Who Died at the Cross?

I read a powerful statement recently in the writings of one of my favorite authors, T.A. Sparks, who lived in community and ministered in regular Christian life conferences in Great Britain between 1930 and 1970.


He wrote, "Whenever a man or a people comes under immediate government of God (which means to live under the direction and empowerment of the Holy Spirit) in relation to His eternal purpose, they will have this one thing brought home to them: It is that in themselves "dwells no good thing" (Rom. 7:18). There is much prayer for revival and much effort for the deepening of the spiritual life. But the only answer to this is a new knowing of the Cross, not only as it pertains to sins and a life of victory over them, but as Christ supplanting (replacing) the natural man."

On the cross, not only was Jesus Christ offering Himself to pay for our sins, but He was offering Himself as our substitute. When He died, in God's mind, He died not only for us, but He died as us. As Paul says, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live..." (Gal. 2:20)

To come to Jesus Christ in faith is to come into an inward union with Christ. We recognize Him as our substitute to God, our representative before God, and our life in God. When we do this, we aren't playing psychological make believe. We're agreeing with God. For God has sent His own Son to become our substitute, our representative, and our life.

It all starts with the cross and our apprehension of what occurred their by faith. At the cross, God put us to death in Christ. Our self-loving hearts recoil from such a word, but this is the clear affirmation of the Scriptures. "Or do you not know that you have died with Christ?" Why do we recoil? Like Cain we're still trying to get God to accept us and our offerings. God will not. God will never accept man's best efforts, not even when those men are Christians. When the source of the living is man, it's man's life that's expressed. It's godless effort, and utterly rejected by God. How does that make you feel?
Check yourself. Most people who don't see how utterly rejected and contemptible they are apart from Christ never embrace the cross. We can't imagine hell, much less that apart from Jesus Christ that God would surely send us there. Our belief that our best efforts make us more acceptable in the eyes of God only provoke Him all the more, because He opposes the proud. We too must reject our best efforts by embracing the cross as the place we died to God.

Don't misunderstand this point. It's not that we have no value as God's creatures who display His glory and are made in His image. But our value to God is just that... that we bear His image and display His glory. Apart from bearing His image, the only way we will display His glory is through eternal damnation. But the good news is that through Christ, God has made a way of redemption and salvation that is an infinitely more satisfying display of His glory by making us one with His image... "Jesus Christ, who is the image of the invisible God."

I recently had a couple of discussions with a few Mormons and J.W.s about this very thing. They imagine that God is pleased with our good works and displeased with our sins. So, in this view, Jesus's death erases our sins so that we can be rewarded for our good works. But in doing so they rob Jesus Christ of His glory of being our complete Savior, whom we do not help in the least. It is fully His grace from beginning to end that must save us.
But how many Christians are "Mormons at heart", looking to Jesus to cover our sins while looking to ourselves to please God? No! Jesus Christ is our complete righteousness, not only taking away our sins, but taking the "old man" into death. So how then do we live?

We live by this faith, the faith of the Son of God. We must not merely add Christ to our living, or attempt to add to Christ's life by our living, but to make room for Christ to be our life. We should be dead to our own desires, good intentions, best efforts, good ideas, etc. Though while we live on in the body we can not escape from them, but we dare not live on the basis of them. All things must be governed by His Spirit. Does the idea, intention, or desire come from us, or from His Spirit? "Live by the Spirit and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh".

What does this mean? We must get acquainted with the Life of His Spirit. We must saturate ourselves with the Word of God which is able to divide between soul and Spirit. We must remember that His blood cleanses our conscience from dead works to serve the Living God, for we will no longer simply feel a need for cleansing from sin, but from moving, living, desiring anything apart from the Life of Christ Jesus. The Living God is served by Living Sacrifices, those who are offering themselves up to live in the Life of His own Son.

What lies ahead for those who take this path? A great deal of suffering and greater experience of the Lord Jesus Christ as our life. "God gives us the Cross, but the Cross gives us God."

Commitment or Christ- Where's your faith?

Let's start with a question. Why is your commitment to Christ so important to you? Think for a second and let your heart give you an answer. How important is your commitment to Christ to you? Why?

Without realizing it, we have a strong tendancy to have FAITH in human commitment- our own, and consequently other's- which is one reason we pressure ourselves and others to "be more committed." The Christian life however is lived "boasting in Christ Jesus, having NO CONFIDENCE in the flesh". The harder we try to live by the power of our own commitment the farther we move away from the reality of living by the power of the Holy Spirit. How can we tell the practical difference? Let me illustrate.

