THE CROSS IN RELATION TO THE ISSUE OF LIFE

Series: The ConflictLesson #3

We are talking about the warfare for life. When we talk about spiritual warfare this is basically what we talk about. It is this life being expressed. We have a life that has overcome death. But as we closed our last lesson we saw that there is a persistent assault of death upon this life. The enemy wants to break your union with Christ, and if he can do that then the testimony is lost. Though you may go on being religious, the testimony is not there. The testimony of Jesus is one: “God raised Him from the dead.” That is to be seen in us.

Dt. 30:11 For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off.

Dt. 30:12 It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?

Dt. 30:13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?

Dt. 30:14 But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.

Dt. 30:15 See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;

Dt. 30:16 In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

Dt. 30:17 But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;

Dt. 30:18 I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.

Dt. 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

Dt. 30:20 That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

Heb. 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

Heb. 2:15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Rev. 1:18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

Phil. 3:10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

This lesson continues with this thought of life. We have seen that there is a constant assault upon this life. But now we are going to look at the overcoming and the thing that God has given us.

1. The Cross In Relation To The Issue Of Life.

1. It is absolutely essential that we know what that relation is.

2. One thing is absolute, that life in a spiritual sense is only to be had as the result of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only on grounds of the cross can we have this life.

3. On the ground of His death, and by His resurrection this eternal life is given to them who believe.

4. In the reception of this eternal life there may be no sense of conflict, there may be no knowledge of this warfare going on in the fuller realm.

5. The reason for this is simple. In the matter of the gift of eternal life, the Lord Jesus fought that battle at the cross, and we receive the free gift of eternal life by faith’s acceptance of what He did for us. He fought the fight, He won the battle.

6. That is one aspect of the cross and the issue of life. By the objective apprehension of the cross we receive eternal life.

7. But there is another side. The cross of the Lord Jesus subjectively wrought out results in our having life more abundantly. We receive as this cross works in us. Then we have this life more abundantly.

8. Christ’s own words are, “I came that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly” (Jn. 10:10).

9. Life more abundant requires that what He did for us shall be made good in us. That is the key. What he did on that cross totally destroying that world of old Adam must be worked out in me.

II. In His Cross The Lord Jesus Dealt With Our Sins, And On The Ground Of His Having So Dealt With Them, And Of Our Believing In His Atoning Work For Our Sins, We Receive Then As A Free Gift From God, Eternal Life.

1. But He also dealt with our selves on that cross. That is something which has to be made good in us progressively.

2. We received eternal life as a gift of what He did for us. Now that abundant life works out in us progressively as that cross deals with our selves.

3. As we ourselves are dealt with in the power of the cross the way is made for that life to express itself in an ever greater fullness.

4. The fact is that it is self which is in the way of the life obstructing its full expression.

5. It is the natural life that obstructs the course of the divine life. So we recognize right off that it is not Satan but self. That self becomes a tool of Satan. That is the reason Jesus said, “give no place to the flesh.”

6. Spiritual warfare is not running the devil out of the city, but it is a battle that this life may be expressed. Since it is self that hinders that expression, then it is the work of the cross that makes it expressive. It is this natural life (self-life) obstructing that.

7. What has been done for us then must be done in us. As this is done then that life becomes more than a deposit, more than a glorious possession, it becomes a growing enjoyment, a fullness of expression.

8. As what Christ has done for me at the cross is done in me, then this flow of life is on the increase.

III. There Is A State Of Disorder In The Creation.

1. First we must see that there is in the creation a state of disorder with which God is not united. He has nothing to do with that.

2. When Adam sinned he became a different kind of a man. The order and the function of his life was changed, and God drove that man out of the garden. He put the Cherubim there and the flaming sword and said to that man, “Your kind can never come back into My presence.”

3. So there is this disorder in creation with which God is not united. We must see that, and we must know that.

4. This disorder is not according to the mind of God, it has ceased to express His thought.

5. This order is contrary to the intention of God, and therefore God is not associated with it at all.

6. Second, there is a positive association of Satan and death with that state of disorder. God is not connected at all, but Satan is positively united to that state of death and destruction.

7. Though we are saying death we know that it is not a passive mass, in confusion and chaos, in disorder. There are active elements in that state of death.

8. There are forces working in it, and those forces are not the forces of life, they are the forces of death.

9. In other words, death is working and Satan is associated with that. There is always, and at all times an assault upon life, because Satan knows if we as the church, and as individuals are not an expression and a testimony to the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead, then we are no longer justified in being called a church. We would be nothing but a religious system.

