In the foregoing message we saw that the power of resurrection requires death as its base. If there is no death, it is impossible for the power of resurrection to be manifested. The four Gospels reveal this principle very clearly. The Gospels are a record of a Person who always lived under the death of the cross. Jesus was crucified not only at the end of the Gospels but throughout His life. As He was growing up and as He came into the ministry commissioned by God, He was continually under the death of the cross. In other words, He lived a crucified life. Based on the death of the cross, His resurrection power was manifested.
The Lord Jesus had two kinds of life, the divine life and the human life. He had the divine life for the purpose of expressing God and the human life for the purpose of having God expressed in man. In order for Him to accomplish such a marvelous expression, He had to continually set aside His human life so that His divine life could be manifested. The Lord Jesus made the decision regarding the setting aside of His human life, not by His divine life, but by His human life. This decision had to be made by the Lord Jesus as a man, not as God. God had already decided that the human life should be set aside for the expression of the divine life. However, it was necessary for the man to agree with God's decision. Thank the Lord that, as a man, the Lord Jesus decided of His own free will to set aside His human life so that His divine life might be expressed.
This matter of the will brings us back to Genesis 2. When God created man, He created him with a free will. The first man, Adam, was defeated; however, the second man, Jesus, came, also with a free will, and He was victorious. The entire universe, including Satan, the angels, and the demons, was watching to see what the Lord Jesus would do. Everything depended upon the decision He made with His will. Would He choose the will of God or something else? God's will was that Christ use His free will to choose God's will. Hallelujah, He did choose God's will! In Gethsemane the Lord prayed, "Not as I will, but as You will" (Matt. 26:39). To deny our will and to choose God's will means that we die on the cross.
Christ's commission was to express God in man. For this, He needed two kinds of life. In order to express God, He needed the divine life; and in order to express God in man, He needed the human life. As a man desiring to express God in His humanity, the first thing He had to do was to put His human life aside. This decision was not easy to make. Let me use once again the illustration of married life. Some sisters are eager to get married. But every sister who gets married must be prepared to be killed. The reason there are so many separations and divorces is that the wives are not willing to be killed by their husbands. Instead, they want to be emancipated. From the very beginning of her marriage, a sister must determine to take her husband's will. In every culture a bride wears a head covering during the wedding ceremony. This indicates the bride's submission to the will of her husband. For a wife to submit to her husband's will requires that she put herself to death.
When the Lord Jesus was about to begin His ministry, He was baptized. Baptism signifies burial, termination. Being buried in baptism was the inauguration of the Lord's ministry. During the three and a half years of His ministry, the Lord lived as a crucified and buried person, living always under death. This experience of death was the base for the manifestation of the power of resurrection. Where death was, there was resurrection.
For the sisters, marriage also is a form of baptism, a kind of burial. Forty years ago, I used to give a pleasant word at wedding meetings. But now if I am asked to say something, I tell the couple that marriage is an altar upon which they will be slaughtered. Sisters, do not forget that to be married is to be buried. If you want to get married, you must be ready to be buried. If you realize this, you will have a happy married life, for your marriage will be in resurrection.
In marriage, God requires more of the wife than He does of the husband. God does not ask the man to be killed by his wife because in marriage the man represents God. God is the universal man, the universal husband. In a marriage the husband represents God as the universal husband. If the wives are willing to be buried and to live a married life that is under the killing of the cross, the power of resurrection will be manifested, and all the troubles will disappear. I can assure the sisters that Satan, the evil angels, and the demons will be terrified by their termination and burial and will not bother them. The reason you are bothered by so many things is that you are still so alive.