A-e014 The power of the preaching of the Cross (1/5)

Spoken biblical teaching by Henri Viaud-Murat

This message is the first of a set of 5.
You know that a house needs to be built on firm foundations : Jesus says that it must actually be
built on rock. A house built on sand won’t last very long : as soon as the rains start falling and the
winds start blowing, it will disintegrate for lack of a firm foundation. The Bible tells us that our
whole life has to be built on a single foundation, Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus and His Word are
one ; so to build my life on Jesus Christ is to build it up according to His Word. To build my life
according to His word, is to build it on Jesus.
So tonight I want to go back to the foundation, to Jesus, to remind us of some important truths,
for I can see that we readily forget them — that’s what the devil does : he comes and changes our
thinking to make us forget the Word of the Lord. As the apostle Peter said, we need to go back to
those truths so as not to forget them. And if we have forgotten them, then we need to turn back,
start again and rebuild our lives in the proper place, that is to say on Jesus. Tonight you will
check and see whether your house is properly built. If any part of it is built on sand, watch out !
You need to remove the sand and build on rock. Jesus is that rock, He is the Rock of ages.
Let us read from 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, verse 1 : "And I brethren, when I came to you, did not
come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified". What
accuracy and clarity in that statement : "When I came to you, I was determined not to know
anything among you except…" Paul was an apostle, called to build up the Church of Jesus and to
teach the Word. When he came and taught that Word to the Corinthians, he said to them : "In my
heart there was one single thought concerning you…" That is to say concerning the Corinthians
and concerning us, the Christians who are gathered here : "I was determined not to know
anything…except Jesus Christ." Not Jesus Christ as described by all and sundry ! There are
many, nowadays, who do away with the Cross of Christ and who preach another Jesus, not the
Jesus of the Scriptures, but a Jesus who is a philosopher, a psychologist, or a Santa Claus : one
who is not the real Jesus.
Paul says : "Him crucified". You know that Jesus came into the world for one purpose only : to
die on the cross. His purpose was not to heal the sick, cast out demons, grant blessings and speak
words of comfort. He did those things too, but his sole purpose was to die on a cross for us, and
all those other things are given through the Cross.
The Jesus we Christians need to build our lives on is Jesus Christ crucified. Nowadays people no
longer want to hear about the Cross : they want a cheerful, joyful, loving, smiling Jesus. They say
: "His crucifixion took place two thousand years ago : Jesus went to the Cross, then He rose
again." Nowadays people obliterate the Cross and forget about it. They preach another gospel,
which is no longer the Gospel of Jesus Christ. However, throughout all eternity, there will be
nothing else except Jesus Christ crucified. Even in heaven the Bible will remain. Throughout
eternity we shall see the scars left by the nails in Jesus’ hands and feet, the scars on His heart and
His side. Jesus has chosen to keep those scars so that we shall forever be reminded that He was
crucified for us. That thought must always be with us : when Jesus says : "I am the door, I am the
way." There is no door apart from the Cross ; there is no way apart from the Cross. Jesus walked
that way, for had he not gone to the Cross, He could neither have paid the debt for our sins nor
opened heaven’s door for us. Remove the Cross, and nothing is left of what Jesus did for us ;
nothing is left of the Bible. From the beginning to the end of the Bible, the Cross is forever at the
heart of God’s Word. It is announced from the very beginning, and it is still there in the Book of
Revelation, when John has a vision of a slain Lamb upon the throne. Throughout the Scriptures
we see the Lamb of God who was crucified and who is there for all eternity. Therefore Jesus,
even now in His resurrection life, wants us to bear in mind that He was crucified. Among us, He
wants to hear about nothing but Jesus crucified. Let us steer clear of philosophical or
psychological doctrines that try to solve our problems through man-made methods and teachings,
(or, at the worst, through doctrines of devils that always involve removing the Cross from the
Gospel.) Once the Cross is removed, nothing is left of the Gospel and the power of the Holy
Spirit cannot move in our lives.
Jesus said : "Within a few days, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you
; and you shall be witnesses to me." The Holy Spirit is a Person ; Jesus calls Him "power", i.e.
God’s power personified. Paul also talks of "the preaching of the Cross" in 1 Corinthians 1 : 18.
