Even as Christ lived in this world, so should we; as Christ lived a crucified life daily, so we need to be those living a crucified life by taking Christ’s death as the mold of our life so that we may live out the reality of the Body of Christ.
Becoming a Christian is one of the most wonderful things in the universe, for when we believe into the Lord, we receive the life of God in our spirit. Now as believers in Christ we have two lives – the human life and the divine life; living a normal Christian life requires that we live out the divine life.
How can we live out the divine life to express Christ when we by default live our natural life, our selfish life, and our fleshly life?
There is only one way: through the cross and by the Spirit, that is, living a life of being crucified daily so that the natural life would be put to death and the divine life would be expressed. If we are the God-men pursuing Christ, we need to daily pursue to die with Christ through the experience of the cross.
The Lord Jesus said that if we want to follow Him we need to take up our cross and deny our self; if we don’t take up our cross and follow Him (even as He lived a crucified life daily), we are not worthy of Him (Matt. 10:38).
The Lord Jesus had a perfect humanity, a humanity not touched by sin, yet He denied Himself and did not live by His perfect natural life but lived by the life of the Father, taking the Father as His source and center and goal.
Crucifixion was not merely an event that took place at the end of the Lord’s life on the earth; rather, He lived a crucified life daily, living a life of putting Himself aside and taking the Father as His everything.
When we speak of the cross, however, we may not like it, for we think that the cross brings in suffering; in God’s eyes and according to the Bible, the cross is for termination, not for suffering.
Paul testified that he died daily, and the death of Christ was operating in him so that life may be operating in the other believers.
Through our faith in Christ we have been organically joined to Him, and we have been buried with Him in His death to grow together with Him in the likeness of His resurrection.
We are in an organic union with the Lord, and whatever He passed through is our history, and His death and resurrection in particular need to be our experience day by day.
Living a Crucified Life by the Power of Christ’s Resurrection for the Reality of the Body
No one wants to die; even those who say they want to die, when they are confronted with death, they shrink back.
In our Christian life we know we need to apply the death of Christ to our experience, but we don’t really want to, and we don’t even have the power to do so.
This is why we need to realise that it is by the power of Christ’s resurrection that we are conformed to the death of Christ (Phil. 3:10; John 11:25; Eph. 1:19-20; 3:16; S.S. 2:8-13).
When we turn to our mingled spirit and exercise to touch the Lord, asking Him and conversing with Him, the death of Christ is applied to our being by the power of His resurrection, and we live a crucified life for the reality of the Body of Christ.
Living a God-man life is a living of being conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection so that Christ would live in us and be expressed through us; such a corporate living is the reality of the Body of Christ.
The death of Christ is a mold which we need to take for our life; only by living a crucified life by the power of Christ’s resurrection can we live in the reality of the Body of Christ.
We need the Lord’s mercy to see this vision and realise that only by being conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection can we live a God-man life, a life in the reality of the Body of Christ.
When we see such a revelation, when we realise that what God wants is a God-man living – the reproduction of the living of Jesus on earth, we will choose to to our spirit again and again so that we may be conformed to the mold of Christ’s death by the power of His resurrection.
May the Lord open our eyes to see such a vision. May the Lord have mercy on us that we may live a life of being conformed to the death of Christ through the cross.
May we allow the cross to touch the deepest parts of our being and every detail in our daily life, so that we may die daily for the life of Christ to be manifested in us.
The reality of the Body of Christ is a corporate living of being conformed to the death of Christ through the cross by the power of His resurrection.
The cross – the death of Christ – is the centrality and universality of our way to live the Christian life in order to fulfill God’s purpose. Christ is the centrality and universality of God, and the cross is the centrality and universality of our way to live the Christian life.
Far be it from us to boast in anything except the cross of Christ, through which we have been crucified to the world and the world has been crucified to us! Amen!
As Christ’s continuation, we should live a crucified life every day (1 Cor. 15:31; 2 Cor. 4:10-11); we need to be like Paul, dying daily so that Christ may be manifested in us and His life would flow through us and be expressed in us.
To live a crucified life is to remain in the mold of Christ’s death by the power of His resurrection. We should be those who live a crucified life by taking Christ’s death as the mold of our life; it is only by this kind of corporate living that we can have the reality of the Body of Christ (Phil. 3:10; Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 2:2; 12:27).
May we realise that, without the cross, without the work of the cross molding us into the likeness of the death of Christ, it is impossible for us to have the reality of the Body of Christ; at best we can have a social life with other Christians, but we still live in our natural life.
