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The
Crucified Life
"Then said
Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me,
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow
me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and
whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find
it" (Matthew 16:24, 25). This saying of Jesus has
been so little understood through the ages that people
have come to have the idea that to take up your cross and
follow Jesus is to do those religious duties that fall to
their lot through life. They speak of bearing the cross as
meaning witnessing for Christ, praying in public, or doing
some other religious duty. This idea could arise only from
a total misconception of the meaning of Christ’s words.
We are to take up our cross and follow him. We all know
what happened when he took his cross. He went forth on the
"way of sorrows" bearing his cross outside the
city, and there, on Calvary, he was laid upon it and
nailed to it and raised up between the heaven and the
earth. Upon it he suffered and bled and died. He was then
taken off the cross, because the cross had for him no
further meaning. It had done its work. The full measure of
the hatred of his enemies had been poured out upon him
there.
The crosses that were made were for just one purpose:
they were for people to die upon. Your cross and my cross
is for us to die upon. It is not something that we should
carry through life. It is not some burden that we should
bear in our Christian journey. It is not some duty that we
should do. It is not some penance that we should perform.
Whenever the Scriptures say anything about the cross, it
carries with it the idea of dying. It is true in the text
quoted above: "Whosoever will save his life shall
lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake
shall find it." Christ means exactly what he says in
these words. He expects us to lose our lives for him. If
we do lose our lives for him, he will give to us that life
which is eternal. So he who refuses to take up his cross
and go to his Calvary and suffer the crucifixion and death
of which Jesus here speaks, will lose his life, that is,
he will never have eternal life. It is only by giving that
we save. It is only by dying that we live. Christ died
that we might live, and now we are to die in order that he
may live in us. Let us get away once for all from that old
idea that bearing the cross is doing Christian service. It
is nothing of the kind. The cross is to die upon. If you
do not die upon your cross, it will avail you no more to
carry it through life than it would have availed you had
Christ carried his cross around through life and never
died upon it. So it is not carrying the cross that counts;
it is dying upon the cross.
Paul speaks of the same thing. He says, "But God
forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and
I unto the world" (Galatians 6:14). Again, he says,
"And they that are Christ’s have crucified the
flesh with its affections and lusts" (chapter 5:24).
In the next verse he says, "If we live in the Spirit,
let us also walk in the Spirit." He elaborates this
idea still further in chapter 2:20 – "I am
crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but
Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now life in the
flesh I live by the faith of the son of God, who loved me,
and gave himself for me."
There are three main ideas involved in these scriptures
– first, the crucifixion; second, the death which it
brings; and third, the life to which we are raised through
Christ, and in the newness of which we walk before him.
Speaking further on this, Paul says, "For in that he
died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he
liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be
dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:10, 11). The matter of
becoming a Christian is not merely turning over a new
leaf. It is not merely forming good resolutions. It is not
merely joining a church. It is not merely beginning to do
religious duties. It is a death. It is a death as real as
the death of Christ. It is a crucifixion as real as his
crucifixion. It is being raised to walk in newness of life
just as really as he was raised from death. There is no
use in mincing words about this. If we have not been
crucified, if we have not died with him, and if we have
not been resurrected with him, we are not his.
We are told to reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin.
What does this mean? It means that our lives shall be as
free from sin as though we were really dead and now lying
in our graves. It means an absolute shutting out of all
sin from the life. It means this, because that new life
which comes to us from Jesus Christ is no longer the old
self-life that loved the things of the world. We commit
sin only when we love sin. Christians do not love sin;
they hate it. We cannot always tell what a man is by the
label he bears. There are a multitude of people who call
themselves Christians who bear no resemblance to Christ in
their lives. John says, "Love not the world, neither
the things that are in the world. If any man love the
world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that
is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is
of the world" (I John 2:15, 16). Again, we read,
"Know ye not that the friendship of the world is
enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of
the world is the enemy of God" (James 4:4). They who
still love the pride and vanity of the world, they who are
absorbed in its frivolities, they who covet its gold and
its honor, they who love its applause – these are they
who have not yet died to the world. A worldly professor is
a disgrace to God, to himself, to the people among whom he
worships, and to the community in which he lives. The
woman who arrays herself the paraphernalia of worldly
fashions and decks herself in gold and jewels and the
finery that pride calls for, and at the same time calls
herself a follower of Christ, insults her Lord every time
she does so. A Christian is one who is Christlike in
character, in desire, and in deportment. No other has any
right to bear Christ’s name. If all preachers had
honesty enough and courage enough to preach the truth, the
tide of worldliness that is overwhelming such a multitude
of souls and sweeping them into perdition would be stayed,
and to be a Christian would mean very much more than it
now does to the world at large. As long as preachers allow
their sermons to be dictated by public sentiment or the
worldly desires of their hearers, they will cater to
fashions, and souls by the million will drift on to hell.
Oh, what a reaping such preachers will have at the
judgment!
What does it mean to be a true minister of Christ? God
said to Ezekiel, "Hear the word at my mouth, and give
them warning from me" (Ezekiel 3:17). To Isaiah he
said, "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a
trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the
house of Jacob their sins" (Isaiah 58:1). To Jeremiah
he said, "He that hath my word, let him speak my word
faithfully" (Jeremiah 23:28). He also told Ezekiel
that if the watchman did not warn those who were in danger
He would require their blood at his hands. The full
measure of God’s wrath will fall on those who fail to be
true to souls and to God in preaching those truths the
Bible clearly teaches against sin and worldliness. He who
has not courage to preach these truths now will not have
courage to face the judgment.
