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In this chapter we come to our need to cooperate with the Spirit. As we pointed out in the last chapter, we must die in order to live. This is very mysterious. The proper and genuine Christian life is a life of dying yet living. For example, if you do not allow a seed to die by sowing it into the ground, it cannot live. But if it falls into the ground and dies, it will grow. Hence, it grows by dying. Without dying, the life in the seed cannot grow. The life is there, but it is not living. In order for the life in the seed to be living, the seed must die. How mysterious this is! Although it is a mystery, this principle operates throughout the universe — in the plant life, in the animal life, in the human life, and even in the divine life. God became a man to die so that He might live out God. The Lord Jesus said, “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). If a grain of wheat does not fall into the ground and die, there will be no growing, no living. But if it dies, it will produce many grains. Here we see the principle of life growing through death. Where death is, there life is growing. This principle applies not only to the plant and animal life but also to the human life and even the divine life.
In the process of dying, we need to cooperate with the Spirit. On many airplanes there are a pilot and a co-pilot. The co-pilot must cooperate with the pilot. As we are dying, we should not operate but cooperate. It is a terrible thing for us to operate, to try to do something, as we are dying. However, a brother may pray, “Lord, my wife is giving me a difficult time. I must overcome this problem.” If you do this, you are wrong, because you are operating instead of cooperating. The word cooperate implies that there is someone better than you who is operating. For example, the pilot is better than the co-pilot, for he is first and the co-pilot is second. Sorry to say, most of the time you pilot your own life. The result is misery. The reason your family life is miserable is that you are the pilot instead of the co-pilot. Our pilot is Christ as the wonderful life-giving Spirit. Although we have Him as the Pilot within us, we often do not honor Him, respect Him, or care for Him. Instead, we prefer to be the pilot.
Some Christians may think that as long as Christ is the Pilot, everything is fine. No, everything is not necessarily fine. Although Christ is the Pilot, you need to be the co-pilot. Our practice is either to be the pilot or to be nothing. Both are wrong. Many Christians realize the truth of Galatians 2:20 — that they have been crucified with Christ, that they live no longer, and that Christ lives in them. This, however, is just half of the verse. This verse also speaks of “the life which I now live in the flesh.” Many Christians either pilot their own life or neglect everything. However, we should do neither of these and avoid both extremes. Our Pilot needs us to be the co-pilot.
Many years ago I read some books saying that we need to crucify ourselves. But these books were not accurate, for they taught that we had to crucify ourselves in order to be crucified with Christ. Some years later, Brother Nee pointed out that this teaching was absolutely wrong. No one can commit suicide by crucifixion. It is possible for a person to commit suicide by any number of ways but not by crucifixion. Everyone who is crucified is helped in this matter by others. Not even the Lord Jesus could put Himself on the cross; rather, the soldiers nailed Him to the cross. Thus, it is definitely not logical to say that we can crucify ourselves. Although we cannot crucify ourselves, we nonetheless thank the Lord that we have been crucified.
At this point, some may ask about Galatians 5:24. This verse says, “They who are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its lusts.” Notice that this verse does not say that we have crucified ourselves. It says that we have crucified the flesh. Certainly we can crucify the flesh with its passions and its lusts. In the Bible the flesh signifies the evil aspect of the body. We all need to crucify our flesh with its passions and its lusts. But this does not mean that we are to crucify ourselves.
Another important verse in this regard is 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.” This verse indicates that we are to put to death not only the flesh with its lusts but also the practices of the body, whether they are good or evil. If we put to death the practices of the body, we will live. Therefore, we must crucify our flesh and put to death the practices of our body.
Furthermore, in Matthew 16:24 the Lord Jesus said, “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” In addition to crucifying our flesh and putting to death the practices of our body, we need to deny ourselves. We must do these things ourselves. No one else can do them for us. The way to deal with the flesh with its passions is to crucify it, the way to deal with the practices of the body is to put them to death, and the way to deal with the self is to deny it.