Remember the "Rock", Peter? The night our Lord mentioned He was being betrayed to His death, Peter swore up and down that he was going to follow Jesus even if it meant that he would be killed. Peter had great confidence in his commitment to Christ. Remember the Lord's response? "Peter, this night you'll deny you even know me 3 times, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. When you are restored, strengthen your brothers."

Peter did in fact fail, like we all do, when our faith is in the strength of our own commitment. But then comes the sulking, the disallusionment, the sifting of our hearts. We're ashamed and shattered, but instead of quickly returning to the Lord in the confidence He's all we need, we stay at a dark distance. We need him, but we are afraid we can't hold on to Him once we return, so we linger. Could it be that we're being held down because we've mistaken faith in our own commitment for faith in Jesus Christ?

Contrast this with Brother Lawrence. When he stumbled into some sin, he would say to the Lord, "Lord, that is all I can do apart from you." Then he would immediatly turn to the Lord to resume fellowship with Him in joyful confidence that God brings him into the fellowship of His own dear Son. This is the blessing of having a relationship with God based on the Solid Rock of Christ, rather than the shifting sand of our own commitment.

Jesus is not building His church on the blocks of our commitment to Him. In fact, our trust in ourselves must be shattered before He can lay a foundation on which He can build. Jesus is however very confident in the effectiveness of His intercession on our behalf sealed with His own blood.

By God's grace, like Peter, we too need to come to a wonderful but painful revelation. We all SUCK at living the Christian life. I'm terrible at it, so are you. But you know what? God has never failed to welcome me back into fellowship because the blood of His Son is so precious to Him. He will never turn away any who come to Him through Christ. Jesus IS the way to the Father. We come to the Father through Him, not our own commitment.

Our faith is never more fully in Jesus than when we have absolutely NO confidence in our ourselves. God gives us the relationship of His own Son as a gift. Oh what a gift!

Simply Jesus

What began in simplicity and power as a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ soon became complicated. In the beginning I found the Word of God leaping off the page into my heart, giving me life directly from God. I found my life and heart inexplicably reoriented, refreshed, and cleansed as I spent time in prayer enjoying God's presence. That's how it started; in simplicity, with life coming from a fresh relationship with God in Christ.

It soon got complicated. Someone told me I needed to read the Bible every day and pray every day. Then they showed me how. I learned there were at least 14 different methods to study God's word. I learned about memorizing Bible verses. I learned how to make a "prayer list". I learned I was supposed to join an official "church" where there was a seminary trained pastor who would baptise me, run a Sunday school program, and teach me the Bible as I attended faithfully and brought my friends, tithed, etc.

Somewhere in there I began to take the practices I was learning and using them to evaluate my relationship with God. I began to try to "build an intimate relationship with God" which sounds like a good goal, but let's just say I discovered I had some "issues" that began a downward spiral. What "issues"?

Well, what if I asked you honestly, "Tell me about your relationship with God? How close to God are you?" Stop. Consider. Do you have good feelings? Negative feelings? What comes to mind? A list of things you should do and haven't or a list of things you shouldn't have done and but did anyway? Those issues.

Can I share with you God's wonderful answer to our "issue". It may even be good news. If you believe in Jesus, right now YOU have the same relationship with God as Jesus Christ. It's a gift eternally. That is God's answer for us... NOW, to enjoy forever. God has seen all our attempts to obey His standards, He sees our desire to learn His thoughts, He listens when we pray, etc. and sees all of our attempts to "build a close relationship with God". He comes to us, and makes a deal. "I'll do you a favor. Let's set all your efforts to build a relationship with me aside. I'm going to give you MY SON'S relationship with Me. I'm going to give you His place in my heart. The love I have for Him; it's Yours. I'm am a holy and righteous God; My Son is everything I delight in, so I'm going to give you Him as your righteousness. One last thing, My Son and I really enjoy a thrilling exchange of love in the Spirit. I'm going to join His Spirit to yours in an eternal fusion. You can now give up on establishing your own intimacy with me. I'm going to allow you to experience My Son's intimacy with me... as a real experience of His Spirit pouring His love out to me through you. Okay?"

Jesus has eternally enjoyed living in the bosom of the Father. In fact, He's completely One with His Father. And God adopted us as SONs... that means He's given us Jesus Christ's relationship with God for our eternal enjoyment. Wow! We can now enjoy Jesus Christ's relationship with God as our very own. Although our enjoyment and experience of this relationship can fluctuate, the relationship itself never changes. So, as the Word says, "Since you've received Jesus Christ the Lord, walk in Him"... crying with the Son's own Spirit "Abba, Father".