Being Further Reconciled to God by the Application of the Cross to our Natural Life

This week I am really impressed how much God desires to reconcile us with Himself; He became a man and died for us – the Righteous for the unrighteous, so that we may be fully reconciled to God.

Christ died for our sins, putting all our sins on Himself, so that by believing into Him we would not perish but have eternal life, be forgiven of our sins, and be reconciled to God from sin. How wonderful it is to know that, even though we are sinners, we can be reconciled with God and have peace toward God because of the death of Jesus Christ!

Yet that’s not all: Christ wants us to be reconciled further to God, that is, be reconciled to God from living in the flesh and in the natural man, to living one with Him in the mingled spirit, a life one with the Lord.

For this, Christ died for us as sinners – He Himself became the unique sinner, and His flesh was rent on the cross; because of His death on our behalf, now our flesh can be crucified and put to death so that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us.

Most believers in Christ are reconciled to God in an initial way; they believed into Christ and have entered through the screen (the first veil in the tabernacle) into the Holy Place; here Christ shines on them through His word, and He supplies them with the bread of life.

However, we need to be further reconciled to God so that we may no longer live in our flesh, in our natural life, but live one with the Lord in the mingled spirit. There’s a call being sounded out today by those who have already experienced this further reconciliation, that we may be reconciled to God!

In the objective aspect of His death Christ bore our sins; by believing into Him, we receive the forgiveness of sins, we obtain the eternal life, we become children of God, we are justified before God, and we are reconciled to God to be His sons.

In the subjective aspect of His death, Christ became sin for us, and by applying the death of Christ to our natural life we become the righteousness of God in Him, we live a life in oneness with the Lord, and we become part of the mutual dwelling place of God and man, having God’s speaking and His glory shining in us and through us.

Oh, may we be further reconciled to God!

Being Further Reconciled to God by the Application of the Cross to our Natural Life

Even though we love the Lord, seek to gain Him, enjoy Him in His word, and pray to fellowship with Him, we all can testify that we are to a certain degree still separated from God because we are NOT fully one with Him and altogether in harmony with Him.

It is a blessing that we would have such a realization, being enlightened by the Lord that we need the second step of reconciliation spoken of by Paul in 2 Cor. 5:18-21. This second step is much deeper than the first step; it takes place not in the outer court outside the tabernacle but in the Holy Place, and this further reconciliation is continuous.

No matter how nice, good, “holy”, or “spiritual” you may be, you still feel there’s something within that separates you from God’s presence; you may love the Lord, pursue to gain Him, yet you’re not fully in harmony with Him.

What we need is the application of the subjective aspect of Christ’s death to our situation and to our natural life. This application of the subjective death of Christ crucifies our natural life, rending the veil that separates us from God’s inner presence.

If we are sincere and honest with God in our seeking of Him, we shall realize that this is our situation. This is the reason that often we begin our prayer with confession. We may say, “Father, I confess that I am still separated from You. In a sense, I am with You, but in a deeper sense I am not with You. I am separated from You not by something sinful but by my natural life. Father, forgive me, and grant mercy to me that I may apply the subjective death of Christ to my inward being to such an extent that my natural life will be thoroughly crucified.” This is to experience the rending of the veil within us so that, through the rent veil of the natural life, we may be reconciled to the inner presence of God the Father. Witness Lee, The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 1587

In His loving care, the Father exposes our natural life and unveils our real situation to us; this is a great blessing, and when this happens we can apply the subjective aspect of Christ’s death to our natural life to crucify it and thus live in the spirit.

It is an act of love from God our Father to expose our natural life and unveil our real situation to us. When the Lord exposes us in such a way, we condemn our natural being and apply the cross subjectively, and this application of the death of Christ crucifies our natural life.

This happens gradually; as the Father exposes our natural life, we apply the cross of Christ, and something is permanently dealt with in our being. As the Lord exposes our natural being, our disposition, our opinionated self, our peculiarity, and all the aspects of our natural life, the cross of Christ is being applied to our being, and we are further reconciled to God.

As our natural man is crossed out, we experience the second step of reconciliation; in this step the veil of our natural man is rent so that we may live in God’s presence.

When our natural man is put to death, we enter into the Holy of Holies, into God Himself, our eternal home. Here, in God’s presence, we sense His glory enveloping us, we have a sweet sense of direct contact with God in Christ, and we sense we’re in a realm of absolute oneness together with all the other God-seekers.

The second step of reconciliation is continuous – it doesn’t take place once for all, it takes our whole lifetime! By the two aspects of His death, Christ fully reconciles God’s chosen people to God (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:19-20).

