This illustration of a carnation seed is in keeping with the revelation of the New Testament. As reborn ones, we have the seed of God within us. According to 1 John 3:9, the seed of God remains in all those who have been born of God. This seed contains the divine life, and this life is the power of resurrection. In order for resurrection life to be released from within the seed, the outer shell of the seed must be broken. This requires suffering.
In 3:10 Paul goes on to speak of the fellowship of Christ’s suffering and of being conformed to His death. The fellowship of Christ’s sufferings is our participation in His sufferings. During His entire life, Christ underwent a process of breaking so that the life power could be released from within Him. In particular, He was broken when He died on the cross. The divine life seed has been planted into our being. Now we also need to be broken that the life power within the seed can be released. If our outer man is broken, the seed within us will be able to release its life power.
Eventually, this process of the breaking of the outer man will result in full conformity to the death of Christ. In this way the death of Christ becomes a model, or pattern, for our breaking. Then in our daily life we shall be able to apply Christ to our every need. If we need power, He will become power to us. If we need patience, He Himself will be our patience. This is to know Christ, to experience Him, and to enjoy Him.
In 3:10 Paul uses the expression “being conformed to His death.” This expression indicates that Paul desired to take Christ’s death as the mold of his life. Christ’s death is a mold to which we are conformed in much the same way that dough is put in a cake mold and conformed to it. Paul continually lived a crucified life, a life under the cross, just as Christ did in His human living. Through such a life, the resurrection power is experienced and expressed. The mold of Christ’s death refers to the continual putting to death of His human life that He might live by the life of God (John 6:57). Our life should be conformed to such a mold—dying to our human life in order to live the divine life. Being conformed to the death of Christ is the condition for knowing and experiencing Him, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings.
In our daily living we should be “dough” conformed to the mold of Christ’s death. If we allow our circumstances to press us into this mold, our daily life will be molded into the pattern of Christ’s death. This was Paul’s concept when he spoke of being conformed to the death of Christ.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He lived a crucified life. Christ had two lives—the divine life and the human life. It was God’s desire that the man Jesus live the divine life by means of His human life. God did not want Him simply to live out the human life. Rather, it was God’s intention that the Lord Jesus live the divine life through the channel of the human life.
This kind of living can be illustrated by what happens when a branch from one tree is grafted into another tree. The branch that has been grafted into the tree does not live out its own life; instead, it lives the life of the tree into which it has been grafted. This means that the life of the tree flows out through the branch which has been grafted into it.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He always put His human life to death so that the divine life within Him could be lived out. This is the pattern of Christ’s death. In the eyes of man, the Lord Jesus was crucified at the end of His ministry. But in the eyes of God, He was crucified throughout His life on earth. This is proved by the fact that He was baptized when He came forth to minister, as an indication that He had put Himself into death. The Lord’s baptism by John indicated that He was living His human life under the killing power of the cross. His was a life in which the human life was crucified, so that the divine life could be lived out. What a wonderful living the Lord Jesus had!
This wonderful living implies the pattern of Christ’s death. According to this pattern, Christ continually put to death His human life so that His divine life could flow out. This is the mold of the life of Christ and the death of Christ.
There can be no doubt that the human life of the Lord Jesus was excellent. But even such an excellent human life was put to death for the sake of the release of the divine life. Please pay attention to the fact that the Lord’s human life was not put to death because it was wrong in some way; it was put to death so that the divine life could be lived out. This was the reason the Lord’s human life had to be rejected, broken, and put to death. The principle should be the same with us today. As those who believe in Christ and who have been regenerated by the Spirit, we have both the human life and the divine life. No matter how good our human life may be, it must be put to death if the divine life is to be lived out.
However, most Christians think that only the negative elements of the human life need to be put to death. According to their understanding, a person would not need to put his human life to death if every aspect of it were good. This understanding is wrong. Every aspect of the human life, the good as well as the bad, must be put to death so that the divine life can be released. This means that even such elements of the human life as Chinese ethics and British diplomacy must be put to death. As long as something belongs to the human life, it must be put to death in order for the divine life to be lived out. Daily we need to live such a crucified life, a life in which the human life is always put to death so that there may be an opportunity for the divine life within us to be lived out. This is what it means to be conformed to Christ’s death.
Do not think that a believer is conformed to the death of Christ only at the time of martyrdom. No, being conformed to Christ’s death should be our experience day by day. As we speak with our husband or wife, with our parents, with our children, or with those around us at work or school, we must put our natural life to death and not live according to it. If we put to death our natural life, we shall have the consciousness that we have another life, the divine life, within us. Once our outward natural life is put to death, the inner divine life will be released. Then in our experience we shall be conformed to Christ’s death.