Those hypocritical professors who bear Christ’s name
but will not obey him, dishonor him and by their example
influence others to do the same, how shall they escape the
damnation of hell? If there is one thing that God hates
above all else, it is a proud and worldly heart. Such a
heart can never be a reverential heart. Its religion is
but hypocrisy. It is only a sham. It has no reality. It is
merely in word, while in deed they deny him. It is only a
cloak of respectability, while the heart is full of
corruption.
What do such professors know of the love of God? What
do they know fo the sweetness of fellowship and communion
with him? What do they know of the joys of salvation, or
of the blessed hope that anchors the soul in God? What do
they know of the grace which sweetens the bitter cup of
sorrow, or of the comfort of God’s love? Nothing
whatever. Their lives are empty and graceless. Those who
make a profession of religion for the sake of personal
advantage or business gain, or for respectability, or as a
cloak for their deceit, are sowing that which will bring
them a fearful harvest of woe in eternity. Everybody hates
the hypocrite. Even the hypocrite hates another hypocrite,
and in his more sincere moments he must hate his own
hypocrisy.
There is no excuse for anyone to profess to be a
Christian who does not live the kind of life and have the
kind of character that the Bible shows to be the true test
of one’s acceptance with God. The way is so plain that
even a fool may understand it if he will. God declares
that people are left without excuse. They can know how
they ought to live if they will read their Bibles, and
they may have grace to live such a life if they will
abandon their worldliness and sin and seek God till they
find him.
The Christian life is, and ever will be, a life of
separation from sin and pride and worldliness. If you are
not willing to be thus separated, you should have the
common honesty enough not to profess to be what you very
well know that you are not. If you are going to be a
Christian in name, be one in reality. Only the genuine
metal will stand the test of the judgment. Your character,
not your profession, will be what will count then, and it
is what counts now. It will be your Christian character,
not your morality, that will count too. Many people pride
themselves on their morality and their careful observance
of conventionalities, whose hearts are vile and sinful
before God. It is not alone that outward immorality, such
as licentiousness, drunkenness, profanity, etc., that
marks the great sinner; there are many things that are
hidden to the eyes of the world, and many things that are
hidden to the eyes of the world, and many things that are
considered quite respectable, that are just as bad in
God’s sight, and disgrace the person in his eyes just as
much as these grosser things. Morality is like a marble
statue, cold and lifeless; Christianity is warm and
vibrant with the very life of God. It is God dwelling in
us, living his own life there, and impressing his own
character and likeness upon our souls and lives.
Christianity is not a form; it is a life. It is not in
word, but in vital power. IT is not a profession, but a
divine possession.
We are told that our conversation (citizenship) is in
heaven (Philippians 3:20). A true Christian is a citizen
of that heavenly country. It sometimes meant much to Paul
to be able to say that he was a Roman citizen. Roman
citizenship was a thing of dignity and honor, and it gave
him privileges that he could not otherwise have enjoyed.
But he rejoiced far more in his heavenly citizenship and
in the privileges that that citizenship brought him. The
life of a citizen of heaven should correspond to that of
the people of his own country, and not to that of the
foreigners and strangers among whom he is sojourning.
"Be not conformed to this world," is the command
of our Lord. I think one of the most pitiable things that
we can behold in this world is one who talks like a
Christian but lives like a sinner, one who professes to be
a citizen of the kingdom of God and yet lives like one who
is a citizen of the kingdom of Satan. Peter says of those
who are true Christians, "But ye are a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar
people…" (I Peter 2:9). They are sacred vessels
into which God pours his grace. They are the chosen ones
to whom he reveals himself. They are the kingly priesthood
who see the glory of his majesty. They are the precious
jewels that adorn his kingdom. They eat of the bread from
heaven, the old wine and oil, and honey out of the rock.
They drink of the river of his pleasures. They bear his
mark upon their foreheads and upon their hearts. They have
a clear and clean conscience: void of offense toward God
and man. Their souls are the dwelling-place of the mighty
God.
To be a real Christian is something very high and very
sweet. He walks in a path that "the vulture’s eye
hath not seen." In joyfulness he mounts up with wings
as an eagle. The worldly professor fills his days with
folly. His cup of joy is always bitter at the last. He
gathers up the "fool’s gold" that glitters in
earthly things. He lives after the flesh and after the
world. He goes with the crowd. He misses all those good
things that he might have if he wold only really consent
to be crucified with Christ. He misses all the blessedness
of righteousness, and, worst of all, he misses heaven at
the last.
O soul, have you been crucified with Christ? Are you
dead to the world, so that you have no relish for its
follies, its fashions, its sinful pleasures, and its
applause? Do you care more for your reputation with God
than you do for your standing with men? Are you out and
out for God, or are you going hand in hand with the world?
Do you know that your name is written just now in the
Lamb’s book of life. If others follow closely the
example that you are setting before them, will they be on
safe ground? If you were to die just now, would you be fit
to enter heaven? Face the issue squarely. Are you are real
true Christian? Have you been crucified with him? Is he
just now living in you his own innocent, pure, holy life?
Do not be a mere counterfeit which will be rejected at
last. It means a great deal to be a real Christian, worthy
of the confidence of God and the world, but it means a
great deal not to be such. You may be a whole-hearted
Christian if you will. But there is only one road that
leads to the exalted plane on which such Christians live;
and that is by way of Calvary and the cross. You must take
up your cross and bear it to Calvary and there die upon it
if you are ever to have the life of Christ abide in you.
But if you will really die to the world, to the flesh, and
to the follies of this life, you need know nothing further
of heavy crosses. Your shoulders need never again feel its
burden, but you may look forward to that bright crown
which awaits all those who have been crucified with Christ
and are risen to walk in newness of life.
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