LIVING THE CRUCIFIED LIFE

LIVING THE CRUCIFIED LIFE

                “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you and He also will bring it to pass.” 1 Thess. 5:23, 24.

                This picture of the complete person in Christ is taken directly out of the Sanctuary, for indeed the 3 compartments of the Sanctuary of Moses represent the triune nature of man as body, soul and spirit. And from His blessing and prayer given here, Paul makes it clear that God intends to preserve us complete in Christ in body, soul and spirit.

                Therefore we treat our bodies as temples in which the Lord dwells. We treat our souls as belonging to God by yielding to His Word, His Holy Spirit and His guidance in our lives. We treat our spirit with utmost reverence for it is in our spirit that the Spirit of God dwells.

                So, given God’s concern for the whole man in Christ it seems a bit strange that He turns around and tells us to put to death the deeds of both the body and the soul. We are no longer to be dominated by our bodies and their desires, and we are not to be dominated by the soul with its mind, will and emotions. For Jesus Christ, when it comes to our body and our soul, there is no solution other than crucifixion in order that we may live Spirit filled, Spirit directed and Spirit empowered lives.

                This is at the crux of the Christian life and therefore it remains Paul’s defining statement when he says; “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who, loved me and delivered Himself up for me.”

                Now notice first of all that Paul didn’t say that he had crucified himself (An impossibility) nor did he tell US to do so. Rather, he said that” I AM crucified” and he reiterates this in Romans 6:5-7 where he says: “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self WAS crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin for he who has died is freed from sin.

                In other words, being crucified with Christ means putting our complete faith in His death and that we were with Him in that death 2000 years ago even as Levi was in Abraham’s loins when he paid tithes to Melchizedek.

                What we are talking about here is not a wiping out of our soul, for the soul holds our personal identity and God does not want to get rid of that. Neither does it do any good to severely treat the body or to focus our attentions upon extreme health measures as Romans 14 and Mark 7:14-19 tell us. If we try to discipline and conquer our souls then the soul is our base of operations and if we try to discipline and conquer the body then the body is our base of operations.

                What we are talking about here is learning to have our spirit be our base of operations. Do we operate out of our body, our soul or our spirit? If we operate out of our spirit we will not carry out the deeds of the flesh and if we yield ourselves in surrender to Jesus Christ then our soul also comes under the headship of our spirit and it is in our spirit that the Spirit of Christ dwells.

                The spirit then must become our base of operations. We must live by the Spirit, be taught, guided and directed by the Spirit and empowered by the Spirit. This is the whole message of Romans 8, that the entire Christian life involves the Holy Spirit living in and through our lives and indeed he says: “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” And he goes on to say that: “… we are under obligation not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh; for if you are living according to the flesh you must die, but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Romans 8:7, 8, 12.

                We can sort of tell what a person’s base of operations is by what has become the focus of their Christian life. If it is physical, then they will be obsessed with health and food and clothing and fitness and so on.  If they are based upon a soul base of operations, they will be either intellectual, or emotional or strong willed. The soul is made up of mind, will and emotions and so as a base of operations it will function in one of these avenues or even vacillate between all three of them.

                Notice that none of these are evil in and of themselves, in fact, we may have the best of intentions in seeking to please God in every way, but the truth is the only thing that will count for eternity is that which has been done by the Spirit. Eternity can only be inhabited by eternal things.

                When we come to Jesus and give our lives to Him, the first thing He does is to save our spirit. He quickens it by His own resurrection life in the Holy Spirit. And why does He save our spirit first? It is because the Christian life, as God sees it, cannot be lived apart from His Spirit. We must, first of all, have a born again spirit in order to bring body and soul under the control of the Spirit/spirit.

                It is in this context that it is said that we ARE saved, we are BEING saved and we WILL be saved. We ARE saved immediately in our spirit when Jesus Christ saves us.  (This is called Justification.) We are BEING saved in our souls as we bring them under the direction of the Holy Spirit by the Word. (This is known as sanctification) and we WILL be saved physically at the resurrection when our bodies will be transformed and glorified by the power of Christ.

                Since it is our spirit that the Shekinah glory of God dwells, then it must become the base of operations in the Christian life, or by definition, it is not the Christian life at all. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” Romans 8:14.

                Unfortunately a great deal of what we see of Christianity operates out of the soul of man. It is either intellectual, or emotional or based upon a strong backbone and run by law. All of these things have the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and sever treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence. “Colossians 2:23

                Even the good in us must die in order that the goodness of Christ may be manifest in these mortal bodies and for this to happen according to Paul, we must die daily and according to Jesus, we must deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him.

                Yesterday at our church picnic, it was a glorious day. The temperature could not have been more perfect. Beautiful sunlight filtered down through the trees, each leaf aglow with the light of life. Nearby the river flowed in glistening beauty. The presence of God was felt by everyone as peace flooded the scene. Worship came so easily and the songs and dancing, blowing of shofars and baptisms in the river blended together into a tapestry of God’s perfect harmony.

                Seeing all of this I asked myself, “Why should it be so hard to surrender our lives in total to the Lords leading. Do we not have faith to believe that He will bring this same peace and fragrance into our hearts if we let go of the reins of self-will? Religion has done such a job of painting a negative picture of surrender. Sometimes we need to just get out and worship God under the canopy of His creation.

                Everything in nature functions to bless every other thing in nature. In such beauty is made manifest the nature and the wisdom of God. How can we not want to be led by His Spirit?

                “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made…” Romans 1:20a.

                In our striving to be led by the Spirit of God, let us not forget that everything in nature and in salvation takes place in a state of Rest. Adam and Eve were created on the 6^th day and then on the Seventh day, before they had done anything, God gave them a day of rest. But this was more than a day of physical rest… it was a place of rest. God entered them into His rest before they had lifted a finger in order to show them that the way of the Tree of Life was a way of rest. It was the tree of knowledge of good and evil that brought with it a curse of the sweat of the brow.

                So if we will learn to live by His Spirit, we will not lift a finger of flesh, so to speak, but we will instead learn that every good thing in us is being accomplished by the presence and power of Christ in our lives. Jesus said that without Him we could do nothing. But what that means in practical terms is that everything that we do outside of Him adds up to zero.

                Jesus must become our base of operations then and we, at this critical junction in time, must by all means learn how to enter that rest and to walk in it. Our spirit as inhabited by the Spirit of Christ must become our base of operations. Only then will our lives count for eternity.

                Remember this: When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, he was trying to get Jesus to act out of his soul rather than out of His spirit. He was trying to trick Jesus into proving Himself apart from God. But Jesus didn’t fall for it and we must learn to be the same. If my identity is fully in Christ, then I will not need to defend or to prove myself before men, but I will seek approval only from God.