IV. Out Of This A Great Need Arises.

1. In the first place we see a need arises, a need along various lines.

a. First, there must be a judicial setting aside of that state of disorder, and judgment must be passed upon that state of death. (The self-life).

b. Under that judgment it must be put away out of God’s sight.

c. It must be brought to a place where in its entirety it is under the divine ban, where no part of it can be in the acceptance of God.

d. That becomes necessary as a preliminary step to anything God will do in this new order.

e. God has dealt thus with the creation in the cross of Christ. If any man be in Christ there is a new creature, old things are passed away, and all order of death and confusion has been dealt with, set aside in the cross of Christ, and none of it is acceptable in this work of God.

f. This we know, God did that in the new creation by the cross. God will accept nothing of that natural man in this new. So that is the first thing that had to be done.

2. Second, an actual and a potential destroying of that power of death and Satan must take place.

a. Let us watch our words, actual and potential destroying of death and Satan. This is where many people go wrong. This is where much of the spurious teaching of the Gospel gets in. It is because they don’t connect these words, actual and potential.

b. God did that in actuality in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the person of Christ, He destroyed death and him who had the power of death, that is the devil.

c. The word “destroyed” is translated from a word which means, “to bring to naught.” It does not mean what some people take it to mean.

d. There are times when we talk about destroying the works of the devil, we think of putting him out of existence. This word does not mean that.

e. Bringing it to naught means, in the intention of God, “to render him utterly inoperative” that he cannot work, that he cannot do his work through us.

f. So far as the Lord Jesus is concerned, Satan is inoperative. He cannot touch Jesus personally. Satan knows this. In His cross, in His own person, Jesus not only destroyed death, but He destroyed the person of death, Satan himself. He rendered him inoperative in His own person.

g. The only way that Satan can touch Jesus is through the members of His body.

h. Satan no longer has any power to touch Jesus with death or any other weapon. Through His death Jesus destroyed him who had the power of death. That was actually done in Jesus.

i. But the other word we used was, “potential.” That potential destroying of death and Satan was on the behalf of the saints (you and I).

j. That is something that is secured, and can be entered into by faith, and known in a progressive way. It is potential in us. Through His cross, and the life of the Holy Spirit it is potential.

k. So far as you and I are concerned, so far as those that we are going to minister to are concerned, it is not an actual fact that Satan is inoperative. But this has been secured for us potentially. If any man be in Christ that potential is there.

l. In Christ we see that the destruction of death and Satan is an accomplished fact, in the saints it is potentially so.

m. I have been predestined to be conformed to His image.

3. Third, it is essential that there should be a living representation of the divine order, which is deathless and victorious over Satan as the pattern to which believers are to be conformed. It is not enough to just hear that, but I must see that order. I must be able to see that which is deathless and victorious over all of the work of death.

a. That is a necessity and was realized in the Lord Jesus Christ. The pattern is there in Him.

b. He is the representation of the whole of the new creation, the new order to which we are to be conformed.

c. So God must work to that end, to a pattern, and Christ is that pattern for God. Conformity to Christ means conformity to the divine order represented by the Lord Jesus Himself. This is an order that we are conformed to. There must be that pattern. Christ is that pattern. Man must see that. How will he see it? In you and I. And if he doesn’t see it, then we are a misrepresentation.

d. Christ is the sum total of divine order. So often the Lord’s people fail to recognize that.

e. First of all we must recognize that He is a person. Before all else, He is a divine person. But He is in Himself the sum and total of divine heavenly order. This is a truth of the word of God.

f. The tabernacle or temple of the Old Testament expressed a whole system of things regulated, ordered, appointed, functioning, they were types of Christ.

g. Christ is the Priest, Christ is the altar, Christ is the sacrifice, Christ is the fine linen, Christ is the gold, Christ is the perfect humanity, Christ is all, and Christ is the order of God. He is the pattern of everything.

h. And the Bible says this, “Let everything be done decently and in order,” (1Cor. 14:40). It is a systematized arrangement. It is heavenly planning and appointing.

i. When we come into Christ, we come into our place in the divine order and that requires that there shall be a right relationship to one another. It is an absolute necessity.

j. In Christ there is an appointing, a functioning, a relativity about everything. It is a wonderful divine system of which He is.

