The believers’ losing their soul is the reality of the denying of their self and the bearing of the cross. The soul life is embodied in the self. To deny ourself is to forfeit our soul life. To bear the cross is to put to death the self, the soul life. To identify ourselves with Christ’s death is to bear the cross, and to bear the cross is to deny our soul life.
For the believers to lose their soul is for them to experience the death of Christ. The believers in Christ have been crucified (terminated) with Him. After being organically united with Him through faith, they should remain on the cross, keeping their old man in the termination of the cross (Rom. 6:3; Col. 2:20). This is to participate in Christ’s crucifixion. As we remain in this crucifixion, this termination, experiencing the death of Christ subjectively, we lose our soul.
To lose the soul is to live no longer in the natural life. The soul has much to do with the natural life. Our natural life needs to be dealt with by losing the soul. Everything that belongs to the natural life and its habits must be put aside. When our natural life has been put to death, we shall then lose our soul.
For the believers to lose their soul is to hate (not love above the Lord-Matt. 10:37) their fathers, mothers, wives, children, brothers, sisters, and moreover, their own soul life. In Matthew 10:37 the Lord Jesus says, “He who loves father or mother above Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter above Me is not worthy of Me.” Our love must be absolute for the Lord. In our love nothing should be above Him. He is the One absolutely worthy of our love, and we must be worthy of Him.
In Luke 14:26 the Lord Jesus says, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and moreover, his own soul life also, he cannot be My disciple.” According to the Lord’s word here, we should hate those we love, not those we do not love. Especially we need to hate ourselves, even our own soul life. What we love in ourselves is not mainly our spirit or body but our soul. In 14:26 the Lord clearly says that if we do not hate our own soul life, we cannot be His disciples. A genuine proof that we are seeking the Lord is that we hate our soul life.
Losing our soul in this age is for our soul to be saved in the coming age. When the Lord Jesus comes back, He will exercise His judgment over all the believers. At that time a decision will be made whether or not we shall suffer some kind of dispensational punishment. For our soul to be saved means that it is saved from dispensational punishment in the coming age and instead participates in the joy of the Lord. For a believer to pass through dispensational punishment in the coming age means that he loses his soul.
First Peter 1:9 says, “Obtaining the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” The salvation here is full salvation, the salvation which is in three stages-the initial stage, the progressing stage, and the completing stage. Our spirit has been saved through regeneration (John 3:5-6). Our body will be saved, redeemed, through the coming transfiguration (Rom. 8:23; Phil. 3:21). Our soul will be saved from sufferings into the full enjoyment at His unveiling, His coming back. For this we have to deny our soul, our soulish life, with all its pleasures in this age, that we may gain it in the enjoyment of the Lord in the coming age (Matt. 10:37-39; 16:24-27; Luke 17:30-33; John 12:25). At the Lord’s unveiling, some believers through His judgment seat will enter into the joy of the Lord (Matt. 25:21, 23; 24:45-46), and some will suffer in weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 25:30; 24:51). To enter into the Lord’s joy is the salvation of our souls (Heb. 10:39).
When the Lord Jesus comes back, our soul will be saved from the realm of suffering into a realm of comfort. That will be the full salvation of our soul. Therefore, we are waiting for the unveiling of the Lord Jesus. At the time of His coming back we shall be rescued from the realm of suffering into a realm of enjoyment. In that realm we shall have the full enjoyment of the Triune God and of all that He is, has, and has accomplished, attained, and obtained. This is the salvation of our souls that is ready to be revealed to us at the last time.
As those who are being conformed to the death of Christ, we have died with Christ from the elements of the world- the worldly ordinances according to the teachings of men. Every religion has ordinances, regulations, rules, and codes. These are religious ordinances taught by men. In Christ we have died to these things.
In Colossians 2:20-22 Paul says, “If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why as living in the world do you subject yourself to ordinances: do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, things which are all for corruption in the using, according to the commandments and teachings of men?” The elements of the world include Jewish observances, heathen ordinances, and philosophy. They also include gnosticism, asceticism, and mysticism. The elements of the world are the elementary principles of worldly society, the rudimentary principles invented by mankind and practiced in society. With Christ we have died to these elements of the world. When Christ was crucified, we were crucified also. In His crucifixion we were released from the elementary principles of the world.
In order to be conformed to the death of Christ, we must bear the cross, have our old man crucified, crucify the flesh with the passions and lusts, put to death the practices of the body, deny the self, lose the soul, and experience having died with Christ from the elements of the world. Six negative things need to be dealt with: the old man, the body of sin, the flesh with the passions and lusts, the practices of the body, the self, and the soul. None of these things can remain in the mold of the death of Christ, for Christ’s death cuts these things off, kills them, nullifies them. Therefore, not a trace of these six things can be found in the pattern of Christ’s death. Actually, to be conformed to the death of Christ is to deal with these six negative things. The more these things are dealt with, the more we are conformed to Christ’s death that we may be conformed to His image as the firstborn Son of God. The firstborn Son of God has humanity, but He does not have the old man, the body of sin, the flesh with the passions and lusts, the practices of the body, the self, or the soul. For us to be conformed to Christ’s image, we must be dealt with by the cross and thereby be conformed to His death.
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