Lord, we need to be reconciled further to You. We admit that we are still not fully one with You. We are not yet in harmony with Your desire, Your will, and Your mind. We want to be fully one with You, in full harmony with You. Keep us open to You as Your expose our natural life, and may the subjective aspect of the death of Christ be applied to our being so that our natural being would be rent and we would enter into the Holy of Holies! Lord, bring us fully into Your presence by reconciling us further to Yourself day by day!

Five Wonderful Issues of being Further Reconciled to God as Seen in the Bible

Our future as believers in Christ is glorious and bright; the Bible doesn’t leave us in the dark concerning it but rather lays it all before us, that we may know what experiences we need, what is in our being, what God desires from us, and what He will gain.

The two veils separating us from God – the screen at the entrance of the tabernacle and the veil at the entrance to the Holy of Holies – correspond to our spiritual experience of the two steps of reconciliation.

The first step of reconciliation is once and for all, and through the Lord’s death for our sins we can enter into the Holy Place and enjoy God. The second step, however, is continuous, and it takes a lifetime.

Our wise heavenly Father gives us the experiences we need for our natural life to be exposed and the cross to be applied to us so that we may further reconciled to God. The Bible also tells us what actually happens as a result of being further reconciled to God, and there are at least five wonderful issues:

1. We come directly into God; until now we were in the Holy Place, enjoying something of God and of Christ – the light of life and the bread of life, but now we enter into God through the new and living way, the rent veil (the crucified flesh).

Hallelujah, we have boldness for entering the Holy of Holies in the blood of Jesus, which entrance He initiated for us in a new and living way through the veil (Heb. 10:19-20). In the Holy of Holies we are not only in God’s presence: we are in God, we have a direct contact with Him, we have His speaking and His glory, and the uttermost enjoyment has begun.

2. We become the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21). We are not only being made righteous because of Christ’s death for our sins, which justifies us; we are constituted righteousness itself.

To become the righteousness of God in Christ is a matter of being right with God in our inner being. This means that we have an inner being that is transparent, and we are crystal clear concerning the mind and will of God. This is our future: we will become in Christ the righteousness of God! In every way we will be right with Him, and we will be crystal clear concerning His mind and will!

3. We no longer live to ourselves but to the Lord (2 Cor. 5:14). We don’t have to remind ourselves about the Lord and His life in us – we will have a NO LONGER inscribed on our being, and we will live to the Lord.

We were once under our own direction, having our own goals, but now we are one with the Lord; He sets the course, we want His heart’s desire, and we are one with Him for His will to be done on earth.

4. Our heart is enlarged to love and include all men. In 2 Cor. 6:11-13 Paul testified that his mouth was open and his heart enlarged toward the Corinthians; they were not constricted in Paul but in their inward parts, therefore they needed to be enlarged, that is, to be further reconciled.

A wonderful result of being further reconciled to God is that our heart is enlarged to include and love all the people of God. We will not only forgive but also forget, and we will just love men.

5. We become the Holy of Holies – we become the New Jerusalem! As we see in Song of Songs 6:4 and John 14:20, we not enter into the Holy of Holies – we become the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies is God Himself; as we enter here, we enter into God, and God is making us the same as He is in life, nature, and expression.

We are reconciled to God to such an extent that we are God in life, nature, expression, and function, and just as He is our dwelling place, we are His dwelling place. We become the same as Christ in life, nature, and expression, and as the New Jerusalem we are the enlarged Holy of Holies, the mutual dwelling place of God and man. Hallelujah, what a glorious future awaits us!

Lord Jesus, we want to come forward to God through the rent veil so that we may enter into God and enjoy Him fully in the Holy of Holies. We desire to have no more barriers or hindrances but have a direct contact with God and enjoy Him to the uttermost. May our living be no longer to ourselves but to the Lord, the One who loved us and gave Himself up for us. Enlarge our heart, Lord, to include and love all Your people, and to forgive and forget even as You forgive and forget. Amen, Lord, reconcile us to Yourself further until we become the same as You are in life, nature, and expression!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by brother Ron K. for this week, and The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 146 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (part 4, 2016 Summer Training), week 43 / msg. 7, The Veil, the Screen, and the Two Aspects of Reconciliation.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Since it must be thus, I pray, Lord, / Help me go the narrow way; / Deal with pride and make me willing / Thus to suffer, Thee t’obey. / I for greater power pray not, / Deeper death is what I need; / All the meaning of the Cross, Lord, / Work in me-for this I plead. (Hymns #279)
  # By the cross discern the spirit, / Put the soul to death alway; / Bear the cross, deny the self-life, / Walk in spirit day by day. (Hymns #748)
  # Nothing between, Lord, nothing between; / Till Thine eternal light, / Rising on earth’s dark night, / Bursts on my open sight—Nothing between. (Hymns #373)