The Gospel in Ten Words (17 page)

Paul
understood that the foundation of our new life with Christ is a revelation that
we died with him:

This is a faithful
saying: For if we died with him, we shall also live with him. (2 Timothy 2:11,
NKJV)

Paul hammered this point in his letters because if you
don’t know that you have died, then you won’t really live. Instead, you will
spend your life trying to die; dying to self, dying daily, and crucifying the
flesh.

“But isn’t following Jesus a matter of dying daily to
ourselves and our desires?” Nope. The phrase “die to self” isn’t even in the
Bible. When Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me he must deny himself and
take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24), he was showing us the way to
salvation—it’s through the cross. If you would follow Jesus,
then
follow
Jesus
. Jesus died once and he will never die again. It’s the same with us.
We were crucified once; we need never be crucified again.
You do not need to die daily. Once will do the trick.
[58]

The problem with any message on self—even a
noble-sounding message on self-denial—is that it promotes
self
. It fuels
self-centeredness which lies at the root of all that is wrong with humanity. In
the church self-denial is usually packaged as part of the spiritual
disciplines. Don’t touch, don’t taste, don’t handle. But in truth it is nothing
more than the age-old practice of asceticism, the belief that we can attain
spiritual goals by abstaining from physical pleasures. It’s the religion of
monks and sadhus. I’m not denying the benefits of abstinence; I’m just saying
that skipping cheeseburgers won’t make you holy and righteous.

The truth is that you can do nothing to save yourself or
make yourself pleasing to God. Jesus does it all. True gospel preachers
understand this which is why they will never seek to distract you by preaching
messages that glorify self or self-effort. They echo Paul who said, “
For we do not
preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as
Lord” (2 Corinthians 4:5).

Christians who do not know they have died with Christ end
up living two lives. On the one hand they are trying to walk in the new life
they have received in Christ, but on the other they are trying to reform the
old life they inherited from Adam. This is a recipe for misery. No one wants to
be one person on Sunday and another on Monday. Live like this and it’ll tear
you apart.

The cure for schizophrenic Christianity is
not to “try harder” or “lift your game” or “follow these ten steps to a new
you.” It is a revelation that your old self was crucified with Christ. What is
your old self? It is the person you used to be before you met Jesus. It is who
you were in Adam before you were put into Christ. Paul wrote that
“we know that our old
self was crucified with him” (Romans 6:6).
Look at
his choice of words;
was
crucified. Past tense. Done and dusted. Dead
and buried.

Do you see how liberating this is? The old
man was unfixable. He was broken, corrupt, and completely screwy. He was a slave
to sin who lived for himself and no amount of reform could fix him. But the
good news is he’s dead. That incorrigible old so-and-so was nailed to the cross
with Jesus and he no longer lives.

Watchman
Nee called this the gospel for Christians: “The self you
loathe is there on the cross in Christ.”
[59]
If the average believer could grasp hold of this truth—
I died
—half of our church
programs would cease immediately. We would stop trying to reform the old man
because
the old man is
dead
.

If
there’s one thing I have learned from the movies, it’s that there is no problem
that can’t be solved by faking your own death and fleeing to a new life in
South America. Think of a wiseguy who is part of a crime family. He is under pressure
from his superiors to risk his life by engaging in criminal activities. At the
same time the law hounds him on account of the crimes he has already done.
After a while, the wiseguy realizes he is not his own man and life is no fun
when you’re not free. He begins to long for a new life but finds he is hemmed
in on all sides. If he stays with the family he’ll likely end up prematurely
dead. But if he turns himself in, he’ll spend the rest of his days behind bars.
Either way, it’s a lose-lose scenario. In desperation he begins to make an
audacious plan. “South America, here I come.”

The lose-lose scenario describes how it was
for us when we were part of Adam’s family of sinners. We felt the pressure to
conform to the ways of the world and live as children of disobedience. At the
same time our consciences bore witness to the law in our hearts that we were
unrighteous and guilty as sin. After a while we realized we were not in control
of our lives and life is no fun when you’re not free. We began to long for a
new life but found we were hemmed in on all sides. As members of the family of
Adam we were captive to our appetites and enslaved to sin. We wanted to do the
right thing but we frequently stumbled. We looked to religion for help but
found it was a prison. All it offered was the prospect of a lifetime running on
the hamster wheel of self-effort. Self-indulgence or self-denial, either way
was a lose-lose proposition.
      

Thankfully, someone told us of God’s audacious plan:
“Through the cross the world has been crucified to me and I to the world”
(Galatians 6:14). And this was no fake death with flaming car crashes and
furtive flights to Buenos Aires, but a real bona fide death as genuine as our
union with Christ. We really died. Do you realize what this means? It means we
are truly and legitimately free:

For we
know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be
done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who
has died has been freed from sin. (Romans 6:6
–
7)

Real life is better than the movies. Our fictional
wiseguy will never enjoy his new life in South America for he will always be
looking over his shoulder waiting for his old life to catch up with him. Not
us. Our old life is dead. There was a funeral, a tomb, and everything. The old
has gone and we are now free to walk in newness of life.

You
may ask, “Then how come I don’t feel free? How come I still do the things I
don’t want to do?”

It will help if you understand who died on the cross. We
died but sin didn’t die. That old tyrant Sin is still alive and kicking and
trying to push us around.

We tend to think of sin as a verb, but in Romans Paul
describes sin as a noun.
Sin acts like a person. It
has lusts and it desires to deceive and dominate us. It’s Sin with a capital S.
[60]
Paul was not referring to our former sinful tendencies but an external
personality that seeks to dominate and devour us.