He does not say "the preaching of salvation", for men invent means of "salvation" apart from the
Cross. He says : "the preaching of the Cross is foolishness for those who are perishing…" Those
who are perishing are those who do not want to receive the message of the Gospel and who
remove the Cross from it because they find it foolish. But for us who are saved, the Cross is the
power of God. Paul does not say that the Cross was or will be the power of God, but that the
Cross is the power of God for us who are saved.
So when we pray : "Lord, manifest Your power and Your glory", when God hears us, He
interprets it as meaning : "Tell me about the Cross, take me through the experience of the Cross,
and enable me to understand the meaning of ‘Jesus Christ crucified among us’." The power of the
Cross means that through the Cross, all our problems are solved. On the one hand, it is on the
Cross that sin and the flesh were crucified ; on the other hand, it is through the Cross that
heavenly blessings and resurrection life are given. When Jesus died, He said "It is finished !",
meaning that through the Cross, He had fully met the Father’s demands and opened Heaven’s
door for every blessing to be released.
We must never erase the Cross from the Gospel message and say : "Since Jesus died two
thousand years ago on the Cross, that’s wonderful, thank You, Jesus ; You have opened the door
for us, so now we’ll only think about the blessings and we’ll leave out the Cross."
We do not speak about the Cross simply to remind people of what Jesus did long ago. We need to
speak about the Cross because for us, today, there is resurrection power and the power of life
itself in Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Do you know where all our problems come from ? They all come from the fact that we have not
yet been changed into the likeness of Jesus. We long for that, and we pray for it, saying : "Lord, I
want Your love to be manifested in me ; grant me patience, grant me love, grant me all the things
I lack." But do we know that all those things are included in the Cross, and that it is through the
Cross that Jesus answers a prayer like that ? He will enable me to understand what "Jesus Christ
crucified" means. Jesus Christ was crucified for our sins ; He died to pay the ransom for our sins,
which were carrying us away to death and to hell. Through His death on the Cross, He obtained
complete forgiveness for our sins. When we confess Him as our Lord and our Saviour, when we
receive His blood in faith, all our past sins are blotted out, God’s perfect righteousness is imputed
to us, for God grants us complete forgiveness through Jesus and through the Cross.
However, I now want to review the second aspect of the Cross, which many Christians too often
forget : On the Cross, we have been crucified with Him and in Him.
All our problems stem from the flesh, which is evil, impatient, angry, envious, jealous,
murderous, full of witchcraft, magic, and gluttony, and so on. All those things come from our sin-
defiled flesh. It is a poisonous plant. Death is in the flesh. Our flesh cannot be restored and
changed into the likeness of Jesus. We need to understand that the will of God is that our flesh
should actually be put to death, so that nothing bad can be manifested in us any longer : not the
slightest trace of impatience, anger, jealousy, self-justification, or any single thing that aims at
self-satisfaction.
We do not always know how deep-seated our sin can be. At the beginning of our lives as
Christians, we say : "Lord, please point out my sins to me", and the Lord begins to show us our
coarsest sins: theft, lying, and adultery. If we are honest with God, we deal with those sins. As we
go further on with the Lord, He sheds light on sin concealed in minute things, in deep-seated
subtle things, sin masquerading as something religious, something spiritual. Even our natural
qualities are evil in God’s sight, those natural qualities inherited in the flesh. They need to be
taken to the altar of the Cross and crucified there. Being a good teacher when I was in the world
does not qualify me to be a teacher of God’s Word once I am converted. That was a human
qualification, quite irrelevant to the reality of Jesus’ Gospel. God used fishermen, simple folk,
poor folk. Paul, a scholar who had plenty of degrees, said : "I have not come with wisdom of
words to preach the Word to you." As a theologian, he could have made highly impressive
speeches, which nobody would have understood. What Paul actually said was : "I was with you in
weakness, in fear, and in much trembling, in utter simplicity to speak to you of Jesus Christ
crucified and to lead you into a living encounter with Him". Beloved, that is the answer to our
problems. The Holy Spirit, who has been given in order to lead us into all truth, has been given to
convict us of sin. "And when he has come, he will convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and
of judgement." (John 16:8).The Holy Spirit will show me that my sin has been forgiven at the
Cross, and that God’s way for me to deal with my sin is to lay hold, through faith, on what Christ
has already done. This does not mean waiting passively for some kind of manifestation of His
work in my life : if I did that, nothing would happen ! I need a revelation of Christ’s work, and I
need to lay hold on it through faith. I need to thirst for a revelation of Christ crucified. I must
never forget for one moment that I died with Christ, in Christ. I need to find life in His death, so
as to receive His life.
