- Overcomer Literature Trust
- Swindon
- Wiltshire
“The Cross in the Light of the Resurrection.”
“I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever” (Revelation 1 v18).
This is the message of the Cross. It is wonderful to note the light and glory with which these words invest the Cross. It is not, ‘I am the One who died and am alive’, but “I am the Living One; I was dead”. Life is proclaimed before death.
There are two ways of looking at the Cross, one from death and the other from life. In one we see the Man, in the other the glorified, resurrected Jesus, and it is in this way we should look at the Cross. We are not to carry about the memory of the grave, but the glory of the Resurrection. It is not the Man, but the living Christ who abides with us, and therefore our crucifixion with Him is lost in our resurrection, and we shall even forget our own sorrow and carry with us the light and glory of the Easter morning.
So let us live the "death-born life", resurrected not raised. This distinction is very important. The teaching of human philosophy is that we are to raise humanity to a higher plane. This is not the Gospel. The teaching of the Gospel is that corrupt humanity must die and sink out of sight, and then be resurrected, not raised. Resurrection is not improvement, it is not elevation, but it is a new supernatural life, lifting us from nothingness into God and making us partakers of the Divine nature. It is a new creation, infinitely above the highest plane of earthly life. Let us not take less than resurrection.
The principle of death and resurrection is the central theme of Christianity. It is pictured for us in nature, in the transformation of the chrysalis, in the transformation of the winding-sheet of Winter into the many tinted robes of Spring, in the buried seed bursting into the bud and blossom of the Summer. We see it all through the Bible, in the passage of the Red Sea and Jordan - leading out and leading in, in the Cross of Calvary and the open grave of the first Easter morning. We see it in every truly spiritual life, for all real life is ‘death-born’ and the more real the death the truer the life. Doubtless the years that have passed have shown us many places in our lives where there ought to have been a grave, and many a shred of the natural life and sinful nature which we should have gladly laid down in a bottomless tomb. May God help us to pass the sentence of death and then to let the Holy Spirit make the interment eternal! Let us turn away from the grave with the glad resurrection song, ‘Awake and sing you who live in the dust. The law of the Spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, has made me free from the law of sin and death’. (Romans 8 v2).
There is a natural law of sin and death, and if we just let ourselves go and sink into the circumstances of life we shall go down under the pressure and under the power of the tempter. But there is another law, the law of spiritual life in Christ Jesus through which we can rise up and overcome the other law that would drag us down. To do this requires spiritual energy, fixed purpose and the habit of faith. There is a spiritual attitude of choosing, believing, abiding and firmly holding steady in our walk with God which is essential to the working of the Holy Spirit in our sanctification and in all our spiritual life.
“We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first” (Hebrews 3 v14).
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