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On the pathway to glory we have rejection, the lack of necessities, the storm on the sea, and the accusation from religion, and then we learn how to eat Christ. As the result of eating Christ, there is the healing for the glorification of God. Following this, there is the corporate eating, the warning regarding leaven, and the clear revelation concerning Christ and the church. In this message we come to the last station of the pathway to glory: the way of the cross. Only when people have learned how to eat Christ and to beware of religious leaven and are under a clear sky, can the revelation of Christ and the church be given. Many of us can testify that before we came to such a place, the revelation of Christ and the church did not come. It comes only in Caesarea Philippi. We feed on Christ not only as the crumbs, but also in a corporate way as the rich, unlimited, inexhaustible supply of life. Only then can we see the revelation of Christ and the church. Thus, three things are vital: that we know how to feed on Christ and to enjoy the inexhaustibly rich supply of Christ; that we are purged of all religious leaven; and that we are in Caesarea Philippi under a clear sky. Here the fog is driven away. We cannot afford to stay in a situation where there is religious fog. If we remain in that kind of place, we shall not see the revelation given in Caesarea Philippi. Hallelujah, we have the rich supply, we have a clear sky, and we have no fog! Therefore, we see the vision of Christ and the church.
A good number of Christian teachers have seen the connection between Matt. 16:13-20 and Matt. 16:21-28, the connection between the portion of the Word concerning Christ and the church and that concerning the way of the cross. In order to experience Christ and to have the church built upon Christ, we need to take the way of the cross. Christ was the Pioneer, the Forerunner, in taking the way of the cross. This is the unique way for Christ to be released, and it is also the unique way for the church to be built with Christ and upon Christ.
Verse 21 says, “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised on the third day.” After the revelation of the great mystery concerning Christ and the church, the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ are unveiled. For Christ to build His church, He must go to the religious center, pass through crucifixion, and enter into resurrection. In verse 21 the Lord first revealed to His disciples His crucifixion and resurrection. Before this time, He had not mentioned anything about these things. Following the revelation of Christ and the church, the Lord Jesus revealed to His enlightened disciples His crucifixion and resurrection. This is very meaningful. After we see Christ and the church, we must be prepared to take the way of the cross. You may be wondering what the way of the cross is. To take the way of the cross is not to reserve anything of the self. No matter how good, right, or profitable you may be, you need to be crucified. For the enjoyment of Christ and for the building of the church, we must be crucified. Nothing of our being should be reserved.
In verse 21 the Lord Jesus spoke both of His crucifixion and His resurrection. The disciples, however, picked up the matter of crucifixion, but neglected the matter of resurrection. The disciples heard that the Lord was to be killed, but it seems that they did not hear that He would be resurrected. Nevertheless, the Lord did say that He would be raised on the third day. They did not grasp this part of the Lord’s word because they had no concept of resurrection. Within them was the fear that the Lord Jesus would be killed. Thus, when the Lord spoke about His resurrection, the disciples did not apprehend it. It is the same with us today. We immediately take in whatever corresponds to our concept. But if a certain thing does not correspond to what is already within us, we do not take it in. Some people wonder why in my speaking I repeat things again and again. Although I may repeat certain things, some people still do not get them. Again I say that although the Lord Jesus spoke of two matters, crucifixion and resurrection, the disciples grasped the first, but not the second.
Verse 22 says, “And Peter, taking Him to him, began to rebuke Him, saying, God be merciful to You, Lord; this shall by no means happen to You!” Peter’s word reveals that the natural man is never willing to take the cross. Peter was bold and had a good heart toward the Lord. Without Peter, we would not have so many revelations, for through his boldness in making mistakes a number of revelations were given. Here Peter was bold enough to rebuke the Lord. As Peter was rebuking the Lord, his expression might have been that of Satan. Peter’s words — “God be merciful to You, Lord” — sound very nice, but they were actually a rebuke. Peter had been offended by the Lord’s word about being killed. Because he was fully in himself, he actually rebuked the Lord Jesus.
