In this message we shall consider how the believers enjoy the dispensing of the divine Trinity in the divine transformation for the divine conformation by being conformed to the death of Christ.
Philippians 3:10b speaks of being conformed to Christ’s death. This indicates that we need to take the death of Christ as the mold of our life. The mold of Christ’s death refers to the continual putting to death of His human life so that He might live by the life of God. Christ’s death is now a mold to which we are being conformed. As our human life is conformed to such a mold, we die to our human life in order to live the divine life.
Unless we are conformed to the death of Christ we cannot be conformed to the image of Christ. Christ’s death is a mold in which we are being shaped into His image as the firstborn Son of God. As we are undergoing the process of transformation and conformation, we are being conformed to the death of Christ.
Christ’s death took place throughout His life. As He was living, He was also dying. Daily He was molded by the cross, even when He was a child living in a carpenter’s home in Nazareth. He was continually being crossed out-crossed out by His mother, by His brothers, and by His disciples, who had no ear to hear what He spoke to them concerning His suffering and death on the cross. Day by day Christ died to the old creation in order to live a life in the new creation.
Being conformed to Christ’s death should be our daily experience as believers. The more our natural life is put to death, the more the divine life within us will be released. Then in our experience we shall be conformed to Christ’s death.
In Matthew 16:24 the Lord Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” The cross is not merely a suffering; it is primarily a killing. It kills and terminates the criminal. Christ first bore the cross and then was crucified. As He was bearing the cross, He was constantly under the killing, not under suffering. We, the believers in Christ, have first been crucified with Him and then bear the cross today. To us, bearing the cross is to remain under the killing of the death of Christ for the terminating of our self, our natural life, and our old man.
We may have a mistaken concept of the cross and think that the cross is only for suffering. It is wrong to associate the cross merely with suffering. In Matthew 16:24 the cross does not denote suffering but killing. The ultimate purpose of the cross is not to cause us to suffer; it is to terminate us, to kill us. The Lord’s word here does not have the concept of suffering; His concept concerning the cross is that of killing.
The meaning of bearing the cross is not to depart from the cross. All those who have experienced the cross agree that one who bears the cross cannot be separated from the cross. A person who bears the cross is one with the cross; he is inseparable from the cross.
In order to bear the cross, we need to realize that we have already been crucified. We have been killed on the cross with Christ, and now we must remain under this killing. We should be able to say, “I have been killed. My self-life, my natural life, my old man, and my whole being have been killed. Now I must remain under this killing.” This is what it means to bear the cross.
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