I am crucified with Christ

In Christianity very few speak of the need for believers to die with Christ and to allow Him to be lived out. A hymn written by A. B. Simpson says, "I am crucified with Christ, / And the cross hath set me free; / I have ris'n again with Christ, / And He lives and reigns in me" (Hymns, #482). Here, set free means to terminate. If we live a life of the cross to die together with Christ, the Holy Spirit will have the opportunity to live and rule in us.

Every day I pray to confess my sins at least three to five times. When I rise up in the morning, I pray, "O Lord, thank You for another day in which You can be my life and my experience, and I can also live by You. I truly want to live and move with You." However, even before noon I may have an inward sense that my conversation with my wife or my fellowship with a brother was half in the spirit and half in my self. Thus, I confess because of this. When I pray again at four o'clock in the afternoon, I still need to confess. Without exception, before going to sleep, I always pray to confess, saying, "O Lord, forgive me for all the instances in which I did not follow the Spirit and for all the instances in which I did not receive the cross today."

What the Lord cares for is not whether we do good or evil but whether we, after being saved, live by ourselves or let Him live out of us. Stanza 3 of Hymns, #482 says, "This the secret nature hideth, / Harvest grows from buried grain; / A poor tree with better grafted, / Richer, sweeter life doth gain." Doing good or evil, right or wrong, is the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God warned man not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that he ate of it, he would surely die (Gen. 2:17). God does not want man to eat of this tree of death but to eat of the tree of life, that is, to receive Him. Both Confucius and Mencius taught people to do good, but their teaching still belongs to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Whether we do good or evil, it is all under the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and in the day that we eat of that tree, we shall surely die. Most Christians today have not seen this. I am very concerned whether we have made the right choice between life and death, that is, whether we are participating in God's economy.

The Christian and Missionary Alliance was established in 1887 by Brother A. B. Simpson. It was an alliance of Christian missionaries that sent out its members to preach the gospel. Brother Simpson was knowledgeable concerning spiritual matters. He wrote hymns such as "I am crucified with Christ, / And the cross hath set me free" (Hymns, #482), "Jesus only, Jesus ever" (Hymns, #511), and "O Lord, breathe Thy Spirit on me, / Teach me how to breathe Thee in" (Hymns, #255). His hymns are deep, and they contain spiritual experiences and spiritual values. His co-workers also had some spiritual weight, one of whom was the missionary John Woodbury, who along with his younger sister established Shou Chen Chapel in Shanghai.

Grafting is not a matter of putting two pieces of dead wood together in the way that two pieces of wood are joined together in carpentry. Grafting involves the joining of two similar lives so that they grow together as one life and have one living. In grafting, a branch is cut off from one tree and joined organically to another tree. A. B. Simpson's hymn (Hymns, #482, published by Living Stream Ministry) refers to this in the third stanza:

This the secret nature hideth,
Harvest grows from buried grain;
A poor tree with better grafted,
Richer, sweeter life doth gain.

In our case, Christ is the cultivated olive tree, and we were the branches of a wild olive tree. In grafting, the life of the branch is not exchanged for the life of the tree to which is it grafted. The two lives are united as one so that they can share one mingled life and one living. Romans 11:24 says, "You were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree and were grafted contrary to nature into the cultivated olive tree." This shows that the Christian life is not an exchanged life but a grafted life.

Question: Is it possible to walk in the spirit twenty-four hours a day?

