Dying to be Alive

Self-sacrifice is not a popular idea, except perhaps in the sense of it being used to gain attention. In contrast, true self-sacrifice is rare. Many Christians, who should understand and practice self-denial, seldom hear it mentioned from the pulpit or read about it in popular Christian ‘how-to’ books.

Early in my Christian life I read Born Crucified by L. E. Maxwell. That book had a huge effect on my thinking, as did the books of Watchman Nee. Both talk about the fact that “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

Today’s reading in God is Enough fits in with this by scorning the popular interpretation of “cross-bearing.” While most people think it means to put up with some trial or difficulty, the author writes, “To crucify means to put to death, not to keep alive in misery. But so obscure has the subject become to the children of God, that a great many feel as if they are crucifying self when they are simply seating self on a pinnacle and tormenting it and making it miserable. They will undergo the most painful self-sacrifice and call it taking up the cross.”

Jesus did say we were supposed to do that. “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26).

In context it seems obvious that cross-bearing is not about unwillingly bearing a heavy burden. Jesus makes it quite clear that it is about dying to self, even literally dying, for His sake.

Other passages further clarify cross-bearing. Romans 6:5-8 says, “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. . . .”

Maxwell and Nee both pointed out that the true cross consists in counting the flesh, or the “old man” as an utterly worthless thing, fit only to be put to death. This includes all the characteristics and desires of my sinful nature, both those blatant and those more subtle.

In other words, following Jesus means dying to everything that comes from that old nature. The Bible lists many “works of the flesh” and includes all expressions of pride, selfish ambition, envy, hatred, and contention. It even includes gossip and complaining, and certainly those displays of martyrdom that put self on a pedestal with “look at how much I am suffering.”

All I can think of after writing this is that I have a lot of dying to do, yet even that is not quite biblical. Galatians 2:20 says I have been crucified with Christ, and Romans 6:6 that my old nature was crucified with Him.

This dying is a done deal. When Christ died, God had put me in Him and I died too. When He rose from the dead, that new life became available to me by faith. All that remains is that I reckon myself dead to sin and alive to God, then act like it.