To preach the Cross is to preach that our flesh died in Jesus. That opens up the way, through
faith, to resurrection life in Jesus. Jesus’ resurrection life cannot break through that shell of flesh I
am enclosed in unless my flesh has been put to death through faith in what Jesus achieved. To try
to crucify my own flesh is useless ; to strive to "walk in the Spirit" is useless. It simply can’t be
done in my own strength, it can only be done through faith. But if through the Holy Spirit I
receive the revelation of what it means "to be crucified in Christ", then I understand that Jesus
Himself dealt with that problem for me. It is His gift to me, and I accept it in faith, saying :
"Through Your Spirit, Lord, let the understanding of ‘being crucified with Christ’ sink into my
heart. Make me understand that this dreadful flesh of mine, which stinks in Your nostrils and
everybody else’s whenever it plays up, was put to death by You when You died on the Cross. As
far as I am concerned, I died with You. When You died, You did more than pay for my sins, You
also killed that flesh that causes me to sin." You killed that flesh of mine when You died on the
Cross." Indeed, when Jesus died, we all died with Him. He rose from the dead, and we rose with
Him. "Now if we are dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him." (Rom. 6:8).
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).
The quality of our walk in the Spirit, in practice, is proportional to the revelation of the Cross that
we have received, and to the extent in which we dwell in that revelation. If we sin, because we
have given in to a fleshly impulse, it means that we have not firmly maintained our faith in the
power of God, so as to stand firm in the work of Jesus. If so, however, our condition is not
desperate, according to Romans 7 : " For the good that I will to do, I do not do ; but the evil I will
not to do, that I do. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells
in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good." (Rom. 7:19-
21).That is Paul’s description of his own condition before he was set free through the revelation
of the Cross. It is the condition of one who truly wants to walk with God, and does his utmost to
walk with Him. He is as miserable as can be when he does wrong things, because he loves God.
He says : "See, Lord, I’ve gone and done it again. I was really determined not to lose my temper,
not to sulk, not to be impatient, and so on… but I’ve done it again ! Please forgive me, Lord !"
And in His love, the Lord is so quick to forgive that it’s almost unbelievable ! But what is much
more pleasing to the Lord is to restore our understanding of His own work, so that we remember
that our flesh has been crucified with Jesus, that the former things have passed away, and that
whoever is in Jesus is an utterly new creation. If you know that you are dead and crucified, you
will reckon yourself dead and crucified, because God says so. If you know that you are five feet,
six inches tall, that you have brown hair and blue eyes, and if someone comes and says : "You are
six feet tall and you’ve got green eyes", you will answer, "Of course not, I know what I’m like."
Do you know what you are in Christ ? Do you know that you are in Christ ? In Christ, you are a
former sinner who has repented, who is dead to his past life and has risen to a new life. Of course,
you have no right to say so unless the Holy Spirit has caused you to experience those things in
your heart of hearts, and unless you have received them through prayer, worship and
thanksgiving.
"Lord, through the Cross of Calvary, you have made me a new creation. Once and for all, that
Cross has nailed down my flesh and all its sinfulness. When You rose from the dead, You made
me a new creation, and I walk in newness of life because I have received it in faith." Such a
confession becomes just as strong as the assurance I have of my salvation. If you know that you
are saved and if Satan or someone else comes along and says : "I’m sure you aren’t saved", if
deep down in your heart you know that you are saved, you’ll reply : "I know that my sins have
been forgiven, that the blood of Jesus has washed away my sins. I know, because the Scriptures
say so, and I have received it in faith. When I heard the Gospel, the Holy Spirit touched me. He
showed me I was a sinner. He showed me that Jesus had paid my debt for me, that His blood had
been shed, and that if I asked to be forgiven, that blood would atone for all my sins. I asked for
forgiveness from the bottom of my heart, and through faith in Jesus, I have received that
forgiveness. I know it, I have experienced it, and nobody can take it away from me."
