I Am Crucified With Christ.

(Excerpt)

 

'Indeed, the word to us all the time is, "Arise, shine." But we cannot raise ourselves; it is the truth and the power of God that is to raise us. But is not here the direct truth that will raise a man? Yes, sir; it will raise Him from the dead, as we shall find before we get done with this. But this thought was necessary to be followed through, that we may see how complete the victory is and how certain we are of it as surely as we surrender to Christ and accept that mind that was in Him. And thus always bear in mind that the battle is fought against sin in the realm of the thoughts and that the Victor, the Warrior, that has fought the battle there and won the victory there in every conceivable kind of contest--that same blessed One comes and sets up His throne at the citadel of the very imagination of the thought, the very root of the thought of the heart of the believing sinner.

 

He sets up His throne there and plants the principles of His law there and reigns there.

 

Thus it is that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so now in this way might grace reign. Did sin reign? Certainly. Did it reign with power? Assuredly. It reigned. It ruled. Well, as that has reigned, even so grace shall reign. Is grace, then, to reign as certainly, as powerfully in fact, as ever sin did? Much more, much more fully, much more abundantly, much more gloriously.  Just as certainly as ever sin did reign in us, so certainly when we are in Jesus Christ the grace of God is to reign much more abundantly, "That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."

 

That being so, we can go on in victory unto perfection.

 

From that height--for it is proper to call it a height--to which this truth raises us, we can go on enjoying, reading with gratitude, what we have in Him and receiving it in the fullness of the soul. But unless we have the Lord to take us to that height and seat us there and put us where He has possession of the citadel so that we are certain where He is and in that where we are, all these other things are vague, indefinite, and seem to be beyond us--sometimes almost within our reach and we long to get where we can really have hold on them and know the reality of them, but yet they are always just a little beyond our reach and we are unsatisfied.

 

But when we surrender fully, completely, absolutely, with no reservation, letting the whole world and all there is of it, go, then we receive that divine mind of His by the Spirit of God that gives to Him possession of that citadel, that lifts us to that height where all these other things are not simply within reach--O, no, they are in the heart and are a rejoicing in the life! We then in Him have them in possession and we know it and the joy of it is just what Peter said, "unspeakable and full of glory."

 

So then as the Lord has lifted us to this height and will hold us there, now let us go ahead and read and receive,  as we read, what we have in Him. Begin with Romans 6:6.

 

Rom 6:6  Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 

 

That is the scripture that comes most directly in connection with this particular thought that we have studied so far this evening. "Knowing this."--Knowing what? "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him." Good! In Jesus Christ, in His flesh, was not human nature, sinful flesh, crucified? Whose? Who was He? He was man; He was ourselves.

 

Then whose sinful flesh,  whose human nature, was crucified on the cross of Jesus Christ?--Mine.

 

Therefore, as certainly as I have that blessed truth settled in my heart and mind, that Jesus Christ was man, human nature, sinful nature, and that He was myself in the flesh--as certainly as I have that, it follows just as certainly as that He was crucified on the cross, so was I.

 

My human nature, myself there, was crucified there. Therefore I can say with absolute truth and the certainty and confidence of faith, "I am crucified with Christ." It is so.

 

We hear people so many times say, "I want self to be crucified." Well, we turn and read the text to them,  "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified." And they respond: "Well, I wish it were so." Turn to the next text and read, "I am crucified with Christ." It says I am. Who is? Are you? Still they answer, I don't see that I am. I wish it were so, but I cannot see how I am crucified and I cannot see how reading that there and saying that that is so will make it so." But the word of God says so and it is so because it says so and it would be true and everlastingly effectual if that were all there is to it. But in this case it is so because it is so. God does not speak that word to make it so in us; He speaks that word because it is so in us, in Christ.

 

In the first chapter of Hebrews you remember we had an illustration of this. God did not call Christ God to make Him God. No. He called Him God because He was God. If He had not been that, then for God to speak to Him the word of "God," and lay it upon Him, would have caused Him to be that, because that is the power of the word of God. But that is not it. That would be so if that were all there were to it, but it is so also in another way. He was God and when God called Him God, He did so because that is what He was. So in that double sense it is everlastingly so. It is so by "two immutable things."

 

Now it is the same way here. Our old man is crucified, yet when God sets forth His word that it is so, we accepting that word and surrendering to it, it is so to each one who accepts it because the word has the divine power in it to cause it to be so. And by that means it would be everlastingly so, even if that were all there is to it.  But that is not all there is to it, because in Jesus Christ human nature has been crucified on the cross, actually,  literally, and that is my human nature, that is myself in Him that was crucified there. And therefore God sets down the record of everyone who is in Christ, "He is crucified."

 

So that by the two immutable things, by the double fact, it is so. Therefore, we can say with perfect freedom, it is no boasting, it is not presumption in any sense; it is simply the confession of faith in Jesus Christ, "I am crucified with Christ." Is not He crucified? Then as certainly as I am with Him, am I not crucified with Him? the word of God says so. "Our old man is crucified with Him?" Very good. Let us thank the Lord that that is so.

 

What is the use, then, of our trying, longing, to get ourselves crucified, so that we can believe that we are accepted of God? Why, it is done, thank the Lord! In Him it is done. As certainly as the soul by faith sinks self in Jesus Christ and by that divine power which He has brought to us to do it, so certainly it is done as a divine fact.  And it is only the genuine expression of faith to tell, to acknowledge, that divine fact that "I am crucified with Christ."

 

Jesus sunk His divine self in our human nature and altogether was crucified. When we sink ourselves in Him, it is so still, because in Him only is it done. It is all in Him. We call attention to the thought we had in the lesson a few evenings ago, that it is not in Him in the sense of His being a receptacle to which we can go and take it out and apply it to ourselves. No. But it is in Him in the sense that it is all there and when we are in Him,  when we go into the receptacle, when we sink into Him, we have it all in Him as we are in Him.

 

Therefore, now let every soul of us say by the faith of Jesus Christ, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him." "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." He is alive again.  And because He lives, we live also. "Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith"--in the Son of God? "the faith of the Son of God,"--that divine faith which He brought to human nature and which He gives to you and to me. We "live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me." Gal. 2:20. O, He loved Me! When He gave Himself in all His glory and all His wondrous worth for me, who was nothing, is it much that I should give myself to Him?'

 

To be continued…

 

1895 G.C. Sermon #18  by A.T. Jones