Answer: Absolutely. In fact, the more we walk in the spirit, the more we love to do so, because such a walk is sweet and refreshing and ushers us into the genuine rest of the good land. The chorus of another hymn written by A. B. Simpson says,

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)

However, in order to experience Christ in a living way, we must drop all the things of our background. We should not value doctrinal knowledge or religious forms. We may even have a certain gift, such as speaking in tongues, the interpretation of tongues, or healing; nevertheless, although the gift may be good, we must forget about this gift in order to experience Christ in a prevailing way. Paying attention to our gift rather than to Christ will hinder us. We should not pay attention to anything other than Christ Himself. We need to love Him, seek Him, and contact Him. Actually, if we are persons who love and seek Christ in a living way, we will have many good things, even many gifts, but we will not care for these things. Whenever we appreciate anything other than Christ, it becomes a problem. If I have the gift of speaking in tongues, it is easy for me to love it, appreciate it, and emphasize it. Then it becomes difficult for me to let go of my gift, and this gift frustrates me from experiencing Christ Himself.

In the previous message we saw that we need to be delivered from the self by the cross of Christ. Most of us are short of this kind of experience. We have the light of the truth and even speak the deep things of God's economy, but we do not have the support of the adequate experiences of Christ. Hymns, #482 by A. B. Simpson is concerning the experience of being crucified with Christ. Stanza 5 says: 'This the balm for pain and sickness, / Just to all our strength to die, / And to find His life and fulness, / All our being's need supply.' If we die to our self and take the Lord's resurrection life and power as our life supply, this conformation to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection in our daily life heals us. According to the revelation of God's complete gospel, Isaiah 53:4-5 makes it very clear that in His redeeming death on the cross, Christ has borne all our griefs and carried our sorrows; furthermore, by His chastening we receive peace and by His stripes we are healed. No one can be healed before God without Christ's death for our redemption.

Then, in the resurrection of Christ, His crucified humanity was made alive by the Spirit of His divinity and was uplifted into the sonship of the only begotten Son of God. For example, a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies. That death causes the shell of the grain to be broken and destroyed, yet at the same time, the life within the grain is made active. The outward shell is broken and dies, but the life within is activated and begins to germinate and grow. This germination, this growth, is resurrection. In Hymns, #482 the first two lines of stanza 1 say, "I am crucified with Christ,/And the cross hath set me free"; then the first two lines of stanza 3 say, "This the secret nature hideth,/Harvest grows from buried grain." When a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, is it dying or living? If the grain of wheat were merely dying, no farmer would want to sow any grain. Everyone who sows knows that although a grain dies alone when it is sown, it brings forth thirty grains, sixty grains, and even a hundred grains.

John 12:24 says, "Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." To bear much fruit is to be made alive, and this takes place at the time of dying. The grain of wheat, on the one hand, is dying, but on the other hand, is being made alive. The same is true with Christ when He was on the cross. Although His humanity, His flesh, as His outer shell, was crucified on the cross, the Spirit as the essence of His divinity was greatly activated so that His crucified humanity might be made alive in resurrection. Not only so, when His humanity was made alive, it was uplifted into the sonship of the only begotten Son of God. In other words, as soon as He was resurrected, His humanity was uplifted into the divine sonship. Thus, He was begotten to be the firstborn Son of God.

Living through dying is the basic thought of the Bible. For one to live, he must die. In John 12:24 the Lord Jesus said, "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." Brother A. B. Simpson also said in one of his hymns, "This the secret nature hideth, harvest grows from buried grain" (Hymns, #482). This shows us that the biblical principle is living through dying. God's way of salvation is to terminate us by the cross of Christ and to resurrect us by His Spirit of life. This appears to be a cruel punishment, but actually it is a glorious deliverance. Based on the revelation of the whole Bible, we see clearly that living through dying is God's saving way.

The first stanza of Hymns, #482 says, "I am crucified with Christ, / And the cross hath set me free; / I have ris'n again with Christ, / And He lives and reigns in me." We have been crucified with Christ, and now it is Christ living out of us. The third stanza says, "This the secret nature hideth,/Harvest grows from buried grain." This refers to resurrection. A living seed does not have any glory at first; it is neither green nor gold, but once it is planted into the field, it grows up and becomes green. Then as it matures, it becomes rich with golden grains. This is a picture of resurrection. In John 12:24 the Lord Jesus refers to Himself as a grain of wheat, saying "Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." This refers to the Lord Jesus' death and resurrection. When the Lord died, Satan was happy, thinking that the Lord Jesus would be finished after His death and burial. However, Satan did not know that the death of the Lord Jesus as a grain of wheat gave Him the opportunity to enter into resurrection to produce many grains.

