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The Church "Crucified With Christ"
"I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me."
—Ga 2:20.
In an age when human ingenuity taxed itself to
the utmost limit to invent cruelties to torture the victims of public revenge
or hate, crucifixion certainly had a bad preeminence. Amongst the Romans it was
reserved, with few exceptions, for slaves and foreigners, being considered too
horrible and disgraceful for a Roman citizen, no matter what might have been
his crime. This mode of death was the greatest possible indignity that could be
heaped upon any offender, whether considered in the light of a public disgrace
or of physical anguish.
Crucifixion was a slow, lingering process of
dying, lasting always for hours and often for several days.
Usually the victim was bound to the cross as
it lay upon the ground. The hands and the feet were then nailed to the wood;
and the cross was elevated and planted in the socket to receive it. This gave
the body a terrible wrench; and great was the agony that followed. The hot sun
beat upon the naked body and uncovered head—which in our Lord’s case was
pierced with the additional cruelty of the crown of thorns. The ragged,
undressed wounds festered and became inflamed; shooting pains darted from them
through the quivering flesh. Added to this the agony of an increasing fever, a
throbbing head and a raging thirst; and even the slightest movement intensified
the anguish. As death drew near, swarms of flies gathered about to increase the
torment, from which there could not be any relief. As no vital organ was
directly assailed, life lingered on until the power of endurance was completely
exhausted.
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The ultimate physical cause of our Lord’s
death, however, is believed to have been literally a broken heart.
Otherwise He would probably have lingered much
longer; for crucifixion seldom produced death within twenty-four hours, and
victims have lingered as long as five days.
Pilate and the guard were surprised to learn
that Jesus had died so soon. Instead of lingering long, He died suddenly, and
before He was fully exhausted; for He had conversed with the thief and had commended
His mother to St. John’s care. He had declared His great work finished; and
then with a strong voice, which indicated considerable remaining strength of
both body and mind, He had cried, "Father, into Thy hands I commend My
spirit," and died instantly. In the agony of Gethsemane the heart and the
blood vessels had been affected.
The palpitation of the heart had been so
intense as to cause a bloody sweat—a phenomenon rare but not unknown, produced
by intense mental excitement. Already weakened by such an experience, a
repetition of the anguish probably ruptured the heart, causing instant
death.—Lu 22:44; 23:46.
"CRUCIFIED
WITH CHRIST" FIGURATIVELY
Since actual, literal crucifixion signifies a
torturing, slow but sure death, the figurative crucifixion must closely
resemble it; otherwise the figure would have no value.
When we say that any one is taking up his
cross to follow Christ, we mean that the person is consecrated and is taking
the first step of self-denial in espousing the cause of Christ. Even though it
be with fear and trembling, he is submitting willingly to painful humbling and
contempt in the sight of the world and of the chief priests and their blind
followers, in order that he may share with the Master and all the members of
the Anointed Body the coldness and scorn of the world and of many whom they
seek to bless. Yet in so doing we are not alone, as was our Lord and Head; for
we have comfort and sympathy from Him as our High Priest and from our fellow
members
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in His Body, the Church. With our Lord,
however, none could sympathize. He was the Fore-runner on this race course; and
of the people there was none with Him.
But, some one may ask, where does our
cross-bearing begin, and where our crucifixion? Where does it end?
How much does it involve? We answer,
Circumstances alter cases to some extent; and each must apply the matter in his
own case. To enable us to do this, let us examine three notable examples of
such cross-bearing—our Lord, St. Paul and St. Peter.
"CONSIDER
HIM WHO ENDURED"
Born under the conditions of the Jewish Law,
our Lord could not begin His service—ministry—until He was thirty years old,
although His earlier years were evidently spent in studying prophetic
utterances concerning God’s Plan and His own share therein. This is made
evident in the only record of His boyhood. When but twelve years old He was
seeking information concerning the Heavenly Father’s business, and was found
amongst the eminent teachers asking questions relating to the prophecies.—#Lu
2:42-52.
At thirty years of age He had His first
opportunity to begin the work which He had come into the world to do.
Using the figure in our text, we might say
that then He took up His cross when He came to John to be baptized of him in
the Jordan. This was a cross—a humiliation; for the masses of the people were,
like John the Baptist, ignorant of the deep meaning which our Lord attached to
immersion as a symbol of death. John and the people used it only as a symbol of
washing, cleansing or reformation from sin. Nor was it proper for our Lord then
to explain to them a symbol which belonged to an age and a work not to be made
known until the Pentecost following His death. Nor would they have understood
if He had explained.