But do you know that you have been crucified with Jesus, and that dreadful flesh of yours, the
cause of all the problems in your life, your family, and your church, was destroyed on the Cross ?
It is not Satan who causes all of our problems in our marriages, in our families, and in the Church
: it is our uncrucified flesh ! Wherever the flesh is not yet crucified, it is an open door to Satan
and all sorts of demons. Let’s stop blaming Satan for all our problems. Of course it is he who
causes sickness, infirmities, wars, and so on, but he would be powerless to do a thing among
God’s people if we lived as ones who are crucified with Jesus. There is only one way to
overcome Satan : through the Cross. It’s no use getting all worked up, no use shouting : "Satan, I
bind you, I cast you out." Under certain circumstances, you may be led to speak like that, but only
if you are standing on the ground of the Cross. Let us take care not to fight the wrong enemy :
"Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against
the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places
(Eph. 6:11-12). Paul can say that because he takes it for granted that the Ephesians’ flesh has
indeed been crucified. A battle against my own flesh is guaranteed to fail. What I need is to
receive in faith that my flesh has been crucified : that strengthens me enough to resist every
demon and to fight the good fight that God is calling me to. If we fight our own flesh, we have
already lost.
If anyone says to a brother or a sister : "You must wear a head-covering, you mustn’t smoke, you
mustn’t drink", those are nothing but fleshly rules unless they are imparted from within our hearts
by the Holy Spirit, who fills the Word with light and shows us what to do. If you are already
crucified, you will do all those things naturally, because you have read them in the Word. A
crucified person has no problem at all obeying the Lord. Obedience comes simply and naturally,
because the flesh has stopped resisting. The flesh resists the things of the Spirit : it cannot even
understand or accept them. It refuses to obey the Lord. Unless it is dead, it will keep on rebelling
in indirect ways, preventing us from doing what God wants us to do, for very "spiritual" and
religious reasons, and people don’t understand why : it is because their flesh hasn’t been put to
death. "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the
traditions of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ."
(Col. 2:8). A vain philosophy is a Gospel in which the Cross is not central. The Lord has called
me to return over and over again to the message of the Cross as long as that message is not
manifested in our lives : otherwise, the Holy Spirit will not be able to do His work. Every
Christian must be brought to fully realise in his heart that he was crucified in Jesus, that he died
and rose again in Him and with Him.
Paul exhorts the Colossians not to rely on "the basic principles of the world", but on Christ, "for
in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." (Col. 2:9). Elsewhere, Paul tells the
Ephesians to "be filled with all the fullness of God". (Eph. 3:19). That fullness of God dwells
bodily in Jesus Christ crucified. Jesus opened the door for us through His death on the Cross, and
in Luke, He tells us : "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross
daily, and follow me." (Luke 9:23)
No-one can be Jesus’ disciple and obey such a perfect law - so as to manifest the character of
Jesus - unless his flesh is crucified. Jesus is not asking us to crucify our flesh ourselves : what He
says is : "I have already done it for you. Believe that and receive it in faith." Some people try to
crucify their flesh in their own strength : they take monastic vows, abstain from meat or wine, or
from sexual relationships. It produces nothing at all, except self-glorification. It proves only one
thing : that the flesh has not been crucified, and that one is still glorying in it. If, on the contrary, I
quietly ponder the Word and say : "Lord Jesus, You have done it for me ! All I need to do is
accept in faith what You have done for me ! Let the revelation of it sink into my heart of hearts ! I
receive it ! I died in You and was raised from the dead in You ! It is no longer I who live, but You
who live in me !" There is a condition, however : I must mean what I say, it must be an
experience and not a mere concept : it is much more than mouthing the right words. I have heard
Christians say : "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me !" then go and quarrel with
their wife, their brother or their sister. Christ was not living in them ; they had uttered idle words
and not spoken out of personal experience.
In Colossians 2: 10-11, Paul says : "You are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality
and power. In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by
putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ." When you became a
Christian, the death of Christ became your death. Christ died for you ; He circumcised you. When
an eight-day-old Hebrew baby was circumcised, he had nothing to do. It was done for him, in
spite of him. In the same way, we accept Christ through faith, and it is He who achieves the
circumcising and grants it to us. It is His gift to us, and we accept it through faith. There was
nothing we could do to crucify ourselves. He did it for us and now He says to us : "Only believe it
and accept it in faith."
