Crucified with Christ my Savior

The United States is the top country in Christendom. Many saints in this country love the Lord, and I have contacted a number of them. Regrettably, they have not seen much of the new culture. Dwight L. Moody was a great preacher; I read his history and some of his books. A. B. Simpson, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, had much revelation, and he wrote a number of good hymns, especially on Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, some of which we collected into our compilation (Hymns, #481, #482, #484). Mrs. Fanny Crosby also wrote many good hymns. However; these saints did not see much about the new culture.

The killing element in the compounded Spirit, applied to all the negative persons, things, and matters in our life, is for us to live a crucified life by the power of Christ's resurrection life (Phil. 3:10). Hymns #631 and #481 in Hymns both refer to the resurrection power for us to live a crucified life. The second stanza of hymn #481 written by A.B. Simpson says:

'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,

After the experience of the cross is the experience of resurrection. Resurrection is always an empowering and an encouraging factor. Christ's resurrection power is signified by the gazelle's leaping on the mountains and the young hart's skipping on the hills. We can be conformed to Christ's death by the power of His resurrection. Another A. B. Simpson hymn on our being crucified with Christ says, "'Tis not hard to die with Christ / When His risen life we know" (Hymns, #481). To remain in Christ's death we need the power of His resurrection. Romans 6:4 says that we were baptized into Christ's death. From the time of our baptism, we should bear the cross daily to remain in His death (Luke 9:23).

A.B. Simpson, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, published a number of books and wrote quite a few excellent hymns on the experience of Christ's death and resurrection (see Hymns, #481, 482, 484, and 692). One of his hymns (#692) says, "There's a little word that the Lord has giv'n/For our help in the hour of need:/Let us reckon ourselves to be dead to sin,/To be dead and dead indeed." The chorus goes on to say, "Let us reckon, reckon, reckon,/Let us reckon, rather than feel; / Let us be true to the reck'ning,/And He will make it real." I tried to "reckon, reckon, reckon" and found out that this surely does not work. When I reckoned myself dead, I became more living. Brother Nee spoke of reckoning in his earlier ministry. For example, the messages given by Brother Nee that were published as The Normal Christian Life were given before 1938. Later, he began to see the Body of Christ, and his ministry became more mature. He then said that the real experience of Christ's death is in the Spirit, as covered in Romans 8. He said that Romans 6 could be experienced only in Romans 8. Romans 6 contains the doctrine, the fact, of our identification with Christ in His death and resurrection, but the experience of this fact is in Romans 8 by the Spirit. If we live, walk, and do everything according to the Spirit, we will have the experience of Christ's death and of His resurrection. It is in this way that we are identified with Christ and experience His death and resurrection.

It is beyond our ability to lay aside our will and our glory, however willing we may think we are. Such a life can be lived only in resurrection. The Lord Himself is the resurrection (John 11:25). Only in Him can we have a life under the cross. As A. B. Simpson's hymn says,

'Tis not hard to die with Christ
When His risen life we know.
Hymns, #481

This hymn came out of the author's experience of Philippians 3:10: "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed unto his death" (Gk.). A. B. Simpson learned how to experience the death of Christ in the resurrection power. In ourselves we do not have such a power.

Hymns, #481 says, "'Tis not hard to die with Christ / When His risen life we know" (stanza 2). What a statement this is! Christ in resurrection has become our enjoyment. When Christ was raised from the dead, He gave His life to James, Peter, and John. When we receive the resurrection life of the Lord, this resurrection life becomes our life. The Lord Jesus first bore the cross, and then He was crucified. Once the death of the cross was accomplished, He gave His life to us through resurrection. We were crucified with the Lord Jesus. We were crucified at the same time that the Lord Jesus was crucified.

You may feel that it is impossible for you to experience Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering. However, in Philippians 3:10 Paul tells us that we can be conformed to Christ's death if we experience the sustaining and strengthening power of Christ's resurrection. In one of his hymns, A. B. Simpson says,"'Tis not hard to die with Christ when His risen life we know" (Hymns, #481). If we see the vision concerning the experience of Christ in His experiences and are attracted to live such a life, we must have the faith that the very Christ who presents His experiences as an example is now in us as our life supply. We have an all-sufficient supply within us, and this supply is the Spirit of Christ in His resurrection. This was the reason Paul could say, "I can do all things in Him who empowers me" (Phil. 4:13). Therefore, since Christ is in us and for us, we should not be disappointed.