But it became our Lord to set the example
which, as their Leader, He would afterward expect all His disciples
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to follow. Hence, as in His actual death He
who knew no sin was counted amongst the transgressors, so in its symbol—the
water immersion—He was "numbered with transgressors" (Isa 53:12), who
were there figuratively washing away a sinful past to make a new start in life.
For the sinless Lamb of God thus to
be misunderstood was doubtless a heavy cross; but it opened the way to a still
clearer appreciation of the Father’s will, which He had come to perform.
Obedience in taking up the figurative cross proved Him worthy of continuing in
the Father’s service—even unto death. The Holy Power of God which came upon Him
there enabled Him to see more clearly His future pathway down to Calvary; but
it also brought clearer and clearer apprehensions of the exceeding riches of
Divine favor and of the high exaltation in reservation for Him at the end of
the narrow way.
THE
VICTORY IN THE WILDERNESS
Under the increased illumination of mind which
followed His spirit-begetting at Jordan, our Lord was led by His spirit of
consecration into the wilderness, there to consider more fully in private the
Father’s Plan and His own future course in obedience thereto. There the cross
grew heavy as He more fully realized the shame, ignominy and self-abasement to
which His consecration would lead. Moreover, the Tempter threw all his weight
upon the already heavy cross by suggesting other ways of doing good which were
more agreeable to the flesh than was the way of sacrifice. But after counting
the cost, our Lord refused any other method, whether Satan’s or His own, and
chose to have God’s will done in God’s own way, saying again, "Lo, I come
to do Thy will, O My God!"—Ps 40:5-8.
With this victory our Lord grew stronger; and
the cross seemed lighter as He came out of the wilderness figuratively
crucified, willingly delivered up to die—hands, feet, each and every talent and
power restrained from self-service—all offered up as a sacrifice to God in
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the carrying out of the Divine Plan, whatever
that might involve, whether the dying process might prove to be of longer or
shorter duration or of more or less pain.
Now He more fully understood the meaning of
His consecration vow made at Jordan.
As a man, then, when He began His ministry our
Lord’s will was already dead to every human hope and ambition—dead to His own
human plans and control.
Yet He was not dead in the sense of being
insensible to the scoffs, pains and piercing words which He would encounter,
but crucified—delivered up to death. The pinioned, bleeding members—human
talents, rights, etc.—quivered and twitched; but they always remained
pinioned—crucified, delivered up to death—to the last, as when He prayed in
Gethsemane that the cup of ignominy might be omitted. During all these three
and one-half years of our Lord’s ministry He was crucified in this figurative
sense. That is to say, He was delivered up to death—His will, His talents, His
all, bound and pinioned—in harmony with the Father’s Plan. And every deed of
His by which "virtue [vitality, life] went out of Him" to bless and
heal in mind and body the sinners about Him was part of His dying, and finally
ended in death—even the literal death of the cross.
ST.
PAUL’S EXPERIENCE
St. Paul was not literally crucified, but
ended his course by being beheaded—as became a Roman citizen.
Yet figuratively he tells us long before his
literal death, "I am crucified with Christ." That is to say, "I
am delivered up to death. My will, my self-control, my talents and powers, my
rights, my lawful ambitions as a man—all these are pinioned and bound by my
consecration vow, so that having no will or plan or way of my own, I may be
fully able to let the Holy Spirit—or mind or will—of the Master dwell in me and
rule my every act to His service. But I am not so dead that I do not
occasionally feel a twinging of the flesh and have
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a suggestion as to another way and as to what
would or would not be necessary. I keep my body under, however, subject to the
will of God, saying, as did the Master under similar circumstances, ‘Not my
will but Thine [Heavenly Father] be done.’" Many get the idea that our Lord
and the Apostle referred only to sinful desires when they spoke of figurative
crucifixion. They read the Apostle’s words as if he meant, "My sinful
ambitions and desires I keep under and crucify." They interpret our Lord
to mean, "Not My sinful will be done, O Father, but Thy holy will."
