Week 6  The Experience of Life

LESSON SIX
BEING CONFORMED TO THE DEATH OF CHRIST

Hymn  1117

Scripture Reading:

Phil. 3:10        To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.

BEING CONFORMED TO HIS DEATH

Philippians 3:10 first speaks of knowing Christ as a wonderful person. We can never exhaust telling who He is. Second, it speaks of knowing the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. Then while we are experientially enjoying the fellowship of His sufferings, we are being conformed to His death. The death of Christ is a mold. We are living in this mold of death. Christ’s death should be the mold of our life. We will all eventually declare: “I am not only living; I am dying. I die to everything; I am a dying person. My living is the mold of Christ’s death.”

KNOWING THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION

To experientially know the power of Christ’s resurrection needs us to be put into the mold of suffering. In Philippians 3:10 Paul speaks of the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. The Lord Jesus calls us to follow Him in His sufferings, bearing the cross (Matt. 16:24). To bear the cross is to enjoy the fellowship of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus.

We are persons under the shadow of the cross of Christ. The Christian life is both a living life and a dying life. We live, but we live in the mold of the death of Christ. When the Lord Jesus lived on the earth, He was being crucified every day. Every day He lived a crucified life. We also can live such a life because we have the power of His resurrection. As we have seen, this power is the person of Christ, and Christ today is the Spirit of Jesus Christ who is in our spirit. As we remain in our spirit, we experience this power in the shadow of the death of Christ. Every day our spouse and children are the “shadows of death” to us. Our children may be very enjoyable to us at first. However, one day they may become shadows, and the more they grow, the darker the shadows may become. Eventually, our children will put us into the mold of the cross. We should simply remain there and say “Hallelujah!” (The Experience and Growth in Life, pp. 75-77)

THE PUTTING TO DEATH OF JESUS IN OUR ENVIRONMENT COOPERATING
WITH THE INDWELLING SPIRIT TO KILL OUR NATURAL MAN

The putting to death of Jesus in our environment cooperates with the indwelling Spirit to kill our natural man (our outer man), comprising our body and our soul. This is mentioned emphatically in 2 Corinthians 4:10-12. Paul said that he was bearing about in his body the putting to death of Jesus that the life of Jesus might be manifested in his body.

We all like to have a nice environment, with everything smooth, peaceful, sweet, and nice. When people ask us, “How are you?” We always say, “Fine.” Many times when we say this, however, we are lying. If we were fully honest, we would respond by saying, “Not so good.” This is because we are under an environment of sufferings and pressures which works with the Spirit to kill our natural man. Brother Nee referred to this kind of environment as the discipline of the Holy Spirit. The putting to death, the killing, in 2 Corinthians 4 is through the environment. In speaking about the application of Christ’s death, Romans 8 refers to the indwelling Spirit, while 2 Corinthians 4 refers to the outward environment. The outward environment cooperates with the inward Spirit to carry out the killing of our natural man.

PUTTING TO DEATH THE PRACTICES OF OUR BODY

We also need to put to death, by the Spirit, the practices of our body (Rom. 8:13b). To put to death means to kill. We need to kill the practices of our body. Whatever our body of sin does, needs to be killed. To gossip on the telephone is a practice of the body which needs to be killed.

We need to bear the cross, that is, to remain in the crucifixion of Christ (Matt. 16:24). We should not depart from the crucifixion. We have to stay in the crucifixion, to bear the cross. We also need to stay in our spirit and to live by and walk according to the spirit—the mingled spirit (Rom. 8:6b; Gal. 5:16, 25; Rom. 8:4b).

IF THERE IS NO DEATH, THERE IS NO LIFE

We should not forget that if there is no death, there is no life. The death of Christ is in the compound Spirit. The Spirit is the application of the death of Christ and its effectiveness. What is the Christian life? The Christian life is a life which is all the time under the killing by the compound Spirit. If there is no killing, there is no life. In everything we do, we need to be killed. In our shopping, in the way that we cut our hair, and in our home we need to be killed in our natural man.

In the church life, we cannot avoid being killed. Every saint in the church is a “knife” to kill our outer man. The longer we stay in the church, the more we experience the killing, the working of death, the working of the cross, that we may live in resurrection. This is glorious. Even this is our happiness, our joy. We need to experience the Lord’s killing, His putting to death, every day. Then we will daily have the victory and joy in Christ’s resurrection. (The Christian Life, pp. 105-107)

 

References: The Experience and Growth in Life, msg. 12; The Christian Life, ch. 9.