We have spoken of our need to cooperate with the Spirit. The reason we need to cooperate with the Spirit is that, as saved people, we have a dual status. Before we were saved, we had just one status. But after we were saved, another life, or another person, came into us. The One who came into us is Christ as the life-giving Spirit. It is a fact, not a superstition or a doctrine, that another person, Jesus Christ Himself as the life-giving Spirit, has come into our being. When He came into us, He came not into our mind or into our flesh but into our spirit. Thus, at the time we were saved, the life-giving Spirit was added to our spirit. This addition of the Triune God into us caused our spirit to be regenerated. Now as regenerated ones, we have a dual status. Regarding the first aspect of this dual status, we are dying; and regarding the second aspect, in our regenerated spirit where Christ is, we are living. Not one verse in the Bible says that we must crucify our spirit, put our spirit to death, or deny our spirit. But, as we have already pointed out, there are verses telling us that our flesh with its passions must be crucified, that the practices of our body must be put to death, and that the self must be denied. In this we see our dual status: one status with the flesh, the body, and the self; and another status with the spirit indwelt by the life-giving Spirit.
We have seen that the first status comprises the flesh, the practices of the body, and the self. In this status are we living or dying? We are dying. But as we die in the first status, we need to cooperate with the second. Therefore, in the first status we are dying, but in the second status we are cooperating with the Spirit. Hallelujah for our dual status! The first status is fully qualified for death, and the second is qualified for cooperation. In our second status, that is, in our spirit, we have a wonderful Pilot who manages our life. Nevertheless, He needs us to be His co-pilots. As His co-pilots who are dying in the first status, we need to cooperate with the Spirit in our second status.
The more we die, the more living we become. If we all die, then we shall be very living in the meetings. When what we are according to our first status is kept in the tomb, what we are according to our second status, the spirit, rises up. As we are dying, we live by cooperating with the life-giving Spirit. On the negative side we need to do three things: crucify the flesh, put to death the practices of the body, and deny the self. It is not good enough to be tired of these things; we need to die to them. How wonderful it is to die to the flesh, to the practices of the body, and to the self! We need to cooperate with the life-giving Spirit to deal with these three things on the negative side. Whenever the flesh expresses itself, perhaps in anger, we need to cooperate with the Spirit to crucify it.
This is not mere doctrine but something we have learned through our experience. I did not learn this from a book but from my experience. For years I tried various ways to deal with these things, but none of them worked. In particular, I followed the teaching about reckoning ourselves dead. However, although I tried my best to reckon myself dead, it did not work. In fact, the more I reckoned myself dead, the more alive I was.
Eventually, by experience I learned that as we are dying, we need to cooperate with the Spirit. The more we die in our first status, the more living we become in the second status. This means that our spirit rises up. As our spirit rises up, we need to cooperate with the Spirit in us to crucify the flesh, to put to death the practices of the body, and to deny the self. We need to pray, “Lord, I know that the secret of the spiritual life is not first to live but to die in order that I may live. Lord, I pray that You will help me to die.” You need not bear the responsibility for living. Simply take care of dying. If you take care of dying to live, the Lord will take the responsibility of living.
To die actually means to be conformed to Christ’s death. The Christian life is a life of dying. In our Christian life there is a mold, and that mold is the death of Christ. Like dough that is pressed into a mold, we need to be pressed into the mold of Christ’s death until we are conformed to it. Do not try to live. Instead, you simply need to die. Wherever we are, especially at home, we need to die. When the young people get married, they should not get married to live but to die. All the problems in married life come from the fact that we are still living. But whenever we die, we are rescued and are at peace. We are happy when we die but in misery when we try to live.
