Message Seven

Living a Crucified Life
for the Manifestation of the Resurrection Life
by the Excellent Power of the Treasure
in the Earthen Vessels

Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 4:7-18

1. Second Corinthians 3 and 4 are an accurate and precious record of Paul’s spiritual constitution:
   1. What the apostles ministered was their constitution; they ministered what they were, what they had become—cf. Phil. 1:20-21a.
   2. This means that their reconstituted being became their ministry—cf. Acts 20:18.
2. The indwelling Christ as the treasure in us, the earthen vessels, is the divine source of the supply for the Christian life and the excellent power for us to live a crucified life for the manifestation of the resurrection life—2 Cor. 4:7; Phil. 4:13:
   1. Paul said that he and his co-workers “were excessively burdened, beyond our power, so that we despaired even of living...that we should not base our confidence on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead”—2 Cor. 1:8-9.
   2. Actually, resurrection requires death, discouragement, and disappointment in order to be manifested—v. 4; 7:5-6.
   3. The working of the cross terminates our self that we may enjoy the God of resurrection; such experience produces and forms the ministry—1:4-6.
3. The apostles lived the resurrection life under the killing of the cross, for the carrying out of their ministry:
   1. “Always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body”—4:10:
      1. Jesus, in a positive sense, is always killing all the negative things within us in order to heal and enliven us—Phil 1:19; cf. Exo. 30:23-25.
      2. When we reject ourselves in the morning to receive God into us, we have the sense during the day that a killing process is going on within us—cf. Prov. 4:18.
   2. “For 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”—2 Cor. 4:11:
      1. The killing of the cross results in the manifestation of the resurrection life; this daily killing is for the release of the divine life in resurrection—1 Cor. 15:31; 2 Cor. 4:16.
      2. The title Jesus 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.
   3. “So then death operates in us, but life in you”—2 Cor. 4:12:
      1. When we are under the killing of the Lord’s death, His resurrection life is imparted through us into others—cf. Josh. 3:17.
      2. The way for the church to come into being and to increase is not by human glory; it is by the death of the cross for the release of the fire of the divine life—Luke 12:49-50; John 2:19; 12:24-26:
         1. The Lord, as a grain of wheat that fell into the ground, lost His soul-life through death that He might release His eternal life in resurrection to the many grains.
         2. As the many grains, we also must lose our soul-life through death that we may enjoy eternal life in resurrection.
4. It is by the spirit of faith that the apostles lived a crucified life in resurrection for the carrying out of their ministry—2 Cor. 4:13; 5:7:
   1. We must exercise our mingled spirit, the spirit of faith, to believe and to speak, like the psalmist (Psa. 116:10a), the things we have experienced of the Lord, especially His death and resurrection.
   2. Faith is in our spirit, which is mingled with the Holy Spirit, not in our mind; doubts are in our mind—cf. Heb. 11:6.
   3. Through the exercise of our spirit of faith, we regard the unseen things of eternal glory, not the seen things of temporary affliction—2 Cor. 4:18:
      1. The Christian life is a life of things unseen—Heb. 11:1.
      2. The Lord’s recovery is to recover His church from things seen to things unseen—v. 27; 1 Pet. 1:8.
5. “Therefore we do not lose heart; but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day”—2 Cor. 4:16:
   1. The outer man consists of the body as its organ with the soul as its life and person; the inner man consists of the regenerated spirit as its life and person with the renewed soul as its organ.
   2. In order to live a crucified life, the life of the soul must be denied (Matt. 16:24-25), but the functions of the soul—the mind, will, and emotion—must be renewed and uplifted by being subdued (2 Cor. 10:4-5) so that they can be used by the spirit, the person of the inner man.
   3. Our outer man is being consumed and worn out, but our inner man is being daily renewed by being nourished with the fresh supply of the resurrection life:
      1. The Christian life is a life of being renewed day by day with the divine element through the process of sufferings—1 Thes. 3:3; Jer. 48:11:
         1. We are renewed by the cross, the Holy Spirit, our mingled spirit, and the word of God—2 Cor. 4:10; Titus 3:5; Eph. 4:23; 5:26.
         2. We need to be revived every morning—Matt. 13:43; Prov. 4:18.
         3. We should come to the Lord’s table in the principle of newness by forgiving others and seeking to be forgiven—Matt. 26:29; 5:23-24; 18:21-22, 35.
      2. “Our momentary lightness of affliction works out for us, more and more surpassingly, an eternal weight of glory”—2 Cor. 4:17:
         1. All the sufferings God has assigned to us have one unique purpose—to renew us; today we are in the process of being renewed to become the New Jerusalem—Rev. 21:2.
         2. The weight of glory will become the beauty of the adorned bride—v. 11.