire being.
Perhaps some people will ask, “If we are terminated, does it mean that we are through?” Many years ago a Christian once said that if we bury a piece of stone in the soil, the stone will be terminated and through because it does not have life. However, if we bury a seed in the soil, this will offer the seed an opportunity to grow out of death, because there is life in the seed. This is the distinction between those who have God’s life and those who do not. For those who do not have God’s life, once they stop all their activities, they will be finished; however, for those of us who have God’s life, once we are finished, we will allow God’s life to come out from within us. In other words, once we stop our love, our morality, and all our human activities, we will see that God’s love, God’s goodness, God’s attributes, and God’s life will be spontaneously expressed through us.
Today the main problem among Christians is not committing sins but doing good. We might not live out sins, but if we merely live out our own goodness, we will be at most a good man who has turned from evil to good; we will have no way to experience the cross. Those who have experienced the cross do not have evil, and they also do not have good. Christ can have ground only in those who experience the cross, and only such ones can live out God’s life.
If a person merely has the doctrine of the cross but does not know or experience the cross, then the doctrine will have no effect at all on his person or living. Some people claim that they know the cross, that they are already on the cross, and that they are already finished and terminated. However, when you see their living, you find that they do not know what the cross is. Their entire living is according to their self. They think in their own way, they look at people according to their own view, and they deal with matters according to their own judgment. Everything is according to their self. People of this kind can only tell good from evil; they want the good but not the evil. They can at most discern right from wrong; they want what is right and reject what is wrong.
However, a person who really knows the cross is one who is enlightened by God. Day by day he lives under the light of the cross and is able to tell, in big or small things in his living, what is of the self and what is of Christ, which view is from the self and which view is from Christ, which idea is from the self and which idea is from Christ, which action is from the self and which action is from Christ. He does not care whether something is right or wrong, good or evil, but whether it is of Christ or of himself.
One day under God’s enlightenment, if we really see that we have been terminated, this seeing will give us a deep understanding of our actions, thoughts, and responses every minute of our daily life. This will enable us to discern whether they are of ourselves or of Christ. If we really have the light of the cross, whenever we have an attitude or thought that comes out of ourselves, we will immediately have an inner sense of condemnation.
One day God will show us that everything that comes out of the “I” is His enemy. If the “I” is not done away with, God’s life will not have an outlet. This seeing will make it impossible for us to live out our own life. Because of this seeing, whenever we want to express our opinion, we will not be able to express it. This is the experience of the cross.
Once we stop all our activities, the Spirit of God will immediately have the ground in us and the opportunity to touch us and operate in us. Thus, what is expressed through us will be God Himself. Once the cross does the killing work in us, resurrection will come. Where death is, resurrection is; where the cross is, Christ is. When there is the work of death within us, there will be resurrection, and the Spirit of Christ will be expressed. At that time what comes out of us will be God Himself and Christ.
If we pour water on a person, even though the water flows away, his clothes are wet and mingled with water. Every time we contact the cross, Christ passes through us. Every time Christ passes through us, He constitutes us and mingles Himself with us. When we have more of this kind of experience, we will reach a stage at which Christ will not only stay in us, mingle Himself with us, and add Himself to us, but Christ will also live out through us. The cross finds a place and an outlet for Christ in man. As a result, Christ is mingled with man, and man is terminated on the cross. This is the crucified Christ.
We look to God to shine on us and give us the light to such an extent that not only will we refrain from saying any bad words by ourselves, but we will also refrain from saying any good words by ourselves. Not only will we refrain from expressing anything bad, but we also will refrain from expressing anything good. The attitude of expressing things by ourselves will be put on the cross and terminated. If in everything we do we are willing to learn the lesson of asking ourselves whether what we are doing is out of ourselves or out of Christ, then we will be blessed.
We should not take what is outwardly right or wrong, good or evil, as the standard; rather, we should take the inward Christ as the standard. We should not only ask ourselves whether we hate people or love people, but we have to ask ourselves further whether we love people out of our own love or out of Christ’s love, because we are now on the cross and have been terminated. A terminated person does not have his own love or hatred; neither does he have right or wrong. One who is terminated on the cross has only one thing — Christ living in him. Where there is the death of the cross, there is the resurrection of Christ.
When Christ is living in us, whatever He lives out from us — goodness, love, light, or anything that is profitable to others — will enable others to touch Christ. Not only so, we also will have more of the element of Christ within us. Day after day, Christ will add more of Himself to us. He will do this to the extent that we will not even need to think, but Christ in us will give us the clear feeling to know what is of Him.
What God desires today is that many people will see from the light of the cross that they have been terminated by the cross. This seeing will cause us not only to stop doing evil but also to stop doing good. This seeing will put our entire being to death. Thank the Lord that whoever has the death of the cross has the expression of the resurrected Christ. When we have such an experience, we will see that Christ is our life and that we are in the death of the cross and on the path of the cross.
