We have already seen that the cross of Christ did much more than merely pay for our sins. In fact it divided two separate creations by ending the old one and becoming the foundation for the new one (2 Cor. 5:17). We will see that all things in God’s eternal purpose begin with the cross.

We must realize that the cross of Calvary was the manifestation in time of an eternal cross, which preceded everything that exists. John tells us that Christ was "slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8). The cross is much bigger than a one day event outside of Jerusalem in 30AD. "Christ crucified" envelops all of history, from beginning to end, including both this moment and the many years ahead. Therefore, His dying cannot be limited to that one moment almost 2000 years ago. Twenty years after Christ’s resurrection, Paul said that he could bear in his body "the dying of the Lord Jesus"(2 Cor. 4:10), and "I die daily" (1 Cor. 15:31). Paul also tells us that knowing Christ and the power of His resurrection requires "fellowshipping in the sharing of His sufferings" (Phil. 3:10). He boldly asserted that he was presently fulfilling in his flesh "what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ" (Col. 1:24). What we learn from all of this is that our union with Christ encompasses all of His experiences, both in life and in death. His history has become our history–not only the riches, but also the suffering.

The Two Sides of Death

I have always struggled with the dilemma presented in Scripture which states that I am dead and risen again in Christ, yet that somehow I still have more dying to do. Most people grab one side or the other and run with it. Some will emphasize our once-for-all death with Christ, boldly proclaiming that we now have only "one nature," which is the life of Christ in us. Their teaching comes as a refreshing breeze amidst the stale atmosphere of legalism. They teach us that we are not to spend our energies pursuing the righteousness that is already ours in Christ. But these folks often assert that everything we do is the "New Man" at work, leaving no need for daily brokenness. Others ignore our identity in Christ and preoccupy us with all the changes that should take place within us and the need for the cross to discipline us before the Lord. These teachers will encourage every means necessary to make us look more like Jesus, something which will never happen. When most Christians read Paul declare, "I was crucified with Christ so that now I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20), they don’t know what to do with the statement, so they ignore it. But this verse tells us that we are not to try to improve ourselves, because God’s estimation of us resulted in crucifixion. All of our efforts to exercise our natural gifts, grow in holiness, and somehow "earn points with God" resemble dressing up a corpse in an expensive suit. God is not interested in making you a better person, and He dealt with you finally and irreversibly on the cross of Calvary.

"But if Christ is my life, then why do I still sin?" For two reasons: First of all, these truths are realized in the fellowship of believers, not in the lone ranger lives of isolated individuals. Yes, Christ "is your life" (Col. 3:4), but the "your" is meant to be plural. I alone cannot manifest the life of Christ because I was never meant to do it alone. I still sin because the saving life of Christ does not belong to me personally. He will live through me, but He will not share His glory with an individual. We will always depend on the fellowship of believers to fully express the nature of Christ. The second reason is this: In order to prove that this glory does not come from us, He leaves us with the "jars of clay" that are our flesh (2 Cor. 4:7). If He did not leave things in our lives to keep us aware that this righteousness does not originate with us, then we would forget that we are sustained by His strength (2 Cor. 12:9).

As with Paul in Romans 7, we must come to grips with a paradoxical existence. In our spirits we have joined ourselves to Christ so that now there is no distinction between Him and us (1 Cor. 6:17). All that is true of Him has become true of us, for "as He is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4:17). In our flesh, however, "dwells no good thing" (Rom. 7:18), and we must contend with the presence of this animated carcass as long as we live in this world. But there are right ways and wrong ways of dealing with this problem. The most popular wrong way to deal with the flesh is to wrestle with it in a vain attempt to overpower it. Somehow it never occurs to us that we are fighting with ourselves, so that we never completely win. Even when we do win, we have not risen above ourselves, and therefore we are not fundamentally changed. Good has temporarily won over evil.

So how should we deal with our flesh? The answer is: We don’t. We simply do as Brother Lawrence did and say, "Oh well, that’s me" and move on to acknowledge the presence of the Lord. He is there despite you failings and He is not surprised by what comes out of you. Simply turn to Him and say "your grace is sufficient in me" (2 Cor.12:9). You will get nowhere by battling directly with your flesh. The outworking of the death of Christ in you rests in the hands of God alone. So a better question to ask would be: "How will the Lord deal with the presence of the flesh?"

