This teaching concerning first dying and then living for the experience of the resurrection power is quite deep. There are not many Christians who know these matters. As a result, few people have this kind of experience today. Although the New Testament mentions this matter several times, due to the lack of this kind of concept, people do not see this when they read the Bible. The Chinese especially, who are full of the concept of good and evil, have no idea or feeling concerning the matters of life and death as mentioned in the Bible. When they read them, it is as if there was not such a thing. When I first studied the Bible, I also was unfamiliar with this matter. Later, I gradually received the enlightenment and tried to release the light concerning this matter. I believe that after you have listened to my speaking on this subject for a while, you will know, more or less, how to speak a little. Nevertheless, you still need to receive the light and to have revelation concerning this matter. Only then will this become reality to you.
According to the revelation in the Bible, when Christ was crucified on the cross, He included us all in Him. Then He brought us, who were dead in Him, into His resurrection. We were crucified together with Him, buried with Him, and also resurrected with Him. In resurrection, His divine element, that is, the Spirit and life, was mingled with our humanity. In this way, our resurrected humanity is uplifted in His divinity and is thus transformed and sanctified.
My burden in this chapter is to show you that for every saved person, the more he loves the Lord, the more he likes to remain in the Lord’s death. The Lord Jesus mentioned this in John 12:26: “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there also shall My servant be.” The Lord always put Himself in the place of death so that He would lose His soul life. If we want to serve the Lord, we should follow Him to walk on this pathway of losing the soul life and living in His resurrection. If we truly follow the Lord, we will definitely encounter sufferings and persecutions, and there will also be the distraction of the world and the pride of the flesh. Only by remaining in the Lord’s death can we overcome these trials and difficulties.
According to my observation, we who serve the Lord have another serious problem. It is our natural affection. To those who fit our taste, we are drawn closer; those who do not fit our taste, we will dislike and even separate ourselves from them. Leviticus 2 says that with all the meal offerings offered to Jehovah, there should not be any honey with leaven; rather, they should be mingled with salt (vv. 11-13). Honey here signifies natural affection, virtues, or excellencies; salt denotes the death of Christ, or the cross. Our natural affection can only bring in corruption and decay, but the death of Christ is effective in killing germs and preserving against decay. In the church life, regardless who treats us well, we should not become sectarian. We should consider all the saints to be the same; all are brothers and sisters in the Lord. The more we love the Lord, the more we need to learn to live in the Lord’s death so that we can be delivered from our natural affection, taste, and opinion.
Hence, the basic principle set up by the Bible for us believers is neither self-improvement nor the rejection of evil and the practice of good, but the putting of ourselves into the death of Christ. When we love the Lord and enjoy Him, we abide in Him. As such, His first operation is to put to death all the fleshly things in us. His “salt” with its germ-killing effectiveness will kill all the “germs” which come out of our naturalness. Whoever has had the experience can confirm this word. A. B. Simpson, who wrote Hymns, #481, knew this fact. In the second stanza he said,
’Tis not hard to die with Christ
When His risen life we know;
’Tis not hard to share His suff’rings
When our hearts with joy o’erflow.
In His resurrection power
He has come to dwell in me,
And my heart is gladly going
All the way to Calvary.
The more we die with Christ this way, the more His resurrection power will be manifested in us.