I remember many years ago when I helped with the delivery of electrical items in a large van, I got to know the various routes that each of the van drivers took as they made their deliveries. I was a fill in driver and one week I had a new driver detailed to accompany me in order to learn his particular route. We talked much, he was a young man and it came out in conversation that he had quit his church links. I well recall his reason for quitting, ‘I heard so much about the need of dying to myself and found that I just could not do it and so I gave up”. I was stunned by his admission at the time. As I enquired more it was quite obvious to me, even then, that he was really listening to a doctrine of a demon preached through the mouths of the teachers in that place he attended. The wonderful truth of the cross, of dying to self had been totally divorced from Christ and the resurrection in Him too. It now stood alone, a necessity to be achieved, he had to die, but there was no union with Christ preached by which that could be made possible. I recently heard a series of messages that brought these things back to me. I felt agreement with so much that was being said, but there was hardness about it, it was sharp too with a negativity that was actually quite devastating. I reflected deeply for a number of days and found that although there was help and sincerity and truth yet somehow the cross was being preached apart from Christ and Him crucified.
I notice afresh how Paul writes in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians and is careful to connect the cross with Christ and not separate them. He mentions ‘the word of the cross being the power of God” but lest that should become an abstraction he almost immediately locates that cross as being ‘Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God’. There is no doubt that if you try to get crucified, to die to self, apart from Christ you will find nothing but a shattering disappointment awaits you. On the other hand, a true meeting with Christ involves identification with His cross and that ushers us into a continued experience of dying and yet living in Him.
To reinforce this let me say that in Christ it is not possible for us to know only a dying with Him, for those who die thus with Him shall find life blossoming, but not so much in a linear way. How we are so often tricked by the idea of the linear, the idea of traveling in a line, passing through death, to life, the dying over, now only life! However, the two are joined, let them not be divorced, it is not a line we travel, but a life we live where we who live are delivered to death that there should be life and further death and so on, the two inextricably bound together. I am sure that some of the results of a false resurrection life idea are evident in some charismatic circles too, where the Life of Christ is separated from His death and this divorce results in a hollow triumphalism. It is a good thing that the Spirit of God has been sent to lead us into all truth. I like that thought very much, as though it links up with King David’s statement that God had brought him in to a large place. The Spirit conducts us into a life that is a large place and although it has definition and limitation it also has mystery, for it exceeds neat and tidy terminology.
I have been reading one of England’s foremost theologians these last few days, John Owen writing on the Holy Spirit. He is exhaustive, turning over every scripture connected with the Spirit, but throughout there is wonder, there is the sense, (and frequently He confesses it), that the things of which He writes are beyond all his expression. Perhaps we could apply this thought of the divorcing of things that are joined together in God on many fronts. What about mercy and judgment? In God they are joined, but how easily are they separated in our thinking and ministry. Both become powerful foolishness if separated and then each practiced freely. Just consider the dreadfulness of mercy without judgment or judgment without mercy. What about forgiveness and reconciliation, are they joined together or separated in some peoples thinking, resulting in people saying that they have forgiven someone but they have not practiced reconciliation with that one at all? I do not want to finish on a negative note for the truth as it is in Jesus is far too wonderful, apparent opposites combine in Him, each honoring their opposite in totally appropriate ways.
As we wrestle with these things, (yes, there is a struggle involved but the rewards are great), let us remind ourselves that He has given us His Holy Spirit to be our teacher and to bring us in to this large place in which we experience a dying and a living with Christ, His judgment upon us and yet His abounding mercy and His forgiveness with a powerful reconciling love which wins our repentance as an ongoing way of life.
