- Overcomer Literature Trust
- Swindon
- Wiltshire
The Death Fellowship in Experience.
The third aspect of the fellowship of the believer with Christ in His death which we must now ponder over, is or the deepest moment to our Risen and Ascended Lord, and to His Body the Church, at the present hour.
The passage which brings this aspect out we are most of us familiar with, and yet every time we turn to it we are conscious we have but touched the fringe of its fathomless depths in relation to the Cross. Let us turn to 2Corinthians 4v10-12, Conybeare’s translation, ‘In my body I bear about continually the dying of Jesus, that in my body the life also of Jesus might be shown forth’. Literally it is the ‘killing of Jesus’, the word rendered ‘dying’ is ‘nekrosis’, quite a different word to those used in Romans 6 and Romans 8v13. Here the Lexicon says, ‘it is expressive of the action as incomplete and in progress’.
Conybeare’s footnote says, ‘the word translated ‘dying’ here is properly the deadness of a corpse, as though St. Paul would say ‘my body is not better than a corpse, yet a corpse which shares the life-giving power of Christ’s resurrection’. ‘Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus . . . for we which live are always delivered to death’.
The word ‘always’ is the key-word here for it shows that the death-fellowship must persistently be recognized and deepened if there is to be a full impartation of resurrection life to the ‘mortal body’ as the ‘making to die’ of the ‘doings of the body’ is steadfastly carried out.
There is no real impartation of ‘resurrection life’ apart from the continuous death-identification with Christ. Here again, Mabie's words are illuminating, ‘You cannot separate death and resurrection. They are twin parts of one fact.’ The ‘death of Christ carries resurrection in it’. If we have apprehended the Romans 6 aspect, and seen the aorist tense of the words, that our death with Christ is a consummated fact, and have passed on to see that the yielding to death of our ‘earthly members’ is a continuously necessary line of action if our death-union with Christ is not to be rendered null and void, and the ‘power’ of the ‘resurrection’ be absent. That is, we shall be living in the power of the natural man disguised as ‘spiritual’, and the true, actual impartation of the very life of Jesus, that life which He now has in the glory will be absent.
It cannot therefore be over emphasised at this point that all resurrection life is imparted to us only as we reckon upon our death-union with Christ. It comes to us from the Risen Lord every moment, via His death, and directly we are out of focus with His death, that impartation of resurrection-life ceases. The centre may abide unshaken, but there is an immediate check in the impartation of life to the circumference, and an immediate check to the outflow of life to others. The language may be unchanged, the mind retain its knowledge of truth, the will and faith be unaltered, but life from the Risen Lord has ceased to flow, for all that was kept out of its way by the continuous death-union has again intervened, and the ‘body’ which may be ‘no better than a corpse’ has ceased to be quickened by the ‘life-giving power of Christ’s resurrection’.
There is a law of God, a natural law, which is analogous to this aspect of our death-union with Christ. We know that in the physical frame there is a death-process and a life-process going on continuously, and that one must not exceed the other for normal health. So in this recognition of the same law in, what Mabie calls, ‘the composite death-resurrection energy’ of the principle of the Cross. Swing too far into endeavour to lay hold of all that the ‘new creation’ means for spirit, soul and body, without the necessary death-fellowship maintained and deepened, and the believer not only will be holding ‘truth’ which has no power in it, but he becomes open to the deceiving spirits of the air, who are only too ready to give the counterfeit of all the ‘new creation’ aspects of truth the soul has eagerly stretched forward to apprehend.
Is it not clear, therefore, how vital is this aspect of the death-union of the Cross! It touches the need of the moment at every point, and shows that the one primary message at this time is the Cross in all its aspects. It is the one message which will counter the wiles of Satan in every phase of his working among the children of God at the present time.
Now let us look into the way in which this ‘bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus’ may be brought about, and some other results to it in the believer himself. The verse we have quoted is a climax to a few words giving a glimpse into the circumstantial environment of the Apostle at the time he wrote, showing that to the believer who knows his death-identification union with Christ all external happenings to him are to be read in the light of his death-union with the Lord. ‘Troubled’, ‘perplexed’, ‘persecuted’, ‘cast down’, all goes toward the deepening of his death-fellowship with Christ. He may not be given, like Him, an actual ‘cross’, but he will be given all that went toward that ‘putting to death of Jesus’ at Calvary’ and the believer must read his environing circumstances in that light. They are directly by God’s permission for the purpose of bringing about in deepening measure his conformity to that death.