The Sovereignty of God in Life

At this point it becomes very important to realize that nothing happens in your life apart from God’s will. Jesus picked the most minuscule event he could think of and said, "Not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from the will of your Father" (Matt. 10:29). Paul reiterated that God "works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will" (Eph. 1:11). Solomon agreed:

In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: Surely God has appointed the one as well as the other. (Eccl. 7:14)

Unfortunately, contemporary scientific awareness renders modern believers "too sophisticated" to hold to such a simple belief. We have become skilled at finding secondary causes for everything. Surely Jesus foresaw our malady when He said, "You must become as a little child" (Matt. 18:3). The Lord must thoroughly establish in our hearts that He sovereignly controls every detail of our lives. Externally speaking, God maneuvers people and events to achieve His purposes on every level. Internally speaking, the ebb and flow of your spiritual life and fruitfulness depend upon His sovereign supply.

Stop and consider that last statement for a moment. Do you really believe that your spiritual growth comes from Him, or do you still believe that it is up to you? "Oh foolish [Christian] . . . having begun with the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Gal. 3:3). We have grown so accustomed to giving ourselves "spiritual checkups," living by the assumption that we are ultimately responsible for our own inner state. But as Jesus said, "The wind blows where it wills; so it is with the spirit" (John 3:8). All who have known God well have emphasized that He deals with us in seasons. Sometimes we taste the dying of Jesus in ourselves, and other times we partake of the resurrection of Christ. He sends times of refreshing as well as times of drought, and both accomplish His purpose in our lives in different ways.

Jeanne Guyon likens us to a tree which passes through spring and summer lush and fruitful, with its life flowing upward and outward until its branches are replete with leaves and fruit. In the Autumn and Winter, when the life flows inward and downward to deepen, broaden, and strengthen its roots, then its branches are bare and lifeless. So it is with our spirits. The Lord’s life comes and goes in us as He wills. We need not look at ourselves when either season comes; we need only look to Him to be our supply (or lack thereof) whenever He chooses. As for those whose spiritual lives are consistent and always "up", we should question whether their "fruitfulness" originates in their spirits or in their flesh.
God's Big Project

What is God doing in all of this? He is fashioning the building materials for His House on this earth. He forges inside of us the gold of His own presence in His Son. He forms His New Creation in the very midst of the fallen, Old Creation as one illuminating a beautiful light in the center of a dark room. By doing this He draws all attention to His own glory, and the glory of His Son. But this eternal building project requires the alchemy of the daily cross operating in us to produce this material. He will use the events of your daily life, together with the inward exposure of your own heart, to burn away the hay, wood, and stubble (1 Cor. 3:12-15), leaving only that which has materialized through loving and being loved by Him. He will not stop until He has replaced everything in His house with His Son (Eph. 1:10).

Do not think, however, that the change will take place in you, per se. You, considered within yourself, do not improve in this process. The traits which characterized you before (whether positive or negative) will continue in you as long as you live, although somewhat tempered with time and experience. But the flesh remains the flesh. God has no interest in the Old Man; His interest is in completing the New Man (Eph. 4:13). So you will find, as the dying of Jesus works its way out through you, that "you" become weaker, not stronger. You only grow in awareness of your dependence on the Spirit of Christ who indwells you and your brothers and sisters. Because the New Man is corporate, progress registers little on the individual level. In fact, your natural strengths and weaknesses will become the target of God’s relentless destruction of all that is not His Son.

Strange Fire

In the Old Testament, God communicated His desires through pictures, types, and symbols of things to come in Christ. Reading through Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, you will find a preoccupation with the Tabernacle and "holiness." God's instructions for building the Tabernacle were detailed and exhaustive, as if He were trying to copy something from the heavenlies exactly. He would accept nothing less than what He prescribed. This Tabernacle which consumed God's interests speaks of His Son, and of His House. The rest of the Law of Moses was taken up with setting apart certain things as "holy" (or "other than") to distinguish them from the common things. All of those regulations and requirements were to communicate to us the "otherness" of Christ and of that other realm. This law teaches us that no amount of effort from our part will make the Old Man and his activity acceptable to God. Only the New Man is acceptable to God. The Israelites learned by mistakes that God is very serious about separating the holy from the unholy. In Leviticus 10:1-2, Aaron's two sons, Nadab and Abihu, manufactured their own fire to light the altar of incense, rather than taking the fire from the burnt altar as they were instructed. In response, God consumed them with fire. This dramatically demonstrative act illustrates the fact that God wants only that which originates in the heavenlies, in Christ.

