Through our dying and living with Christ, we can experientially know His resurrection (Phil. 3:10a). John 11:25 shows us that Christ Himself is the resurrection. Therefore, as long as we are in Him, receiving and enjoying the fact of dying and living with Him, we can experience and know the resurrection of Christ.
When we know the resurrection of Christ, we will live a crucified life in the power of His resurrection. Our knowledge of the resurrection of Christ becomes a kind of power that enables us to be conformed to the death of Christ, that is, to have the death of Christ as our mold of living (Phil. 3:10b). Therefore, our daily life ought to be a life under the cross, in which our soul life is continually put to death, so that we may live by the life of God.
When we acknowledge the fact of our dying with Christ and live under the cross, we can practically and experientially crucify the flesh and the lusts of the flesh (Gal. 5:24).
The facts accomplished by Christ on the cross can become our practical experience through the Spirit (Rom. 8:13b). The Spirit executes in us the accomplished crucifixion of Christ. In other words, it is by the Spirit that we put to death the lusts of the body, including the practices of the evil members of this lustful body. As a result, we will live.
As a conclusion, the New Testament consistently reveals to us that our Christian life is a life of living through dying. It is a life that expresses the resurrection of Christ through being crucified. This was what Christ experienced in His human living; this is also a principle and a fundamental fact in the Bible. Such a living through dying surpasses any philosophy in the world and any concept of asceticism taught by religion. We Christians already have the accomplished facts in God’s New Testament economy. All we have to do is receive by faith. These facts will become our enjoyment and experience, and we will live out Christ through dying with Him.
(A message given by Brother Witness Lee in Taipei, Taiwan on April 19, 1988)