One thing must be made very clear : we must never become the allies of our own flesh so as to
keep it from dying, because in our own carnal eyes, the most precious person in the world is our
own self. Unless we watch carefully, we do not always realise that our flesh needs to be crucified.
Formerly, we had grown so accustomed to looking after ourselves, to justifying ourselves, to
taking care of our own interests that when we come to the Lord, we truly need a powerful
revelation from the Holy Spirit : we need to hear Him say : "All of that is a stink in God’s sight.
He has sentenced your flesh to death, He has killed it, together with its passions and its lusts, on
the Cross : He Himself has given you a new nature that has nothing to do with your previous one.
Your former nature is hopelessly rotten, and it died with Christ two thousand years ago."
God has now given me a new nature and He is at work manifesting it in me, through my faith in
that revelation the Holy Spirit has granted me. I am a new creature, my flesh has been crucified.
Since I believe my flesh has been crucified, I will no longer give in to temptations when they
come my way, now that I am filled with the revelation of Jesus. Every time that angry or
impatient little retort that used to be mine comes up, I now have the grace and the strength to
resist it because I know that my flesh has been crucified. So I can say : "No , that’s all over now ,
you will no longer rule me : I rule you because it is written that my flesh has been crucified".
Through faith, - faith in Jesus - I am strong enough to resist that temptation when it comes along.
"Buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the
working of God, who raised Him from the dead." (Col 2:12)
It is the same for all of the Lord’s promises. Jesus said : "If you believe, you will see it come to
pass." He also tells us : "Therefore I say to you : whatever things you ask when you pray, believe
that you receive them, and you shall have them." That word is not limited to any particular
promise. Besides, our death in Christ is more than a promise : it is already accomplished, it is a
reality. Since the Lord assures us that we have already been crucified in Him, I can pray like this :
"Lord, I want to walk in that revelation. Through Your Spirit, reveal those things to the depths of
my heart. I receive that word as I would receive any other word spoken by the Lord, with
unwavering faith."
I must not doubt that my flesh has been put to death in Christ, even if I sometimes still see it
manifesting itself. All I can say then is that the work of the Lord is not yet perfect in me, but I do
not doubt the truth of what He has said. "I died in You, Lord, two thousand years ago. I rose
again in You ! I am meditating on Your Word…" To meditate on God’s Word prayerfully
through the Holy Spirit, receiving the revelation of it from the Lord, is very different from
stuffing my head full of intellectual concepts about the Cross, concepts that have not penetrated
the depths of my heart through a revelation from the Holy Spirit.
If you have received that assurance, you hold it in your heart and put it into practice. No need to
run around proclaiming : "I am a new creation" or : "My flesh has been crucified". It will be
obvious ! Your whole life will show that you are indeed crucified, that you have stopped
defending your own interests, that you have actually gone through the the garden of Gethsemane
experience, in which Jesus, facing imminent crucifixion, facing the agony of his imminent death,
sweated drops of blood as he said three times : "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me : nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." (Matt. 26:39) It was not his own sin that
was going to be laid upon Him, but ours.
If we approach the Lord in the same way as Jesus did, and say : "Lord, as the Cross comes closer
I can feel the sweat from this terror-stricken flesh of mine : I know it doesn’t want to die. But
Lord, let Your will be done, not my will. Your will once and for all : I’ve suffered too much, I’ve
made You suffer too much, I’ve caused too much suffering among my brothers and sisters and
other people around me. Let it be over with this flesh that keeps on manifesting itself. Let it be
dealt with once and for all, Lord, in Your sight, through faith. Let it be dealt with through the
power of the Cross and the mighty work of Jesus."
The Holy Spirit keeps taking us back to the Cross, which is the power of God. There, everything
was dealt with, everything was finished. There, all my sins were atoned for. There, too, my flesh
was crucified ; there, even the powers and principalities were stripped of their last shred of
authority. "And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has
made you alive together with Him, having forgiven you all your trespasses… having spoiled
principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it." (Col. 2:
13, 15).