Much of our worship resembles Nadab and Abihu's "strange fire," as the King James Version called it. The majority of our worship of God is "our utmost for His highest." We are driven by visions and goals that do not originate in God: The evangelization of the world in one generation, the "Christianizing" (or "Americanizing"!) of all civilization, bigger revenues, bigger buildings, bigger events, and on and on. We rationalize that we are doing the work of God because we do it all for Him. But these ideas do not come from God; rather they come from our natural ambitions and our unbroken wills.

God is picky about the worship that he will receive. And it would be irresponsible of us to dismiss these passages as if God were somehow "different back then." To Christians accustomed to a gospel of grace, this attitude seems strange. But God was simply communicating through object lessons that His desire is for His Son, who is from above, and that He would not receive anything of a lower origin. He will build His house using only the right materials, and He will work to eliminate anything that stands in the way of His building.

What Exactly is God Breaking?

The human will resides inside your being like a flowing river. Different people have different sizes and shapes to their rivers. Some rivers rush with a mighty, torrential force, while others often fall in a light trickle. Some individuals seem born with a penchant for "making waves," while others seem to leave little mark on the world in which they live. Typically, we ascribe greatness, even spiritual greatness, to those whose wills rumble and roar through history. Many admired men and women of the faith were notable, not because of true spiritual depth or power, but because of a natural ability to speak, or write, or lead. God receives their activity as the "strange fire" of Nadab and Abihu. Writers such as Jessie Penn-Lewis and Watchman Nee spoke of "soul-force" versus "spirit-force." The term "soul-force" refers to this natural strength, while the term "spirit-force" denotes the movement and leadership of the Spirit of God acting in concert with our "inner man." Regardless of the magnitude of the natural "force" within you, God will work to tame and redirect it into directions you would not naturally move.

The Lord often compared the will of His people to a stiff-necked animal which requires considerable force to discipline and subdue (Exod. 32:9, Deut. 9:6). Beasts of burden are not meant to lose their strength, but the wild element within them must be taken away if they are to be of any use to us. Similarly, your emotions, intellect, and will must be "broken" into submission to the Lord’s Spirit dwelling within you. Consider the struggle which precedes this moment for a horse. A strong rider mounts an animal that has never before been controlled by another. The horse begins to kick and scream and run, while the rider only pulls tighter and harder on the reins. A magnificent power struggle ensues which may go on for quite a while, and several attempts may be required. Eventually, however, the moment comes when something folds within the animal and it submits to the rider. From that moment on, the horse knows it must follow the rider’s guidance. Ironically, the soul disciplined by the Lord will often appear less polished and less "spiritual" than those yet to be touched by His hand. Looks can be deceiving and brokenness is an inward thing, not necessarily an outward thing. The work that has been touched by the Lord will often be small and unimpressive, but you will find that this is God’s style.

God's Consistent Method

Scriptural examples of this struggle abound. God promised Abraham that he would become the father of a nation of people, but He waited until Abraham and Sarah had no confidence in their own bodies' abilities to produce a child. Abraham received the promised son only after numerous failures to produce an heir according to his own schemes. Twice he lied to protect his own life and once he had a son through the wrong woman. By the time the promised son came, Abraham and Sarah had no hope for children outside of an obviously divine intervention. Jacob, their grandson, encountered God in a famous wrestling match that left the young patriarch crippled for life. Jacob had developed a confidence in his own ability to maneuver his way out of difficult situations, until that fateful night when he prepared to meet a brother who might take his life. Once Jacob's mysterious opponent had removed his ability to run from Esau, God renamed Jacob "Israel" to represent his changed character.