When we die, Christ lives in us, rising up not simply by Himself but with our spirit. We need to cooperate with His rising up within us. Therefore, we die in our first status and cooperate with Him in our second status. When the Spirit as the Pilot is about to crucify our flesh, we, the co-pilots, must cooperate. If the Spirit tells us to crucify the flesh, we need to be willing to do so. If we do this, the Spirit will be happy. Then the Spirit will proceed to put to death all the practices of the body, including such things as our humility, love, and good intentions. Do not reason with the Spirit by saying that such practices of the body are good. Because we are not willing to put to death such practices, we bargain with the Spirit and say, “These are very good practices. For example, this is my practice of humility, and that is my practice of helping others.” Nevertheless, the Lord will tell us to put these practices to death. However, not many of us are willing to do this.
I have struggled with the Lord regarding this for years. Sometimes there was no struggle because I persisted in thinking that my love, humility, helpfulness, and work for the Lord were good. Yes, they may have been good, but they were natural. It took years for me to learn this. How often I offended the Lord and even rebelled against Him by being good! Eventually, I repented and prayed, “Lord, forgive me not only of my sins but also of my goodness. Lord, forgive me for doing so many good things for You.” Have you ever made such a confession? In confessing, we may think that we need to confess only evil things but not good things. Have you ever made a confession concerning your love or work for the Lord? Have you ever confessed the good things you have done to help the saints? Under the Lord’s mercy I have confessed my good works as much as my sins. Romans 8:13 says that by the Spirit we must put to death the practices of the body. This includes both good and evil practices. To do something by our body means to do it by the self. We must repent of everything we have done in ourselves and then put these things to death.
Along with crucifying the flesh and putting to death the practices of the body, we need to deny the self. This is a very subjective matter. According to Matthew 16:23 and 24, the self is the personification of Satan. The inward reality of the self is Satan. Peter made a good proposal to the Lord, but the Lord saw through the outward self and perceived that Satan was hiding there. Thus, the Lord exposed Satan by saying to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan!” Immediately after saying this, the Lord spoke about denying the self, the very self that is the embodiment of Satan. Because Satan himself is in our self, we must deny it.
In ourselves we are not able to deal with the flesh, the practices of the body, or the satanic self. For years we have tried to be the pilot, but we have failed. No longer should we try to be the pilot. We have a wonderful Pilot, the life-giving Spirit, in us; we just need to cooperate with Him.
Now we come to the most crucial point in this chapter: It is absolutely necessary for us to contact the Lord. Day by day and hour by hour, we need to contact the Lord. We need to pray, watch, and maintain good fellowship with Him. This is what it means to cooperate. The initial step in cooperating with the Spirit is to contact the Lord continually. As we contact Him, we must be ready all the time to go along with the leading of the indwelling Spirit. Do not argue or reason with Him, but do whatever He leads you to do. You may not have the strength to do it, but if you contact the Lord and are willing to go along with the Spirit, He will strengthen you. This will make it easy for you to obey Him. In this way your obedience will become your cooperation with the Spirit.
Throughout the centuries thousands of the lovers of Jesus have contacted Him and lived in His presence, although they did not have as much light or knowledge as we do. But because they loved the Lord so much, they were willing and happy to obey the Spirit within them. Thus, they experienced what we have been talking about in this chapter. They did not have the knowledge, but they had the experience. Through their willingness to go along with the indwelling Spirit, they experienced the crucifixion of the flesh, the putting to death of the practices of the body, and the denial of the self. This is the way to be conformed to Christ’s death.
Here, in the conformity to the death of Christ, the top resurrection is our portion. When we die, Christ’s resurrection power rises up to lift us into the top resurrection. This makes the outstanding resurrection our experience today. I have not learned this from books; I have learned it from my experience. Through experience I have discovered that by being conformed to the mold of the death of Christ, resurrection power rises up to bring us into the outstanding resurrection, the extraordinary resurrection, as our daily portion. In this way we live a crucified yet resurrected life. By this death and resurrection we experience Christ, and the riches of Christ become our portion. In this way we experience Christ through death and resurrection and enjoy Him as our portion in our daily life.
