04. The Aspect of Crucifying our Old Man

The Aspect of Crucifying our Old Man

Now shall we turn toRomans 6:6, which is the second aspect of the Cross: “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 came by a revelation to Paul. It will come to you in the same way. “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Christ.” It is very necessary to make this perfectly clear, that God’s plan of salvation embraces no scheme for the betterment of the old man. There is only one place for it and that is the cross, the place of death. That is the starting point of the victorious life, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Christ.” Let us just notice this, that our crucifixion with Christ is as complete a one as Christ’s crucifixion for us. Just as Christ was crucified for us and for our sins, so we have been crucified with Him. Each one of these works is finished. That is a fact of God, eternal, unalterable, on which our faith is to rest for continuous victory and deliverance. The whole secret of victory in the Christian life is simply understanding our attitude to that fact, and asserting our position in relation to that fact, and then maintaining that attitude in the face of every assault of Satan and every attempt on the part of the old man to reassert its supremacy in our characters and in our lives. Remember it is not sin that dies, it is not self that dies, it is not temptation that dies, it isyouwho have to die. Their attitude never changes; yours has to.

Now what is your attitude?Romans 6:11 speaks of reckoning: “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Faith rests on the fact of God and the act of Christ, and reckons that fact to be true because of the act. What doesreckoningmean? Reckoning is always just the attitude of the will—taking the place of death to sin, refusing to yield to sin, setting itself continually after God, standing with set purpose of heart upon the victory which has been won for us by the Lord Jesus Christ, and claiming that victory at every point of the conflict, “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.” And you conquer your sin, not by struggling, not by fighting with it in your own strength, but by dying to it. You conquer your sin by dying to it. When I say that I do not mean there is no more conflict. You and I never can sit down and say “The fight is over.” There is not only a rest of faith to be enjoyed (that is blessedly true), but there is a fight of faith in which we have to be continually engaged, and one of the greatest needs in the Christian life is to recognize the foe as well as the methods of the foe by which he is determined to reach his end. It is not enough to say, “Let us look to the Lord and He will carry us through.” That is only one half of the truth. One of the weaknesses of many Christians today is that they are attempting to ignore the foe, to ignore the presence of a tremendous personality of evil in the world, and that is just about as wise as it would be to try and ignore yourself. If you shut your eyes to the existence of the enemy and fail to discern his presence and his power you are putting yourself at as great a disadvantage in spiritual conflict as any general would if he went into a fight without ever making any use of his intelligence department.

If you look to the Lord and do not do what the Bible tells you to do, watch, you cannot pray intelligently; you fail to recognize the movements of the enemy and the methods of the enemy. If you watch these things and do not look to the Lord, then you will get absolutely crushed and depressed by the darkness that is deepening around you and by the awful onrush of the forces of evil. We are required to be alert today to evil in all its various forms, also to its source, to its challenge, to its methods, to its objectives; and you will be wise to give to the enemy just the name that the Bible gives to him. It is this that makes necessary the attitude of constantly acting upon this eternal fact of God, taking your place with Christ in His death and claiming in your own experience the power of that death manifested in the victory won on the cross. It is that which keeps you in touch with Christ today in the conflict. It is that which keeps the eye of your mind clear and enables you to see the path and to understand what God means you to do.

What is the great secret of maintaining this attitude?Romans 8:2, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” Only a law can set us free from a law. If Congress passes a law that proves to be unworkable or unjust it has to pass another law in order to set the country free from that law. That is true here: only a law can set you free from a law. And what is law? It is just the steady pressure of a power. In the spiritual conflict there are always two laws at work, the lower law of the self operated on by Satan, by means of which we are dragged down, and the higher law of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ operated on by the Spirit of God, by which He is ever seeking to lift us up and bring us into the place of freedom and deliverance. It is the law, the higher law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, that makes us free from the lower law of sin and death. Victory in the conflict of Christian life is thus. It is not meeting sin in your own strength, it is not crushing down that temper of yours, it is not making a good resolution at this conference and saying, “By God’s grace I will never give way again to that thing that has so often brought me low.” God’s way of victory is not righting in our own strength, it is dying. That is the truth I believe we want to learn. God’s way of victory is dying to sin, and God’s way is always the best way. God’s way is always the surest way to victory. God’s way is learning to die to sin and to conquer sin by dying to it, asserting our position of union with Christ in His death, and giving the Holy Spirit the opportunity to bring in the higher law, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. When the late Andrew Murray of South Africa came over to England twenty-seven years ago he met a number of Christian workers in London, and his message to them was simply this: “Two bodies cannot occupy the same place; if one comes in the other goes out. And in the measure in which you go out Christ comes in.” That is victory; that is the victorious Christian life. Therefore in the measure in which you yield to the Holy Spirit, the law of the Spirit of life will come into you and drive out the law of sin and death and give you the victory. You conquer by dying.

Let us note this, that the decisive factor in the conflict is inside, it is the will. The decisive factor is the will, a surrendered will to cooperate with the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit can do nothing for you and for me unless He has our cooperation. Frances Ridley Havergal puts it in this way: “There must be full surrender before there can be full blessedness. God admits us by the one into the other.” And where there is this surrender then the scheme of the evil one is foiled. But the solemn thing is that where there is not this surrender the plan of the Holy Spirit is spoiled. Therefore let us not pass that over without thinking seriously about it and asking God to make it mean to us all that it does mean, that the decisive factor in every conflict of the life of the Christian is my will. And when we reach the position where we cooperate with the Holy Spirit, there He works into us the power of the cross and makes us know the truth of victory. That is the second aspect of the cross.