First Corinthians 2:2 says, “For I did not determine to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and this One crucified.” Verse 18 of chapter one says, “For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Verse 23 also says, “But we preach Christ crucified.” From these few verses we can see that Christ and the cross are inseparable.
God’s purpose is that Christ would mingle Himself with us to be our life and nature, that the two-Christ and we-would become one. Christ and we being one is the issue of the mingling of the two-Christ and His believers. We may say that everyone who is truly saved is two yet one-having two lives, two natures, and two personalities. This is why many times in our experience we live a life of contradictions. We experience having two persons-one within and one without. The person within is Christ, and the person without is our self. Sometimes the inward One will not approve of what the outward one wants. Other times the outward one will not go along with what the inward One intends to do. Thus, there is often a conflict within us. The person without clearly resists the will of the person within, and the person within obviously condemns the intentions of the person without. This shows us that every saved one has a dual life and dual personality; moreover, it proves that God is truly in us.
The crux of the matter is this: do we want God or ourselves to gain the victory? Do we want God or ourselves to be defeated? Do we want the inward person or the outward person to have a free way? This is a crucial question. If we allow our outward person to have a free way, that is, if we allow our self to gain the victory, ten years from now we will still be the same; we will still be what we were originally. However, if we allow our inward person to have a free way in us, that is, if we allow God to gain the victory, then God will be expressed through us. Consequently, people will be able to meet God in us. Thus, the crucial question is whether it is God who has the ground to rule and direct in us or we who rule and direct ourselves. Herein lie our victory, our holiness, our experience of all spiritual realities, and even our growth in life in the Lord.
If we allow our inward person to be frustrated and our outward person to prosper, we as Christians will definitely be defeated, and it will be impossible for us to be holy, to grow in life, and to be spiritual. If we do not live in and by the Lord, we surely will not live for the Lord. Even though we will still have the Lord’s life, we will live in, by, and for ourselves.
This kind of living prevents the Lord from having a way in us. Furthermore, it causes Him to be frustrated just as He was frustrated and restricted in the flesh in His incarnation. Hence, He said, “How I am pressed” (Luke 12:50). Today, however, He is pressed not in His flesh but in you and me. Previously He was pressed, constrained, and bound in His flesh, which He put upon Himself in His incarnation. Therefore, He had to pass through death that the life within Him could be released. Now, however, we cause Him to be constrained; we give Him such a problem. Our conduct, our disposition, our naturalness, our oldness, and all that comes from our old life and our old nature cause Him to be bound, pressed, and restricted. Therefore, we need to be broken and to pass through death.
If we preach the gospel merely with words, our preaching will not be effective. Christ cannot be readily released by our preaching the gospel merely with our mouth. We need to be broken; we need the mark of death on us. Since we are saved, Christ lives in us, yet this Christ who is within us cannot be released because He has been bound, concealed, and covered within us. The problem lies in our natural self, which needs to be broken, to pass through death, and to be dealt with by death.
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