k. Death and Satan have their occasion when anything that relates to divine order is not obeyed, recognized, observed. When anything that relates to that divine order is disobeyed, then Satan has an entrance into that church.

l. We read there in the first chapters of the book of Revelation where Jesus listed things in those churches that were contrary to God’s mind and thought and He said, “If you don’t deal with these, I am going to take your place away. You may go on being religious, but you are no longer My church.” And when we allow those things, we have allowed the entrance of death.

m. It easy for death to get a hold on the church when there is disorder among the people of God. A lot of things that are done are going to be contrary to what you think, but everything must be done decently and in order. Rather your feelings are hurt by it or not doesn’t matter, it is this life that must be expressed. And if you get upset, it shows that what you want is to express yourself. “Great peace have they that love thy law: and nothing shall offend them” (Ps. 119:165).

n. You are only offended because you preferred your will to His will. And wherever this order is disobeyed then we have given Satan an opportunity to get in.

o. If the Corinthian church is an example of a weak testimony (and indeed it is), the reason is not hard to find. It was a matter of disorder among believers. That is what made their testimony weak.

p. So God must have this representation of His divine order, and to that believers are to be conformed.

4. Fourth, there is required a vital union with Him as basic, and a life utterly and continuously in the Holy Spirit. Oh, how we need to hear that again. We’ve made this blessed Holy Spirit an optional thing among us. Rather you are filled with the Holy Ghost or not is not optional, you cannot function in this body without the Holy Spirit. You can’t be conformed to this order apart from the Holy Spirit. It is only by the Spirit in vital union with Christ that there is this continuous flow of the life of God.

a. We all accept the first essential, a vital union with Him as basic, but what is just as important, if there is to be a full expression of life, is there shall be a life altogether in the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost must freely be allowed to live through us.

b. Life in the Holy Spirit is the divine offset to that other order of death under the power of Satan. It is the answer to everything. Just as we saw that Enoch was an offset to man’s long history of death, so a life in the Holy Ghost is an offset to that life of death and Satan

c. That is the first state - a life in death, under the power of Satan. The Bible says that we were all dead in trespasses and sins. We still walked around and breathed air, but we were under death. That disorder was active and energetic, but God wasn’t in it. It may even be active in a religious way, but it is still death. God is not in it.

d. The most difficult people to reach, to bring out of spiritual death is religious people, because their religion put them in a false position. By being religious they made themselves believe it is well, but there is no expression of life.

e. Over against that God sets His new order which is utterly under the Holy Spirit. That means that everything shall be submitted to the Spirit of God.

f. We will make no moves without Him. Because when we do we have acted out of union with God and that is the whole effort of Satan. His whole work with Christ was to get Him to act independent of the Father. That He refused to do, because He knew in the moment He did Satan could smite, death could come.

g. You and I will recognize that if we move, act, reason or function in any way without our lives completely submitted to the Holy Spirit we are most likely to function outside of God’s realm and the end is death.

h. There may be good intentions, our motives may be right, but there are many religious things done for God which are not done in the Holy Ghost, and it brings a curse. Just like Abraham, God told him that he would have a son, so after several years he decides to help God, and the curse that came out of that.

i. The Lord is generous and gracious, and that because it is a matter of ignorance He is patient with us, and seeks to lead us in a better way, but that does not mean in any sense that He accepts that which is not of the Holy Ghost.

j. At some point it will break down, and those who are in it will break down, and recognize that a great percentage of all the work that was done has not even counted. What a sad thing.

V. The Cross Then, Is The All Inclusive Answer.

1. All of this, all that we have said in this lesson to this point is gathered up in the cross.

2. The cross says in no uncertain terms, that an order, though it be a religious order, an order which is proceeding from man in his natural state, must be set aside in its entirety. There is no part of that which can function here.

3. In the cross of the Lord Jesus God has said finally, “You in your natural state cannot serve Me. You cannot in your natural state bear any fruit to My glory.”

4. The only thing that can get through to God’s end is that which proceeds from the Holy Spirit. That is the only thing.

5. How sweeping that is! That analyses and dissects everything! Of the things we say, for example, it continually presents the interrogation, “Was that spoken in the Holy Spirit?”

6. We decide to do things, but if we are under Him, then there will be that interrogation of Him, “Was that really spoken by the Holy Spirit?”

7. It is not enough to ask ourselves, “Did I mean it well?” But did God say this. “Did I intend it for the Lord?” But, was it of the Holy Spirit? Did it come from the Holy Spirit? That is the only thing. It doesn’t matter that you intended it for God. Was it spoken by the Holy Spirit?