Let us forget about so many things in our Christian background and just be so simple before the Lord. We have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer we who live, but it is Christ who lives in us (Gal. 2:20). This living Christ as the Spirit is not far from us but right within us. He is so available and practical. He is moving within us. I just fellowship with Him and go along with Him.

Now you understand why in one of his hymns A. B. Simpson said, "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, chorus). It is really so. It is so sweet to die with Christ, and it is so sweet to live with Christ. Do not be complicated; just be simplified. If you ask so many questions about this and that, I am afraid you are like a seminary student who has been complicated by a lot of study. In the Far East, I have met a great number of believers who are one hundred percent Gentiles without any Christian background. After they have been brought to the Lord, they are very simple. Many of them are highly educated people, yet they are wonderfully simple. It is so easy to help them to know Christ.

May the Lord have mercy on us that we may put aside everything from our old Christian background and just be so simple to go along with the living One who dwells in us. Then we will have the real Christian life and the real church life.

Even if man did not have the problem of sin, Christ still would have needed to pass through death. If He did not die, we could not be made alive. First Corinthians 15:36 says, "What you sow is not made alive unless it dies." If the grain of wheat does not fall into the ground and die, it abides alone. If Adam had not slept and if his side had not been opened, Eve could not have been produced. Everything in the universe, both plants and animals, must pass through death in order to enter into us to be our life. In order for the fruit of a tree to be our life supply, it must be eaten by us. The fruit's being eaten by us is the fruit's passing through death. "This the secret nature hideth, / Harvest grows from buried grain" (Hymns, #482). This indicates that the producing death is more important than the redemptive death. The producing death is the principal objective, and the redemptive death is merely a supplement, an addition.

Not only in Romans, but other places in the Bible say that we are crucified with Christ. Galatians 2:20 says, "I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me." It is no longer I who live, because the "I" has been crucified with Christ on the cross.

Read Galatians 5:24 again. "But they who are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its lusts." We do not do the crucifying; we are crucified already with Christ.

We have seen that Christ bore our sins on the cross. Now we see that He also bore our very person on the cross. He has become a substitute for our sins as well as our person. On that day on the cross, there were not only our sins, but also our person. God has included both our sins and our person in Christ. When Christ was crucified, so were we. If we see this one point, the rest will be clear.

In Galatians 2:20, the "I" in it is no longer I is the old "I" in Adam. The "me" in it is Christ who lives in me is the new "me" produced through death and resurrection in Christ. Moreover, Paul says, "And the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith in the Son of God," that is, by union and mingling with Him. Previously, he said that " 'Christ' lives in me," but here he speaks of "the life which 'I' now live." Hence, it is not one person living but two persons living together. This is not an exchanged life but a grafted life. It is two lives becoming one life, two livings becoming one living, two results becoming one result. This is what A. B. Simpson wrote in one of his hymns, which speaks of being crucified with Christ and risen with Christ (Hymns, #482). We not only die with Christ but also live with Christ. It is not that Christ lives and I do not live in order that my life may be exchanged for His, but that I and Christ live together, as in grafting. Stanza three of this hymn says, "A poor tree with better grafted,/Richer, sweeter life doth gain." In nature the good branch is always grafted into the poor tree, but the biblical way is contrary to this. Romans chapter eleven says that the wild olive tree (the poor tree) is grafted into the cultivated olive tree (the better tree) (vv. 17, 24). Likewise we, the poor branches, are grafted into Christ to become the branches of Christ as the true vine (Rom. 6:5; John 15:5), to live with Him and enjoy all His riches.