May we remain in the mold of Christ’s death so that we may live a crucified life by the power of His resurrection so that we may be in the reality of the Body of Christ.
Lord Jesus, we want to be those who live a crucified life daily by taking Christ’s death as the mold of our life, so that we may be conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection. Amen, Lord, strengthen us into our inner man and grant us to experience the power of Your resurrection so that we may be conformed to the death of Christ and thus allow Christ to live in us and be expressed through us. May there be such a corporate living of the conformity to the death of Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ today in all the local churches on the earth!
Living the Life of the Cross and the Spirit for the Reality of the Body of Christ
May the Lord really have mercy on us, His believers, to show us the crucial importance of the matter of being conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection. And may we be those who live a life of the cross and the Spirit.
Christ’s death and resurrection need to be our experience daily – not merely in the big things or big decisions, but in our daily life with all its trivial things.
The cross of Christ is a synonym for death, and the Spirit is a synonym for resurrection; the reality of the death of Christ and His resurrection are all in the Spirit, and this Spirit is mingled with our spirit.
The Lord Jesus said that He is both resurrection and life (John 11:25); this He said even before passing through death and resurrection. Resurrection is a person; the reality of resurrection is Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit.
As God-men, we today should live the God-man life, which is a life of the experience of death and resurrection, that is, a life of the experience of the cross and the Spirit.
When big problems happen, when we are in uneasy situations and our environment is perplexing, we need to turn to the Lord in spirit and live a crucified life, that is, live the life of the cross and the Spirit for the reality of the Body of Christ.
When others slander us, defame us, or criticize us, we should not try to justify ourselves or “present our side of the story”; we simply need to live the life of the cross and the Spirit.
The Apostle Paul was such a one; he was slandered and persecuted by the Jews, and he was even rejected and forsaken by many of the churches which he himself help raise up.
However, he testified that he is crucified with Christ, he lives a crucified life, and even at the end of his life he yearned to be conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection so that Christ may be magnified in him whether through life or through death.
Brother Watchman Nee was a great pattern to us in this matter; for many years he was slandered and opposed even among the local churches which he himself raised up, but even though the opposers’ attacks were aimed right at him, he smiled and said nothing.
Eventually, the Lord brought brother Nee back into his ministry, and the churches benefited greatly of his latter ministry; the whole Body of Christ benefited from his ministry.
The whole Body of Christ benefits when we as members of the Body are living a crucified life by the Spirit, that is, when we live a life of the cross and the Spirit.
When we in our family life learn to check with the Lord, Lord, am I the one speaking or is it You? Do I want to touch this matter or do You want to say something else?
We need to practice checking with the Lord by turning to our spirit again and again in our daily life, family life, and church life.
If we don’t live the life of the cross and the Spirit, we can’t have the church as the Body of Christ, the counterpart of Christ, the kingdom of God, and the house of God.
But when we daily experience the cross and the Spirit, there’s an issue in five aspects: the church, the Body of Christ, the house of God, the kingdom of God, and the counterpart of Christ.
Lord Jesus, may our daily experience be an experience of the cross and the Spirit for the reality of the Body of Christ. Keep us turning to You, Lord, and checking with You about things, conversing with You about situations and people, and living one spirit with You. May we remain in the mold of the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection so that His life may be manifested through us. Lord, may we have a normal Christian life – a crucified life by the Spirit so that Christ may be manifested in us for the church, the Body of Christ, the counterpart of Christ, and the kingdom of God.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 2, “The Governing and Controlling Vision in the Bible,” chs. 4-5, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Living in the Reality of the Body of Christ by Keeping the Principles of the Body (2019 ICSC), week 1, The Reality of the Body of Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
# If I’d have Christ formed within me, / I must breathe my final breath, / Live within the Cross’s shadow, / Put my soul-life e’er to death. / If God thru th’ Eternal Spirit / Nail me ever with the Lord; / Only then as death is working / Will His life thru me be poured. (Hymns #631)
# ’Tis not hard to die with Christ / When His risen life we know; / ’Tis not hard to share His suff’rings / When our hearts with joy o’erflow. / In His resurrection power / He has come to dwell in me, / And my heart is gladly going / All the way to Calvary. (Hymns #481)
# Oh! it is so sweet to die with Christ, / To the world, and self, and sin; / Oh! it is so sweet to live with Christ, / As He lives and reigns within. (Hymns #482)
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