Sin is an ancient and treacherous enemy. Try and defeat
Sin in your own strength and you will surely fail. This was Paul’s experience.
He tried to overcome Sin in the power of his flesh and failed repeatedly. This
frustrated him. “I’m doing what I don’t want to do. It’s not me but Sin
operating in me” (see Romans 7:17). Paul wasn’t making excuses. Nor was he
saying, “The devil made me do it.” He was simply pointing out that when we walk
after the flesh we are incapable of resisting Sin.

Walking after the flesh is when you attempt to get your
needs met independently of God. It’s trusting in yourself and living solely
from the basis of sensual experience (what you see, hear, touch, etc.). In
Paul’s case he was trusting in his ability to keep the law. It didn’t work. “I
thought I was doing okay but when the commandment came, Sin reared its ugly
head and I realized I was a lost cause” (see Romans 7:9).

On our own we are just not capable of living the sinless
life. We may try and convince ourselves that we’re basically good people—“at
least I’m better than the wiseguy down the road”—but the law reveals that our
best is not good enough. The only way out for us is to die to that law-based
life of self-improvement and put our faith in Jesus
.
[61]

You may say, “I get that. I understand we are not under
law but grace. Why, then, do I still sin?”

I suspect the reason why some Christians continue to sin
is that they don’t know they have been freed from sin. Nobody has told them. So
they continue to act in the way they used to act because it has become a habit.
They’ve had a lifetime of practice. Sure, they don’t feel good about it but
what can they do? Like Paul, they’ve made an effort to stop sinning and perhaps
experienced some short term success, but it’s never lasted. They tried and
failed, tried and failed, until they just gave up trying. Now they tell
themselves they are a work in progress and that nobody’s perfect.

That doesn’t sound like freedom to me. That just sounds
like your old life with added guilt. Who would want that?

It
is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1). Allow me to paint a
picture of what Christ-bought freedom looks like.

When you were in Adam you had no choice but to walk according
to the flesh. Trusting in your own abilities and walking by sight is what
unbelievers call normal life but it’s a faithless life. Since anything that is
not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23), your former life was inherently sinful. I
don’t mean to say you were a raging criminal. It’s just that you were incapable
of pleasing the Lord no matter what you did. You may have been a good sinner or
a bad sinner but you were a sinner nonetheless. You were separated from the
life of God through your ignorance and unbelief.

But now you are a saint and a sinner no more. You have a
new identity, a new life, and a new master. You are no longer a slave to Sin.
You now have the freedom to choose how you will walk, either in the old way of
the flesh or in the new way of the spirit. But here’s the important bit: If you
choose to walk in the old way your new life will resemble your old one. This is
why some Christians are still bound. They have left Egypt but Egypt hasn’t left
them. They are still thinking like slaves and heeding the voice of their old
master.

It certainly doesn’t help matters when these precious
brothers and sisters are told that their sinful behavior proves they still
possess a sinful nature or an innate tendency to sin. This is simply not true.
Your old self was crucified. Any sinful nature you once had has been cut off,
and that circumcision was not done by the hands of men (Colossians 2:11). You
are one with the Lord. You do not have two natures dueling for control inside
you. You are a partaker of the sinless life and divine nature of Jesus Christ.

So how do we partake? How do we walk in this new way of
life and resist the temptation to sin? The wrong way is the old way. It’s
trusting in the might of Adam and striving in the flesh to be an overcomer. It
is telling ourselves, “Don’t do this. Don’t do that.” Such an approach cannot
succeed because it relies on our own resolve and determination rather than the
grace of God. It’s flesh-powered Christianity.

The problem is we have been eating from the forbidden
tree for so long we just don’t see it. We think the remedy for bad behavior is
good behavior. We think the solution for sin is to lay down the law. “Just stop
it!” But this a misuse of the law. It’s like fighting fire with gasoline.

The law is good but it is not your friend. We have a far
better friend in Jesus.

The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he
lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive
to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:10
–
11)

If our co-inclusion with Christ’s death is to mean
anything at all, we need to consider the nature of his death. “He died to sin
once for all.” Sin has no claim on Jesus therefore sin has no claim on you.
Sin’s wage has been paid and all outstanding debts have been cancelled. You
don’t need to do anything to earn your freedom; you
are
free. Freedom is
your starting point.

So how do we walk in that freedom? “Count yourselves dead
to sin.” Your old master Sin will tempt you and pester you and try and bait you
back into captivity. One of Sin’s more cunning strategies is to sow sinful
desires into your mind and make you believe they are your desires. Do not be
fooled. You have the mind of Christ and Jesus never has a sinful thought. So if
a sinful thought enters your head you can rest assured it did not originate in
your sound mind. Don’t take ownership of it. If it flew in your left ear let it
fly out your right. But what you must not do is engage with it. Don’t react,
don’t dialogue, don’t wrestle. Just play dead.

Playing dead is your best response to a provocateur such
as the devil. Understand that the devil doesn’t particularly care how you respond
to sinful desires as long as you respond in the flesh. Sin like a sinner or
resist like a Pharisee and he wins because you will be distracted from the
grace that preserves you. Your eyes will be on your sinful- or self-righteous
self instead of Jesus.

That’s the first part; here is the second. “Reckon
yourself alive to God in Christ Jesus.” If all we did was play dead life would
be dead dull. Life is meant to be lived in spite of all the temptations we
face. We have to live for something, so let us live for him and his
righteousness (1 Peter 2:24). If we react to anything, let us react to Jesus
and the beauty of his holiness.

Choosing to live for Jesus is spiritual warfare. It is
resisting the devil by submitting to God. It is the choice that brings ever-increasing
freedom and freedom is fun!