The work of the cross was the means God used to bring to an end “our old life” by setting aside altogether our “old Man,” and the resurrection was the means he employed to impart to us all that was necessary for our life in a brand new world. The resurrection stands at the threshold of the new creation. The Cross ends all that belongs to the first regime, and that the resurrection introduces all that pertains to the second. Everything that had its beginning before resurrection must be wiped out. Resurrection is God’s new starting-point.
The flesh is linked with Adam; the Spirit with Christ. Am I living in the flesh or in the Spirit? To live in the flesh is to do something “out from” myself as in Adam. It is to derive strength from the old natural source of life that I inherited from him. So that I enjoy in experience all Adams very complete provision for sinning which all of us have found so effective. Now the same is true of what is in Christ. To enjoy in experience what is true of me as in him, I must learn to walk in the Spirit.
Our “old man” is Crucified
It is a historic fact that in Christ my old man was crucified. It is a present fact that I am blessed “with every spirited blessings in the heavenly places in Christ.” If I do not live in the Spirit, then my life may be quite a contradiction of the fact that I am in Christ, for what is true of me in him is not expressed in me. God’s provision of the indwelling Holy Spirit is sent to take care of the inward side, the “ordinance of the law.” He is able to do so, we are told, as we Walk after the Spirit.
Upon our repentance and confession of our faith on Christ we have received remission of our sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. God has made full provision for our redemption in the Cross of Christ, but he has not stopped there. In the Cross he has also made secure beyond possibility of failure that eternal plan which the Apostle Paul speaks of as having been from all ages “hid in God who created all things.”
The work of the Cross has two results which bear directly upon the realizing of that purpose in us. On the one hand it has issued in the release of his life that it may find expression in us through the indwelling Spirit. On the other hand it has made possible what we speak of as “bearing the cross.” That is, our cooperation in the daily in working of his death whereby way is made in us for the manifestation of that new life. Through the bringing of the “natural man” progressively into his right place of subjection to the Holy Spirit.
Adam was created a living Soul
In Genesis 2:7 we learn that Adam was created a living soul, with a spirit inside to commune with God and a body outside to have contact with the material world. He was found to be a self-conscious and self-expressing being, “a living soul.” God’s goal in man was son-ship; or, in other words, the expression of his life in human sons. If Adam was to choose dependence upon God by receiving from the tree of life (representing God’s own life), God would then have that life in union with men. He would have secured his spiritual son’s. But if instead Adam should turn to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would as a result be “free.” In the sense of being able to develop himself on his own course apart from God.
The fruit of the tree of knowledge made the first man over-developed in his soul. The emotion was touched, because the fruit was pleasant to the eyes, making him “desire.” The mind with its reasoning power was developed, for he was “made wise.” And the will was strengthened, so that in the future he could always decide which way to go. The whole fruit ministered to the expansion and full development of the soul, so that not only was the man a living soul, but from henceforth man will live by the soul. It is not merely that he has a soul, but from that day on, the soul, with its independent powers of free choice, usurps the place of the spirit as the animating power of man.
Living by the Soul
God does not mind – in fact he of course intends – that we should have a soul such as he gave to Adam. But what God has set himself to do is to reverse somethings. There is something in man today which is not just the fact of having and exercising a soul, but which constitutes a living by the soul. It was this that Satan brought about in the fall. He trapped man into taking a course by which he could develop his soul so as to derive from it his very spring of life.
To remedy this does not mean we should cross out the soul altogether. We still possess a soul and whenever we receive something from God the soul will still be used in relation to it. As an instrument, a faculty, in a true subjection to him. I will find no sufficiency in myself. By taking the forbidden fruit, Adam became possessed of an inherent power to act. A power which, by its independence of God, played right into Satan’s hands.
The power, the natural energy of the soul is present with us all. I may have changed my subject of interest, but have I changed my method or working? The trouble with many of us is that we have changed the channel into which our natural talents are directed. But we have not changed the source of those natural abilities. We do not lose our souls, for to do would be to lose our individual existence completely. The soul is still there with its natural endowments, but the Cross is brought to bear upon it to bring those natural endowments into death.
In Thy Light we see Light
There is a fundamental need for the light of God in order for us to know the mind of God. What is of the spirit and what is of the soul. To know what is divine and what is merely of man. To know whether God is really leading us or whether we are being moved by feelings, senses or imaginations. It is when we have reached a position where we would like to follow God fully that we find light to be the most necessary thing in the Christian life. “In thy light shall we see light.”
There are two lights there. There is “thy light,” and then, when we have come into that light, we shall “see light.” These two lights are different. The first light is objective and the second subjective. The first light is the light which belongs to God but is shed upon us. The second is the knowledge imparted by that light. “In thy light shall we see light.” We shall know something. We shall be clear about something; we shall see. It is the Word of God, the penetrating Scripture of truth that settles our questions. It is that which discerns our motives and defines for us their true source in soul or spirit. We need to be sincere and humble and to open ourselves before God. God is light, and we cannot live in his light and be without understanding.
The Temptation of Christ
Immediately after our Lord’s baptism, and before his public ministry, Satan came and tempted him. “If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” The implication was that he tried to get Jesus to use His deity to change the stones into bread. He couldn’t use that part of His person, which is the second person of the God head that created the universe. Only a man, a true man, who has no sin of His own could quality to bear the sins of mankind. “The Son can do nothing out from himself” (John 5:19). He was sent to be a perfect submission to God’s will and be totally dependent on the Father to work through Him to achieve all that He wanted Him to do.
And in so doing He set the pattern for the way we are to walk. It is a pattern that we are to follow. And that is just as Jesus refused to use His own innate deity so are we not to us our own human power. We are to depend on the Holy Spirit who dwells in every believer. The soul with its natural energy and resource, will continue with us until death. Till then there will be an unending, day-ty-day need for the Cross to operate in us, dredging deeply that well-spring of nature. This is the life-long condition of service laid down by Jesus in the words: “let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” The work of the Cross must remain an abiding principal of our lives for the losing of the soul and the uprising of the Spirit of life.