The Lord knew that He needed to use radical means in order to deliver us out of our enslavement
to our flesh. He had to offer a perfect answer : so He chose to die for us, but He took us into that
death of His. When He rose from the grave, He also took us into His resurrection. Now He wants
to manifest His wonderful resurrection life in us, the life described in 1 Corinthians 13, and the
fruit of the Spirit : "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness…" However could the fruit of the
Spirit grow on a carnal vine ? Jesus is the Vine and I am a branch, not as my old self, but as a
new creation, a self that has risen in Christ. That is how I can produce the fruit of the Spirit who
is filling me. Too often people try to produce the fruit of the Spirit without having crucified the
flesh. The result is a sickening mixture, the kind of vinegar they gave the Lord Jesus on the Cross,
not the choice vintage of the Spirit.
"Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, he
took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross ; and having spoiled principalities and powers, He
made a show of them openly, triumphing over them, in it." (Col. 2:14-15). Notice how often the
word "cross" recurs. Through the Cross, Jesus overcame the principalities. It was to the Cross that
He nailed the ordinances that condemned us. When He died, our flesh died with Him. When He
rose from the dead, we also rose to a new nature, which is also to be received through faith. We
say : "Lord, I am not going to strive to improve myself. Through faith, I receive that new nature
that You grant us. I shall let you manifest your life through me so as to bear Your fruit. Through
faith, I will take part in what you are doing".
Walking in the life of the Spirit and having been slain in Jesus does not turn us into spiritual
zombies, into apathetic, unresponsive, listless doormats. That would be a false gospel. The true
Gospel says that we receive a new life in Jesus and that our old life is dead. That new
resurrection-life gives us a new nature whose desires and feelings are the desires and feelings of
Jesus. We receive a new, unique character which is truly ours, and yet God-given ; its purpose is
to manifest the character of Jesus.
However, all of us are different and called to different tasks, but through faith we all receive the
character of Jesus, a beautiful character filled with resurrection-life that bears wonderful fruit.
Central to it is the love of Jesus Christ, a love that has finally been stripped of all those carnal
tendencies that hurt others and ourselves so terribly, for instance when we feel neglected, left out,
or unfairly put down. All that is crucified and dead. We shall still suffer, because Jesus suffered,
but there will be no wrong impatient, angry, or hostile reaction, not the slightest ! A dead corpse
is utterly dead and unresponsive. As long as it still reacts, it isn’t dead. Nothing must remain of
that old past life, because Jesus killed it on the Cross.
These things are not lived out in our lives as Christians, owing to a lack of revelation and a lack
of faith in the Word of the Lord, but Jesus says : "On the Cross I killed that carnal nature of yours
that has been bothering you ever since you were born. I killed it on the Cross, and this is my gift
to you."
If I reply : "Yes, but Lord, I know what I’m like. I’ve often heard that and I tried to put it into
practice and the next day, I fell back into my old ways," I am not walking in faith ! I need to go
back to the Lord and to His Word. Then, in the peace of the Holy Spirit, in my heart of hearts, I
will be enabled to receive that light, that illumination showing me that Jesus has accomplished
everything. He has already dealt with everything and thought of everything. It is done ! He knew
what difficulties we would meet, how many times we would try to be better persons, how many
good resolutions we would make. In His perfect and boundless intelligence, He said : "Without
the Cross, there is no issue for them." So Father, Son, and Holy Spirit conceived a perfect plan,
with the Cross of Jesus in its centre, that Cross on which Jesus laid down His life, so that I could
die with Him and be raised to a new life. His life will work it out in me.
How wonderful it is to see Jesus’ life beginning to be manifested in the life of a man or of a
woman ! It has nothing to do with religion or human traditions, and the works of the flesh can
never bring it to pass ! Only Jesus’ life can do that, only His life, His holiness. So there will be
nothing contrived or hypocritical about our holiness ; it is not the strained obedience of one who
is labouring to obey the commands of the Law — however holy that Law may be in itself. No,
that kind of holiness flows forth wherever the flesh is truly dead, and resurrection-life wells up
like a flood, manifesting itself through all sorts of good fruit that glorifies God.