This is a mistake. Our Lord was holy,
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners (Heb 7:26); and as such He could not
have a sinful will or desire. He had no wish to kill, steal, blaspheme, covet
the possessions of others, nor to bear false witness, nor to backbite, nor
slander, nor do any other sinful thing toward God or toward man. On the
contrary, His will was to do good only, to honor God and to bless men.
But as a man, our Lord had a mind, a strong
mind or judgment as to HOW good could best be accomplished, as to HOW God could
be most highly honored and men most effectually blessed. Had He followed His
own judgment and will as to the best methods of honoring God and blessing men,
it would probably have been along the line which naturally suggests itself to
other GOOD judgments and wills—along the line of political and social reforms,
in securing pure government for the people, in meting out justice to the
oppressed, in establishing hospitals, asylums and colleges, and in cleansing
the religious system of His day. But although such a good will would have
doubtless accomplished much temporary good, it would never have worked out the
grand deliverance for the race which we now see that God’s comprehensive Plan
of the Ages is designed to work out.
Such a plan did not occur to the mind of even
the perfect Man Christ Jesus; for it is beyond the scope of human
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thought and reasoning. But knowing that His
Father was greater than He, our Lord rightly reasoned that implicit submission
to Jehovah’s will was the proper course, whatever it might involve.
WHY
CRUCIFIXION OF WILL IS PROPER
The nearer a person is to perfection, the
stronger is his will and the more difficult to crucify. The more confident any
one is that his will is good and for good and blessing to others, the more
difficult it is to see good reasons for surrendering it. Thus our dear Lord
knew that it was needful for Him to die in order to provide the Ransom-price
for the world and shrank not from it; but knowing also that pain, public scorn
and contempt as a criminal were not part of the penalty, He questioned their
necessity—whether the Father was not asking of Him as the Redeemer more than
the penalty of Adam’s sin. Therefore He prayed, "Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from Me"—nevertheless I claim no rights; I
attempt neither to follow My own ideas nor to exercise My own will; I leave all
to Thy wisdom; "Thy will be done."
Evidently our Lord did not see then what for
our own advantage and strengthening He has since showed us who are following in
His steps, crucifying our own wills, etc.—that extreme trial of obedience, even
unto the death of the cross, was both expedient and proper, because of the very
high exaltation to the Divine nature, for which His implicit obedience to the
Father’s will in giving our Ransom-price was to be the test of worthiness.
As followers in our Lord’s footsteps we have
neither such strong wills to overcome and crucify nor the proportionate
strength of character whereby to overcome them. But we have the advantage of
knowing clearly why so extreme and exact obedience is necessary in all who
would be accounted worthy of a place in that select Body of Christ, the Church,
which is to be so highly honored with our Lord Jesus, our Redeemer and Head.
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HOW
WE FOLLOW IN HIS STEPS
The Apostle Paul did not mean the crucifying
of a sinful will or sinful desires, plans, etc., when he said, "I am
crucified with Christ." Elsewhere he refers to the same thing, saying that
he desired to be "dead with Him," and to have "fellowship in His
sufferings." So, then, if Christ’s crucifixion was not the crucifixion of
a sinful will and sinful desires, neither was St. Paul’s, nor are ours as followers
of the spotless Lamb of God.
True, St. Paul and other followers of Christ
were by nature sinners and children of wrath even as others, and hence were
very much less than perfect, compared with the Undefiled One. But their first
step of faith in Christ showed them that they had no right nor privilege to
will or to do wrong; and in accepting of justification through the death of
Christ, they confessed not only sorrow for sins past, but repentance and change
from sin for the future to the extent of their ability, realizing that the
imputed merit of the Ransom covered not only past sins, but also all unwillful
weaknesses and errors future. This change of will from sin to righteousness
preceded their call to follow Christ, to suffer with Him and to share with Him
the high exaltation to the Divine nature. Thus we see that with us, as with our
Lord, it is our good human wills, our good intentions and our good plans—not
actually perfect as our Lord’s, but reckonedly so through His imputed merit—that
are to be crucified, delivered up to death with Christ and to share in His
sacrifice.
As our Lord set aside and crucified
His own will, accepting of the Father’s will instead, so we as His footstep
followers set aside or crucify our wills or desires—no matter how good and wise
they appear to us—to accept instead the guidance and direction of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who still delights to carry out the Father’s Plan, the perfection
of which He can now fully appreciate.
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