At an early age, Joseph demonstrated unusual capabilities which gave him a sense of self-importance that provoked the jealousy of his older brothers. While God intended to use the abilities He had given the young dreamer, He still had to lead Joseph into a series of losses and rejections until this confidence sundered. Likewise, Moses grew up with a silver spoon and received a royal education as a "prince of Egypt." When an opportunity presented itself, Moses attempted to distinguish himself as leader of the Hebrews through brute force (see Acts 7:22-25). Decades as an anonymous shepherd in the deserts of Midian cured him of this problem, so that when God finally told Moses that it was time to lead Israel home, Moses denied that he was the right person for the task.

Participants in the New Covenant require the same treatment for God's use. Christ Himself had to learn His Father by suffering injustice at His own Father's hand. "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me," was the cry of a Man who deserved nothing that was perpetrated upon Him. His pain and suffering did not result from sin or wrong choices on His part; rather they were a necessary part of His education as the Son of God (Heb. 5:8). Paul experienced a litany of afflictions along the road to proclaiming the gospel. In his life we find a detailed illustration of the dealings of God in the hearts of His vessels. Paul began as an ambitious opponent to the Church of God, as one consumed with legalistic fervor. And rather than simply redirect Paul's natural energy into preaching the gospel, God set Paul aside for years in Tarsus while orchestrating a massive movement of Judaizing Christian legalists that would later oppose Paul's ministry with ardor equal to what he showed before his conversion. At every turn, God used opposition to reduce Paul to dependence on Him (2 Cor. 12:9).

So we see that the Lord must pummel the independent element within our own hearts until it breaks, allowing the Spirit within to freely move about within our own seats of consciousness. Light begins to dawn within us and we gain a sense of His presence within and around us that slowly changes the way we interact with our world, especially with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Just as the human body requires solidarity among its members for healthy functioning, the body of Christ manifests itself when the "inner man" has gained the ascendancy over the "outer man" (2 Cor. 4:16) among the community of believers. For this reason, the pain and suffering which come to us in the church serve a crucial function in our corporate life together. God is burning away the stubble of the Old Creation in order to securely build with gold the centerpiece of the New Creation: His House.

No Better Place on Earth

Hear me say clearly that all of this difficulty and tribulation is for that House to be built! This is not ultimately for your personal spiritual growth. The Lord is building His House, and His activity in your life is meant to benefit the family of God in a corporate fashion. In a typical "church" setting you will never receive an opportunity to share what you gain with the Body of Christ as a whole. At best you will benefit two or three individuals outside the context of the corporate gathering. Furthermore, the pain and suffering you experience will not work as effectively in the wrong context, outside of an intimate community of believers. Your failures stand naked in a room full of people who know you well and who share your life in more than brief casual conversations over coffee and doughnuts once a week.

In fact, the intimate proximity with other believers which I am advocating becomes the very source of the most potent difficulties that you could endure. Life itself brings with it a series of losses that are part and parcel of living in the world, but these are not the cross. Daily life in the Body of Christ, however, produces extraordinary challenges to your patience and capacity for love which more than exhaust your resources. In this communal context, Paul’s injunctions suddenly make more sense than ever: "Bear one another’s burdens" (Gal. 6:2), "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love . . .Never pay back evil for evil to anyone" (Rom. 12:10, 17), "Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others" (Php. 2:4). These directions presuppose a level of involvement in each other’s lives which simply doesn’t come from the traditional denominational church setting. Who could truly hurt you or burden you who does not know you well, and whom you do not know? Outside of the New Testament caliber of Christian community, the cross loses so much of its effect.

Step into a fully functioning, intimately interconnected fellowship of believers built solely on the foundation of the centrality of Christ in all things, and you will find a concentration of suffering and injustice that you will not believe. The original disciples of Christ were caught off guard by Jesus’ tendency to attract conflict and mistreatment whenever he went. The same "magic" follows His presence in His corporate expression, the Church. They do not seek the suffering that comes, rather the Lord brings it in order to include us in His experience. If we are to know Him well, we will "share in the fellowship of His suffering, becoming like Him in His death" (Php. 3:10). Everything in the life of His Bride moves her towards the final goal for which He created us: Oneness with Him.

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