You see that faith is all important : everything is granted through grace and obtained through
faith, otherwise it would not be through grace. It is God’s gift to you, and He says : "All I require
is that you receive all those things through faith (and what’s more, faith, too, is my gift to you) so
that you say : "Thank You, Daddy, I receive that gift and will walk in the gift You have granted
me ! When in your heart of hearts you receive a revelation from God, then you walk in that
revelation. You have received it and you know it is true. Have you ever seen Jesus with your own
eyes ? You haven’t ? But do you know that He is alive ? How do you know that He is alive ?
Because the Holy Spirit, whom God has sent into your heart, tells you so, and witnesses to the
truth of it. It is written, but not only in that everlasting Word that is Spirit and life ; within you
there is the Holy Spirit of Life and the very Person of the Lord, witnessing to you. The Spirit of
God within us witnesses to the fact that we are children of God. And tonight the Spirit of the Lord
is telling us, deep down in our hearts, that Jesus has accomplished everything, that our flesh has
been crucified, that it is done. For God, it has ceased to be a problem ! But it can still be one for
you, if you are not aware of what took place at the Cross, if you don’t know what the Cross
means. Indirectly, it becomes a problem for God as well because He tries to make you
understand. Jesus has dealt with the problem. Jesus has enabled you to receive the revelation of it
through faith and to receive this wonderful inheritance : the forgiveness of your sins, the
understanding of the fact that your former nature is dead and that you have received a new nature
; now you walk in faith in the Son of God who has granted you this gift. Provided you remain in
that attitude, if tonight your faith in God’s Word has deepened, the fruit of it will be seen
immediately, if you remain in an attitude of faith.
Colossians 3:3 declares : "For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." In Christ
crucified, "in God". You and all your carnal reactions have died and you are hidden with Christ in
God, who is life. "Your life is hidden with Christ in God" is indeed a beautiful phrase. You are
safely encompassed within God’s heart, hidden there with Christ, in God who is your life. "When
Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then will you also appear with Him in glory." (Col. 3:4).
Christ is our life because he passed through death, and He is our life only because we have passed
through death in Him. But "when Christ, who is our life, shall appear", you too will appear with
Him in glory. "Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth : fornication,
uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry." (Col. 3:5). It might be any
other kind of sin you care to name. God says : "put them to death." Now that you understand and
believe that you are dead, you have the power to put all those things to death, since you are dead.
A dead tree no longer bears fruit. If you are dead, all that evil fruit — rebellion, anger, idolatry,
and evil desires — died with the tree. You are now in a position to obey that command, when
those things come to you in the form of temptations, evil desires, or evil thoughts. Perhaps one of
the last things you put to death will be that little outburst of impatience, that tit-for-tat retort. The
flesh still tries to hide in things like that. They too must be put to death, till no evil root of any
kind is left in you ; only abundant life, love, joy, and peace are left, with no fleshly response at
all.
It can be done, because Jesus did it ; He is alive within you and wants to manifest Himself in you,
if only you believe. However can a Christian go on saying : "Oh, but that is far too lofty an ideal,
nobody could ever be like that." It is better never to start out than to start from there. It would
make you the most miserable person in the world ! Someone once said : "Nothing is easier than
giving your all in the world. Nothing is easier than giving your all in Jesus. But there is nothing
harder than walking at the same time with Jesus and with the world." It makes you double-
minded, it splits you down the middle on the inside. The root of the problem remains untouched
as long as you go on hauling your uncrucified flesh around with you. You try to walk in the Spirit
; on some days you manage, and on others, you don’t. The root of the problem has not been dealt
with. I suppose nobody wants to remain the most miserable of all men — or of all women — all
his (or her) life !
It is therefore vital that we should come to God to receive the revelation that we have died and
been raised to new creaturehood in Christ. The Life of God is within you, ready to be manifested
if the vessel is broken. And it was broken in Christ.
"Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds". (Col. 3:9).