In verse 23 we see the Lord’s response: “But He turned and said to Peter, Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.” Christ perceived that it was not Peter but Satan who was frustrating Him from taking the cross. This reveals that our natural man, which is not willing to take the cross, is one with Satan. When we are setting our mind, not on the things of God, but on the things of men, we become Satan, a stumbling block to the Lord in the fulfillment of God’s purpose.
Verse 24 says, “Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” Here the Lord speaks about denying the self. To deny our self is to forfeit our soul-life, the natural life (v. 26; Luke 9:25).
In verse 25 the Lord continues: “For whoever desires to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it.” In verses 23 through 25, three things are related to one another: mind, himself, and soul-life. Our mind is the expression of our self, and our self is the embodiment of our soul-life. Our soul-life is embodied in and lived out by our self, and our self is expressed through our mind, our thought, our concept, our opinion. When we set our mind, not on the things of God, but on the things of men, our mind grasps the opportunity to act and express itself. This was what happened to Peter. Hence, the Lord’s following word indicated that he had to deny himself and not save his soul-life, but rather lose it. To lose the soul-life is the reality of denying the self. This is to take up the cross.
Actually, in these verses four things are related: Satan, mind, self, and soul-life. This message is concerned mainly with these four things, which begin with the mind and ultimately consummate with Satan. The mind is the expression of the self, and the self is the embodiment of the soul-life. The soul-life is lived out by the self, and the self is expressed through the mind. What the mind thinks or considers is an opinion, idea, or concept. The mind’s opinion, concept, or idea is the expression of the self, the embodiment of the soul-life. The soul-life is embodied in the self, just as the Father is embodied in the Son. The soul-life is like the Father, the self is like the Son, and the mind is like the Spirit. Thus, we have here a trinity of mind, self, and soul-life.
The soul-life, the source, is embodied in the self, which is expressed in the mind. Perhaps you have never before considered your mind the expression of the self. If you saw this, you would probably not use your mind so much. Your opinion is the expression of your self. Beware of your opinion, for it is not a positive thing. Natural opinions, concepts, ideas, and thoughts are negative things, for they are the expression of the self. The soul is embodied in the self and lived out through the self, and the self is expressed in opinions. When the self is expressed through the mind as opinion, that is Satan.
I have learned to be afraid of my opinions. During the years, I have been enlightened to see that the natural opinion or concept is the incarnation of Satan. If this were not so, how could the Lord Jesus have rebuked Peter and called him Satan? The first time I read this in the Bible, I was shocked. In verse 23 Peter and Satan had become one in Peter’s selfish opinion. Peter’s opinion was Satan. To repeat, the soul-life is embodied in the self, and the self is expressed through the mind. When the mind expresses an opinion, that is the incarnation of Satan.
Have you ever realized that often your opinion has been the expression of Satan? I doubt that you have ever understood the matter in this way. It is crucial that we see that our natural opinion is the incarnation of Satan. Nothing damages your Christian life more than your opinions. The expression of the natural opinion is the product of satanic inspiration. Because your natural opinion comes from Satan’s inspiration, you need to beware of it. If you use your mind excessively, the Lord Jesus will call you Satan. If you exercise your mind too much, you will be the expression of Satan, and the Lord Jesus will say to you, “Get behind Me, Satan.”
To take the way of the cross to enter into glory requires that we not use our mind in a natural way. We must deny the self, bear the cross, and follow Christ. I do not believe that anyone who exercises his mind in a natural way can be a good follower of Christ. When we exercise our mind too much, we do not follow Christ. Christ is not in our mind, but in our spirit. If you examine these verses in their context, you will see that the mind is the expression of the self, that the self is the embodiment of the soul-life, and that all this must be put on the cross.
In verse 24 the Lord said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” The cross is not merely a suffering; it is primarily a killing. It kills and terminates the criminal. Christ first bore the cross and then was crucified. We, His believers, have first been crucified with Him and then bear the cross today. To us, bearing the cross is to remain under the killing of the death of Christ for the terminating of our self, our natural life, and our old man. In so doing we deny our self that we may follow the Lord.