Then let us note what we may call the deliberateness of this objective. The Holy Spirit, who has brought about this fellowship, actually again and again hands over to death the believer who fully purposes to know the very ‘life of Jesus’ made ‘manifest in his mortal flesh’. If he wants all that the ‘new creation’ means, then there is no other way but to be prepared to be ‘delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake’ as he is able to bear it.
Two results will accrue of deepest moment to the Church of God and to the believer himself. The first we find in verse 12. ‘So then, death worketh in us but life in you.’ What a fathomless depth we get a glimpse into here! ‘Death’ in us, ‘life in you’. Is not that the very crux of the death of Christ Himself? ‘Death’ to Him, life to us. Jukes has a word here of deep significance. He writes, ‘May we not also, as Christ’s members, become ourselves sacramental, like His wounded hands and side, giving forth water and blood’.
Is there not a hint of this in verse 11, ‘For Jesus’ sake’? Here comes in at last such deep union with the Risen Lord that the believer can say, ‘I fill up what is lacking of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh, on behalf of His Body’(Colossians 1v24) and ‘the sufferings of Christ have come upon me’ (2Corinthians lv5). This is clearly not the Romans 6 ‘death’ to sin, nor the ‘making to die’ of the ‘doings of the body’ of Romans 8v13. The death-union has now become so deep that, like the Lord Himself, the believer is living in this world only to be reckoned ‘as sheep for the slaughter’. ‘Killed all the day long’(Romans 8v36) sacramentally being poured out as a drink-offering for life to others (Philippians 2v17).
The other result in this deep death-union with Christ is to the believer himself, in his deepening conformity to the pattern of the Christ, in what Mabie describes as His ‘Lamb-hood nature’. Let us look at Romans 8v29, for a glimpse into this. It reads, ‘Those He foreknew He also predestinated to be made like to the pattern of His Son’. ‘Like in suffering’ is Conybeare’s footnote.
Look now at Hebrews 2v10. ‘In bringing many sons to glory, to consecrate by sufferings the Captain’. Literally, says the Conybeare footnote, ‘to bring to the appointed accomplishment, to develop the full ideal of the character’. The full ideal of the pattern of the Son required ‘suffering’ to bring it into full accomplishment. The believer is to be ‘made like to the pattern’. If ‘suffering’ was necessary for the Son, so also it is necessary for all who are ‘joined to Him, the First-born’. If He ‘learned obedience by the things which He suffered’ even so, those who are to be conformed to His image. Here then is the key to Philippians 3v10. ‘That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death’. The ‘conformity’ to His death is one aspect of our becoming conformable to His likeness in the body of His glory.
Now, lastly, a word on ‘Throne-life’ in relation to this death-fellowship with Christ. Let us not forget that the Throne in Heaven has in the midst of it ‘a Lamb as it had been newly slain’(Revelation 5v6). You may think of ‘death with Christ’ only in its aspect off Golgotha, but that death is an ever-living power in the heart of the Throne in Heaven. Because it was no merely human death, but the death of the Son of God, it has in it an ever-fresh dynamic power in the Throne of Heaven. ‘Resurrection’ was in the death on Golgotha, and the Lamb slain is in the centre of that Throne in Heaven.
The true ‘throne life’ authority in Christ which belongs to all united to Him, is only to be actually exercised as the believer is deeply centred in his death-identification-union. 1 Corinthians 4 gives a glimpse into this. You can see the spurious and the true in their contrasting characteristics in this passage. Verse 8 describes the ‘spiritualised flesh’ apprehending ‘Throne life’, ‘Ye have already eaten to the full of spiritual food. Ye are already rich, ye have seated yourselves upon your throne’, and verses 9-13 depict the true ‘Throne life’ of the one who is truly sharing the ‘composite death-resurrection energy’ of fellowship with the Lord ‘We are’, said Paul, ‘like criminals condemned to die, to be gazed at by the whole world, both men and angels. Curses we meet with blessing, persecution with patience, railings with good words’. Here is manifested the Lamb-hood nature of Him Who is as a Lamb in the midst of the Throne of Heaven.