Do not lie to yourself either. Do not claim to be crucified unless you actually are. We are
crucified in Christ, but that legal position of ours must become a reality in our everyday lives
once the Holy Spirit has revealed it to us. Let none of us falsely claim that we have been crucified
unless the evidence of it appears in our lives. It would be worse that saying nothing, for all those
around us could see for themselves that we are not crucified. Many Christians are brash enough to
claim to be what they are not. They have betrayed many into unbelief, driven many away from
Christ, making them so confused as to say : "This man says he has been crucified with Christ and
that he is led by the Holy Spirit ; but actually, I can see no difference between his walk and a
pagan’s. So where is the truth ?" However, then, could those around us trust the message of the
Cross ? However could they turn to a Saviour who is unable to carry out His promises in the lives
of those who proclaim the message of the Cross ? I’d rather say nothing at all and come and kneel
before the Lord, and cry out to Him : "Lord, reveal your word to me !" If we thirst for Jesus, if we
really want Jesus to be manifested in us, we shall spend time in the presence of the Lord to
receive that revelation of the Cross, till our flesh is really and truly crucified.
When are you going to deal with the matter thoroughly enough ? On your death-bed ? You could
count, then, all the time you have wasted ; but if you had truly thirsted for the Lord, you could
have received that revelation much earlier. Have we spent time in the presence of the Lord ?
Have we said to Him, out of the depths of our hearts : "Lord, I truly desire to receive that Life
from above, the revelation that leads to the manifestation of Your Life. Enlighten my spiritual
understanding, so that I understand Your Word and the message of the Cross !" We need to come
to a place where we know that message has become real for us, because we have grasped it,
received it in faith, and we walk and live in the reality of it.
Do you realise all the difference there will be, for ourselves, for others, and for the Lord when our
hearts understand the message of the Cross, and when we receive Jesus’ abundant Life ? It will
cause our lives to bear all the fruit of the Spirit, and the glory of Jesus will shine upon us.
People talk about revival, pray for revival, and beg the Lord to send a great revival. Revival
begins with the preaching of the Cross. That preaching must be received into the lives of the
hearers till their flesh is wholly crucified. Show me a crucified man, and I will show you a revival
! The Cross is always central to a true Holy Spirit revival. When I see those modern revivals
where all sorts of things are being proclaimed, but not the Cross, I say : "God is not in the midst
of that revival. It is not a God-given revival !" Even if the Holy Spirit does bring repentance,
unless there is a powerful proclamation of the Cross, to shed light on this accursed (and blessed)
Cross through which Jesus gave us His all, the revival will get sucked into the devil’s quicksands.
Then demons and the devil take over, always ready to counterfeit the action of the Spirit, because
the preaching of the Cross has been neglected ; then all sorts of dreadful things start happening,
which people mistake for manifestations of God, although God is totally absent from all those
goings-on.
Can you see how desperately we need to hear the preaching of the Cross? In 1 Corinthians 2:2,
Paul rightly said : "For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and
Him crucified." In all of his epistles, Paul continually speaks of the Cross. He speaks of the Cross
to everyone, of how we need to put off the old man through faith. He keeps saying : "You have
received the revelation of it, so walk in that revelation ! Glorify God, and let His glory be
manifested among His children who are crucified and risen with Christ !
Beloved, it is profitable to return frequently to the message of the Cross, which is the heart of the
Gospel, the heart of the Bible, the divine answer to all our problems. It was there, on the Cross,
that Jesus accomplished everything. It is there that we find the fullness of His grace ! If I remain
crucified as long as I live, then throughout my whole life I shall manifest the resurrection life of
the Lord Jesus.
Let us pray : "Lord, with all my heart I beseech you to expand my own heart, through your Spirit,
so that I can understand the work of the Cross. Grant me a full revelation of the depths of this
wonderful mystery which You want to reveal to Your children who thirst for You. Lord, You
know that I yearn to walk this earth as a man who has received into his life the fullness of the Life
of Jesus Christ. Please cleanse me of every trace of my past life, for Your glory !
Thank You for all that You have provided in Christ. I bless You for what Your Holy Spirit is
doing in my heart, and in the hearts of all those who yearn to understand Your Word so as to
glorify Your Name.
Lord, our lifetime on earth is so short ! Please grant us spiritual understanding of these things. Let
Your Spirit move in the hearts of my loved ones who are here, and in my own heart, to enable us
to understand the power of the preaching of the Cross, the power of Jesus, our crucified and risen
Lord, the power of the message of the Cross. May we walk in its power for Your glory, in Jesus’
Name, Amen."
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