8. Much personal prophecy is an infringement upon the Holy Spirit. How many people have been destroyed by it? We say it sometimes trying to encourage. We use it as something, but it destroys if it didn’t come from the Holy Spirit.

I was in a city to hold a meeting, and the first day there, some people came to me that had a little son who was only two years old. He had a sickness that caused the brain to swell, and the doctor said, “He cannot live, he will die.” These people came to me and asked me to go and pray for him. It was ninety miles away. They said, “We know he is not going to die. We have had many prophecies that he is going to live and be a preacher.” I went and prayed for him. The next morning at five o’clock they called me in the hotel. They said, “Please go back to the hospital, the boy died, and we want you to go, we know that God will raise him from the dead.” We drove that ninety miles. The pastor was in the front seat and I was in the back, and I said to him, “I’m going to go and pray for that boy. I don’t know if God will raise him from the dead or not. But I can tell you those prophecies had nothing to do with it. Those people thought to encourage you, but they presumed on the Holy Spirit, and if you are not careful it will destroy you.” God didn’t raise the little boy from the dead, but I preached all of the way over there and all of the way back, “God didn’t fail you, those people failed you. If I am going to lay hands on someone, or prophecy to someone, I had better know that it is God. There is so much foolishness, and all along this trail there are people that are lost because of it. The question is: Did God say it? Was it the Holy Spirit?

9. “Did I make that decision in the Holy Spirit or did I make that decision according to my own judgment. After weighing the pros and cons, according to my judgment, I did the best thing I knew to do?” That’s no good. The only thing that matters is life. Did the Holy Ghost lead me? That requires much prayer, much waiting, and much seeking. The flesh is always presumptuous. It will control by prophecy, but I refuse to be controlled by that prophecy.

10. On everything it is a matter of life in the Spirit.

11. Some will say, “That is a very difficult way if we are to stop before we speak or act, and ask ourselves, ‘Am I in the Holy Spirit or myself?’”

12. I believe in the beginning there is a lot of faltering. That is the reason the Bible said that we seek after Him. There will be faltering, but it will not be malicious. But we must daily recognize that our lives must be subject to the Holy Spirit and when we are aware that there has been something out from ourselves, we have to be faithful to God about it.

13. I believe that slowly but surely we will come to the place as we grow that there will be a pause in our hearts, which checks our impulsiveness, a check on acting under excitement, a check on our reasoning about things. When we are going to do something that is not God there will be a pause in that heart and our lives will be handed over to His control.

14. Our lives must be handed over to His control absolutely. The results will be that the Holy Ghost will all the time work back to the cross.

15. The cross stands forever as God’s judicial ban upon man by nature. The Holy Spirit will work back to that with us.

VI. The Cross Is The End Of The Risen Life, Not Only The Beginning.

Phil. 3:10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

1. Why did Paul put death at the end of Philippians 3:10?

2. There is no mistake. The order is of the Holy Ghost.

3. The power of His resurrection presupposes that there has been a death, but the very resurrection life leads to the cross.

4. It is the property of life to rule out all that belongs to death. It is the power of the resurrection to bring us back to the place where death is constantly overcome.

5. That place is the cross of Christ where the natural life is put aside, and progressively removed.

6. So Paul says, “...being conformed unto His death” which means, to have the ground of death progressively removed.

7. What is it that is the power of our survival when the cross is made more real in our experience? There would be no survival without His risen life within us. So Paul prays, “That I may know Him in the power of His resurrection.” That means conformity to death without utter destruction. It only destroys that which can die.

8. So the Holy Spirit is always working in relation to the cross, in order that the power of His resurrection may be increasingly manifested in us. That is the background of the whole question of life.

VII. The Basis In Us For Life Triumphant Is The Working Of The Cross In The Setting Aside Of All That Is Natural.

1. There is nothing more hated by the enemy than the cross.

2. We must free our minds from all false conceptions of the cross.

3. It is not that death destroys us, but makes the way for a greater fullness of life. The cross rules us out that He may come in.

4. It is life that God is after, all the time, in every way, and life more abundantly. This alone is realized by His bringing us back again and again to the cross.

5. The cross is basic to life because it was there that the Lord Jesus conquered death and brought life forth for the saints.

6. Without that life, calling ourselves a church, is to misrepresent God.