Many Christians have a mistaken concept of the cross. They think that the cross is just for suffering. In this section of the Word, however, the cross does not denote suffering, but killing. The ultimate purpose of the cross is not to cause you to suffer; it is to terminate you, to kill you. The Lord’s word here does not have the concept of suffering; His concept concerning the cross is that of killing.
The Lord Jesus firstly bore the cross and then He was crucified on the cross and terminated. As the Lord Jesus was bearing the cross, He was constantly under the killing, not under suffering. It is a wrong concept to associate the cross merely with suffering. The Lord Jesus began to bear the cross immediately after His baptism. Baptism means that a person is put into death, terminated, and buried. From the moment of His baptism, the Lord Jesus was constantly putting Himself under the cross and keeping Himself there. He was a person who was constantly being put to death. With Him, the bearing came first and the killing followed. With us it is just the opposite, for we are first crucified with Him and then we bear the cross.
As a youth, I was taught that to bear the cross is to suffer. This erroneous concept comes from Catholicism. I repeat, the concept of bearing the cross in Matthew 16 is not that of suffering, but of being put to death. In order to bear the cross, we must realize that we have already been crucified. We have been killed on the cross with Christ, and now we must remain under this killing. I am a person who has been killed. My self-life, my mind, my natural life, and my whole being have been killed. Now I need to remain under this killing. This is what it means to bear the cross.
When I was a young person, I heard certain exhortations given to others related to bearing the cross. A wife who was suffering the unkindness of her husband was told to bear the cross. In other words, she was told that to suffer the unkindness of her husband was to bear the cross. But suffering cannot build up the church. However, the genuine bearing of the cross builds up the church, because it puts to death the self, the soul-life, and the natural life. We all have been buried, baptized, and terminated. Now we need to stay in this termination. This is to take the way of the cross.
A dead man has no opinion. It is impossible to bend his mind because his mind no longer functions. If your mind can be bent, it means that it is still alive, active, and aggressive. If you tried to bend the minds of those buried in a cemetery and they could speak, they would say, “You have come to the wrong place. We all are dead, and our minds have stopped functioning. There is no need for you to come to bend our minds.” If we bear the cross, we shall be like those buried in the cemetery. We shall remain in a state of termination and lie there under death. This is the correct meaning of bearing the cross.
In Matthew 16 Peter was very active and aggressive. On the one hand, it is good to stir up things by being aggressive. However, all the quick brothers need to be killed. I love the quick ones, the bold ones, the troublesome ones, because they stir up things. If there were no brothers like this in the Lord’s recovery, no one would cause trouble. Because of brothers like this, there are always troubles in the recovery. Without these troubles, the Lord Jesus could not be revealed to such a great degree. Eventually, however, the Lord called Peter, the quick one, Satan. All the quick Peters must be terminated. They need to be killed and stay under the killing of the cross. Otherwise, there will be no way for the church to be built.
To take the pathway to glory ultimately means to put ourselves to death. This pathway is not only a matter of rejection, of experiencing the lack of necessities, of facing the storm on the sea, of encountering the accusations of religion, of learning to eat the Lord Jesus as the inexhaustible life supply, of being warned to beware of the leaven, and of seeing the vision of Christ and the church. In addition to all this, we need to be terminated. The last station of the pathway to glory is the station of self-termination. The view presented in the Gospel of Matthew is marvelous. Matthew’s view covers rejection, necessity, the storm, the accusation from religion, the leaven, Satan, the self, the mind, and the soul-life. If you do not know how to face these things, it will be difficult for you to enter into glory. The last step before entering into glory is the termination of the self. It is not sufficient merely to pass through rejection or to experience the Lord’s supplying our material necessities. Also, it is not adequate to endure the stormy sea, to deal with the religious accusation regarding outward things, to feed on Christ, and to beware of leaven. Ultimately, the pathway to glory is a matter of being terminated.
You may think that Satan is in the rejection, the storm, or the accusation. Actually, Satan is not in these things; instead, only demons are there. The demons are behind the rejection, the storm, and the religious accusations. But Satan, the king of the demons, is in your mind, your self, and your soul-life. Therefore, you must hate your self more than you hate rejection. Martin Luther once said that he was more afraid of himself than he was of the pope, for he knew that he had the strongest pope, the self, within him. The subtle, concealed enemy, even the adversary, is our self. Thus, the last dealing along the pathway to glory is to deal with this self.
