Biblical teaching - T115

The Power of the Preaching of the Cross

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So we can never give Jesus enough glory for what He achieved on the Cross. God wants to keep on revealing the depths of Jesus’ work on the Cross, as well as the power of the preaching of the Cross. Everything has been dealt with at the Cross. Jesus has provided for every single one of my problems, whether it is bad temper, bodily sickness, or some consequence of my past sins (or of the sins of my ancestors right back to Adam). The work of the Holy Spirit is to give me a spiritual understanding of those things, so that I can receive them in faith and say : "Lord, I take that as mine". In the same way as you received the forgiveness of your sins by faith, you now receive your death in Christ by faith. That is why the Lord says to us : "Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 6:11). We are not to strive to persuade ourselves and go around repeating to ourselves "I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead…" No, we are to come before the Lord and His Word, and to say to Him : "Lord, you say so, and I need to understand this through Your Holy Spirit. Yes, my brain understands it, of course, but I need to receive spiritual understanding of it through Your Holy Spirit. I want to live it out in my daily life, so that all can see that I am indeed crucified, that I have no personal desire except obeying and serving You, Lord. I no longer want to justify myself or try to prove to other people that I am somebody ; I don’t want to defend myself when I am unfairly attacked, or boast about my qualities and my capabilities. I won’t go on trying to hide my faults, holding on to my uncrucified self, for fear of being judged and hurt by others."

The Lord desires His work to be complete and perfect. Since that work is complete and perfect in Jesus, you may be sure, my brother, my sister, that as soon as the Holy Spirit reveals to you that you are indeed crucified, you also receive a full provision for an ongoing, lifelong sanctification. That revelation is given instantly. You are going to walk in it daily by faith and never forget it. You won’t be like the Galatians, who had begun to walk in the Spirit, then fallen back into the flesh, having forgotten that revelation. Paul said to them : "O foolish Galatians ! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified ?" (Gal. 3:1).

The whole of Paul’s work had amounted to telling the Galatians about Jesus Christ crucified. He had explained that all their sins had been forgiven in Jesus, but that was not enough : Paul had also to make them understand that their flesh had been destroyed through the death of Jesus.

If you keep your flesh alive, it will compel you to sin over and over again, and you will keep having to ask for forgiveness day after day. Of course, when the Holy Spirit shows us that we have sinned, we do need to ask to be forgiven at once. However, there is a higher walk, a walk in the Spirit, a crucified life. That does not imply that we shall never sin. We are still liable to sin if we forget, if we look back, if we are caught off guard, if we depart from our faith in the Word. But it is possible never to sin again. Not that we can ever reach the goal in our own strength, but it can be done, for the Holy Spirit imparts an understanding of how perfect Jesus’ work is, and we enter into it through faith. Moment by moment, I shall receive grace from God to walk in that faith. When I meet with sin and temptation, I shall be strong enough to resist and to do as Paul said : "Do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God." (Rom. 6:13).

What enables me to do so, then ? Believing that I am crucified with Christ, and therefore no longer ruled by my flesh but by the Spirit of the Lord. I can do it because I wholeheartedly believe what Jesus has revealed to me. If with all your heart, you believe that you are a crucified creature, that your flesh is dead, that your former self has been put to death, you will walk in the revelation of it. "As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him." (Col. 2:6).

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