Bearing the cross means to be identified with the crucified Christ. Christ passed through death by being crucified; we must be one with Him. This involves our being identified with the crucified Christ, not with the glorified Christ.
The meaning of bearing the cross is that we bear about in our body the death of Christ, allowing the death of Christ to work continuously on us for the putting to death of our self. To bear the cross is also to remain in the death of Christ. The death of Christ is our destiny and our goal. If we want to be transformed and conformed to the image of Christ the Firstborn, we need to remain in His death, taking His death as our dwelling place. Hence, the meaning of bearing the cross is to join ourselves to the crucified Christ and remain with Him in His death. If we do not remain in Christ’s death, we are forsaking His cross; if we remain in His death, we are bearing the cross. This is to be conformed to the death of Christ.
We need to have a clear vision: to bear the cross is not to suffer but rather to keep ourselves under the termination of death. The cross of Christ is a terminating death; as those who bear the cross, we keep ourselves under Christ’s termination. By the Lord’s grace we should remain in the place of termination our whole life.
Not only do we bear the cross, identifying ourselves with the crucified Christ and remaining in His death, we also need to realize that our old man has been crucified. Romans 6:6 says, “Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin as slaves.” Having been baptized into Christ, we are now in Christ. As we are in Him, whatever He has passed through has become our history. He has been crucified, and His crucifixion is our crucifixion. This is a glorious fact. We need to see this vision—we are in Him, and we were crucified together with Him. God has accomplished the glorious fact of putting us into Christ; our old man has been crucified with Him.
The knowing in Romans 6:6 is actually the seeing of a fact in a spiritual vision. Such a vision is basic to our knowing. After we see a certain thing, we can never say that we do not know it. Thus, if we have a clear vision concerning the fact that our old man has been crucified with Christ, we know this in reality. We should not be content with a mere doctrinal understanding; we need to clearly see in our spirit the divine fact that our old man has been crucified with Christ.
Because our old man has been crucified, our body of sin has been annulled. Knowing that our old man has been crucified with Christ, the body that had been utilized by the old man as the instrument of sinning has nothing to do; it is unemployed, jobless.
Romans 6:7 continues, “For he who has died is justified from sin.” To be justified from sin is to be cleared, released, and freed from sin. When we are justified from sin, we no longer owe sin any debt or have any obligation toward sin.
Galatians 5:24 says, “They who are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its lusts.” “They who are of Christ Jesus” are those who have believed into Christ and have been baptized into Christ; therefore, they belong to Christ. As saved ones, we are now of Christ.
According to Paul’s word, those who are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh. The crucifixion of the old man in Romans 6:6 is not accomplished by us. But these verses say that we have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. The old man is our being; the flesh is the expression of our being in our practical living. The crucifixion of our old man is a fact accomplished by Christ on the cross, but the crucifying of our flesh with its passions and lusts is our practical experience of this fact. Through Christ’s crucifixion we have been crucified with Christ. This enables us to crucify our flesh with its passions and lusts. In other words, our having been crucified with Christ enables us to crucify our flesh. Our crucifying the flesh is based upon the fact that our old man has been crucified with Christ.
We need to have a clear understanding concerning the old man and the flesh. We do not need to deal with the old man, because the old man has been crucified with Christ. However, day by day we need to crucify our flesh. The problems in our daily life do not come from the old man; rather, they come from the flesh with its passions and lusts. Therefore, based upon the fact that our old man has been dealt with by the death of Christ, we need to practically crucify our flesh.
It is very important to see the difference between Romans 6:6 and Galatians 5:24. We cannot crucify the old man, but we can crucify the flesh. The crucifixion of the old man has been accomplished by Christ, but the crucifixion of the flesh must be executed by us. In speaking about the crucifixion of the flesh, Galatians 5 uses the perfect tense. It does not say that we are crucifying the flesh or that we shall crucify it but that we have crucified it. There are two aspects to crucifixion. The first aspect involves the crucifixion of the old man when Christ was crucified. The second aspect involves our crucifixion of our flesh. Based upon the fact that Christ has crucified our old man, we have crucified the flesh. The second aspect—our crucifying the flesh—is the application of the first aspect—Christ’s crucifying of the old man. In our experience we need to apply the crucifixion of Christ to our flesh. The use of the perfect tense to describe this indicates that the crucifixion of our flesh should be the normal experience of the believers. All believers should apply Christ’s crucifixion to their flesh. If we have never crucified our flesh, then our experience is abnormal. If our experience is normal, we who belong to Christ should have crucified the flesh.