As we have seen, the self is active in the opinions, concepts, and ideas expressed by our mind. Christians today fight and are divided because of differing opinions. For this reason, the Apostle Paul said that we all need to be attuned to the same opinion (1 Cor. 1:10). Hence, to take the pathway to glory is ultimately to deal with our self.
I believe that we have seen a clear vision that bearing the cross is not a matter of suffering, but of keeping the self under the termination of death. The cross of Christ is the terminating death, and we must stay in the place of this termination. To remain there is to bear the cross. I am bearing the cross, for I keep myself under Christ’s termination. Therefore, because I have been terminated, I have no idea, no concept, no opinion. By the Lord’s grace, I wish to remain in the place of termination for my whole life.
Resurrection follows termination. When we keep ourselves under Christ’s termination, spontaneously there will be a reaction in our spirit. This reaction is resurrection. Resurrection is what is needed for the building up of the church. To experience termination and resurrection is the way to enjoy Christ and to build up the church. In verse 24 the Lord tells us to follow Him. Before the Lord’s crucifixion, the disciples followed Him in an outward way. But since His resurrection, we follow Him in an inward way. Because in resurrection He has become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45) dwelling in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22), we follow Him in our spirit (Gal. 5:16-25).
In verse 25 the Lord says, “For whoever desires to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it.” In following the Lord we should not save our soul-life, that is, we should not let the soul have its enjoyment. If we save it in this age, we shall lose it in the coming age. But if we lose it for Christ’s sake, we shall find it in the enjoyment of the kingdom in the coming age.
In verse 26 the Lord asked, “For what shall a man be profited if he should gain the whole world, but forfeit his soul-life? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul-life?” The enjoyment of the soul-life today is wrapped up with the world. To gain the world for the enjoyment of the soul is to forfeit the life in the enjoyment of the kingdom in the coming age. Even if we gained the whole world for the enjoyment of the soul-life in this age by forfeiting the enjoyment of the soul-life in the coming age, it would profit nothing. Nothing is worthy to be given in exchange for the enjoyment of the soul-life in the kingdom.
Verse 27 says, “For the Son of Man is about to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each man according to his doings.” The word “For” at the beginning of this verse indicates that the Lord’s rewarding of His followers at His coming back in verse 27 will be according to whether they lose or save their soul, as mentioned in verses 25 and 26. The reward will be given according to how we have borne the cross. It depends on whether or not we keep ourselves under the killing of the cross, on whether we save our soul-life in this age or lose it.
This will be judged by the Lord at His coming in the glory of His Father. If we do bear the cross to follow Him by losing the enjoyment of our soul in this age, He will reward us with the enjoyment of the soul in the kingdom.
In verse 27 the Lord says that “He will reward each man according to his doings,” that is, according to whether or not we lose our soul-life’s enjoyment in this age. This will have nothing to do with our eternal salvation; however, it has very much to do with the Lord’s dispensational reward to us.
The reward will be given to every man at the judgment seat of Christ when Christ comes back (2 Cor. 5:10; Rev. 22:12). This indicates that this will transpire in the air after all the believers have been raptured into the presence of the Lord there.
The Lord’s reward will be the entering into the kingdom, which will be at the manifestation of the kingdom. The Lord refers to the manifestation of the kingdom in verse 28: “Truly I say to you, There are some of those standing here who shall by no means taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” This was fulfilled by the Lord’s transfiguration on the mountain (17:1-2). His transfiguration was His coming in His kingdom, which was seen by His three disciples, Peter, James, and John. In the next message we shall point out that the transfiguration of Christ was a miniature of the manifestation of the kingdom. The manifestation of the kingdom in the millennium will be the reward to the followers of Christ who remain under the killing of the cross on the pathway to glory. All the dear ones who follow Christ in this way will be rewarded with the manifestation of the kingdom.
