God, however, can never be affected by death. Regardless of how much death He passes through, He will remain the same. Death simply helps Him to be released. Do not think that death is always bad; sometimes death is good. Sometimes death releases. When a grain of wheat is sown into the earth, it dies. Is the death of that grain terrible, or is it wonderful? We have to say that the death of that grain is wonderful because, without death, all the riches and all the beautiful things in the grain could never be released. By death, the life and all the riches of the grain are released. Thus, it is not a terrible death, but a wonderful death. Death is wonderful to God. The Lord Jesus said that unless a grain of wheat were to fall into the earth and die, it would remain alone; but if it were to die, it would be multiplied into many grains (John 12:24). He was speaking of Himself as the one grain who would fall into the ground and die to bring forth many grains. By His death, the riches of His life were released. When God went to the altar, to the cross, and died, His life was released.
On the other hand, man was also on the cross. When the Lord Jesus died, man also died, and this death meant the termination of man. All the negative things related to man were terminated there. Hallelujah! We all were terminated on the cross. By the all-inclusive death of the Lord Jesus on the cross, we were terminated and all the riches of God were released. The all-inclusive death of Christ on the cross is a wonderful release to God and a wonderful termination to us. The riches of God were released there, and the negative things were terminated there. Therefore, the all-inclusive death of Christ on the cross is our termination and God's release.
The mingling of God with man began when the Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem. By His incarnation, God came into man. But the mingling of man with God began on the cross and was fully accomplished at the resurrection. By the Lord Jesus' death and resurrection, we were mingled with God. We were put into God. Thus, by incarnation God came into man, and by death and resurrection, man was put into God. Hallelujah! All that we are and all that we have was terminated on the altar, and all that God is was released to us by His resurrection. Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! If we bury both a grain of wheat and a small stone, a plant will grow out of the grain of wheat and the small stone will simply be terminated. This is our history. Through the death of the cross the Lord as a grain of wheat was released, but we, as a small dead stone, were terminated. Hallelujah for the cross!
We have been terminated, and His life has been imparted to us. Hallelujah! This is marvelous. Now we are wonderful persons! Before we were saved, when we were outside of the wall of the temple compound, we were not wonderful. Rather, we loved ourselves so much. But once we were saved and passed through the gate into the outer court, although we no longer loved ourselves so much, still we had a certain amount of pity on ourselves. But when we get into the inner court, we no longer love ourselves or pity ourselves, but rather we hate ourselves. As we walk further and come to the altar, we can see that the ugly self whom we loved on the street, whom we pitied in the outer court, and whom we hated in the inner court has already been terminated. It has been terminated, so why should we love it or pity it or even hate it? Let us simply forget about our poor self. Let us leave it alone on the altar. We all need this vision of the altar. We need to see that, whether we are young or old, we were terminated on the cross at the same time.