In 2 Corinthians 4:11 Paul declares, “We who are alive are always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” The title Jesus in verses 10 and 11 implies that the apostles lived a life like the one the Lord Jesus lived on earth. The Lord’s life was a life under the killing of the cross for the manifestation of the resurrection life, a life lived in such a way that His person was one with His ministry and His life was His ministry (John 6:14-15; 12:13, 19, 23-24). The use of flesh and body interchangeably in 2 Corinthians 4:10-11 indicates that the mortal flesh is our fallen body.
In order for the life of God to come out of the Lord Jesus, He had to pass through death. He indicated that without death there would be no life (John 12:24). Without death as the pathway, life cannot be released. The way of life is the way of death; wherever there is death, there is a way for life to come out. The expression of the Lord’s life in us is contingent upon one thing—death. The extent to which death has worked in us is the extent to which the Lord’s life has a way to come out of us. For this reason, even Paul, who was full of experience and was mature in life, pursued to know Christ’s death; he wanted to be conformed to His death (Phil. 3:10). He pursued this death because he knew that the extent to which death worked in him would be the extent to which the Lord’s life could be released from him.
The death that operates in us and the putting to death of Jesus are the realization and application of the death of Christ in our daily life. The more we pass through death, the more life will be expressed from us. For example, a brother who quarrels with his wife may endeavor to express the Lord and to allow the Lord’s life to flow out. However, his natural strength is insufficient to express Christ and to allow His life to flow out. Once he is under the discipline of the Holy Spirit, however, the Spirit will enable him to cooperate with and submit to the Holy Spirit. Then his wife will sense a flavor of Christ coming from him, and she will see to some extent Christ’s life in him because the death of the cross has been realized and is being carried out in him. The cross brings in both death and the expression of the resurrection life.
The Spirit leads us into the death of the cross hour by hour and day by day. This is the leading and work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in us wants to bring us into death every moment. The stronger the Holy Spirit’s work in us is, the stronger our experience of the cross will be. Without the death of the cross, there is no work of the Holy Spirit; wherever the Holy Spirit works, there is a putting to death by the Spirit.
From morning until evening and from evening until morning, the Holy Spirit is working in us. He requires that we receive the cross, and He puts us into the death of the cross. The way of life is death, and death is the way of life. When we walk on the way of life, we walk on the way of the death of the cross. The Christian life is a living of the cross and a living of death. Every day we experience death in the Holy Spirit, and we live and walk under death. Death deals with our person. As we are dealt with and broken, the life of God in us will have a free way.
In 2 Corinthians 4:11 Paul does not use the adjective manifest. Instead, he uses the verb be manifested. There is a difference between something that is manifest and something manifested. The word manifest does not involve experience or a process, but manifested involves a process, a procedure. In these verses Paul does not say that the life of Jesus may be manifest. If he had said this, no process or procedure would have been involved. There would be no need for us to go through anything in our experience. But when Paul speaks of the life of Jesus being manifested in us, that involves a process and requires a procedure. In verses 10 through 12 we can definitely see the manifestation of life.
In verse 11 we may expect Paul to speak of being rescued from death, instead of being delivered unto death. Paul, however, was always being delivered unto death so that the life of Jesus might be manifested in his mortal flesh. Paul preferred to be small and to remain in a lowly state. In fact, the name Paul means “little.” The life manifested in Paul was the life of a Nazarene, not the life of a great man in the world. Moreover, the life of Jesus was manifested in his mortal flesh. Paul did not consider himself a great person manifesting something marvelous in a splendid body. Instead, he considered himself a small person manifesting the life of Jesus, a man from Nazareth, in his mortal flesh.
When we consider the record of the Lord’s life on earth, we see that the emphasis is not on works. The four Gospels do not stress what the Lord did, what works He accomplished. The record concerning the Lord Jesus in the Gospels is mainly a record of life. In the Gospels the emphasis is on life, not on works or activities. The Gospels are biographies presenting a person living in a particular way. Therefore, the Gospels are not primarily an account of the Lord’s marvelous works; they are a description of the life the Lord Jesus lived on earth. This is one reason that Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 uses the name Jesus so often. The use of this name in chapter 4 brings us back to the Lord as a man whose life was one with His ministry. The Lord lived in such a way that His person was one with His ministry. Strictly speaking, the Lord did not accomplish a work. Instead, He simply lived a certain kind of life. The portrait in the Gospels was painted in such a way as to show forth the Lord’s life. The Gospels do describe the Lord’s works, but much more the Gospels present the life Jesus lived and show us by what way He lived.
There are a number of indications in the Gospels that the Lord Jesus did not care for the accomplishing of a great work. One example of the Lord’s caring for life and not for a work is found in John 12. In Jerusalem a great crowd gave a warm welcome to the Lord Jesus. They took palm branches and went out to meet Him, crying, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” (v. 13). Even the Pharisees admitted that the world had gone after Him (v. 19). But when Andrew and Philip told the Lord that the Greeks were seeking Him, He answered, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (vv. 23-24). This indicates clearly that what the Lord Jesus cared for was life, not work. In the four Gospels there are many illustrations of this. Whenever people, according to their concept, thought that the opportunity was right for the Lord to accomplish a great work, He never took advantage of that opportunity. Instead, He departed. He had not come to do a great work. His concern was life.
Jesus of Nazareth did not seek to be great or famous. On the contrary, He was a grain of wheat that fell into the ground and died. In this way Jesus became the first Minister of the new covenant. We need to follow Him to also become ministers of the new covenant. The Lord, as a grain of wheat that fell into the ground, lost His soul-life through death so that He might release His eternal life to the many grains in resurrection. As the many grains, we also must lose our soul-life through death that we may enjoy eternal life in resurrection. Concerning this, we must look to the Lord and pray desperately to Him. We need to tell the Lord that we are willing to be today’s Paul, not a great person or a famous believer, but a small man, a crucified man, even a Nazarene.