Concerning Thou Become Me, and I Become Thee in Stanza 4 of Hymn #130 in Chinese

In His way of redemption God's desire is that His Son would become us and that we would become His sons in Him. The Bible clearly says that the Lord became flesh (John 1:14). We are flesh. The apostle Paul says, "To me, to live is Christ" (Phil. 1:21). When Paul first met the Lord, the Lord asked him, "Why are you persecuting Me?" (Acts 9:4). At that time Saul was persecuting the Lord's disciples (v. 1), but the Lord said that Saul was persecuting Him. This is because the disciples and the Lord were one. In the Lord's eyes they were the same as the Lord Himself. The criticizing ones say that it is correct to speak of God becoming a man but that it is wrong to say that "God becomes me." They further assert, "Although Paul said, 'To me, to live is Christ, ' he would not dare say, 'I am Christ. '" I wish to ask: Is not God becoming a man the same as God becoming me or us? Am I not a man? Are we not men? Does "To me, to live is Christ" not mean that I become Christ? If the disciples whom Saul persecuted had not become the Lord, how could the Lord say to him, "Why are you persecuting Me?"

The criticizers say that a dangerous deduction can be made from the phrase "Thou become me, and I become Thee" in hymn #130 in Chinese. Certainly it is always dangerous to make unreasonable deductions from words taken out of context. When we say, "I become Thee," we are not saying that we are Christ in the sense of His Godhead and sovereign Lordship. The criticizers are interpreting these words without regard to context. If we interpret in this way, then the first stanza of hymn #366 in Chinese (Hymns, #477 in English), which says, "The Cross on Golgotha, / Will never save thy soul," could also be considered as "dangerous." According to their plain meaning, the Cross on Golgotha is the cross of the Lord, and it is wrong to say that the cross cannot save us. However, according to the context, the writer is saying that the Lord's cross must become our subjective experience; otherwise, we will not know the subjective experience of salvation. Furthermore, the first stanza of hymn #26 in Chinese (Hymns, #38 in English) says, "E'en heav'n itself no richer knows / Than Jesus and His blood." If one interprets this line without any regard to its context, this line is also wrong, because God is greater than the blood in heaven. However, we know that the writer's intention was to describe the importance of the Lord's blood. If we interpret words without regard to context simply in order to find fault, we will lose the blessing. We should use our best efforts to understand the poetic meaning of the words in order to gain benefit from them.

After the overcomer conference in Hangchow in the autumn of 1934, the attendants of the conference went to Shanghai for a short stay. One day everyone went to Chao Feng Garden in Shanghai to pray. After praying, a few of us sat down with Brother Nee for fellowship. Someone suddenly asked Brother Nee, "The chorus in hymn #362 in Chinese says, 'Always walk on the narrow way of the cross, / Where my Savior died for me. ' This is not quite correct, because the Lord died on Mount Calvary, not on the narrow way of the cross." Brother Nee looked at him but did not say anything. When I heard the way he asked the question, I thought, "This person is interpreting the words according to their literal meaning but without any regard to context. Dying on Mount Calvary is the same as dying on the narrow way of the cross. Mount Calvary is included in the narrow way of the cross. The way that he strictly interprets the meaning of the words could become a problem in the future." Little did I know that what I felt that day would become a reality!

A. B. Simpson's hymns show the influence of Mrs. Penn-Lewis's messages, such as "Crucified with Christ my Savior" (Hymns, #481). Her writings prevailed in 1913 and 1914. Then World War I broke out. In 1915 the Pentecostal movement landed in Massachusetts and also began on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. A. B. Simpson was among them until they decided to make tongue-speaking an evidence of the experience of baptism. Simpson and some others protested and withdrew to form the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, and those who stayed formed the Assemblies of God.

A. B. Simpson (Hymns, #481)

This hymn, especially stanza 2 above, is the best that has been written among the spiritual leaders in the United States. However, not very many Christians appreciate it. I was told that the hymnal of the Christian and Missionary Alliance no longer contains this precious hymn written by A. B. Simpson. If you check the index of authors at the back of our Hymns, you will see that we have included more than thirty of A. B. Simpson's hymns.

The wonderful thing is that even fifty years ago in China a young man recognized the treasure in these hymns. Brother Nee took the lead to search out these things and did an excellent job of translating them into Chinese. I would say that the Chinese version of this hymn is more poetic than the English; the end-of-line rhymes in Chinese sound much better.

A. B. Simpson's daughter wrote a good number of the tunes for his hymns. He would write the poem, and she would write an accompanying melody. Even though I am not a good singer, I love this hymn.

Not everyone appreciates the worth of such hymns. Brother Nee translated another of A. B. Simpson's hymns into Chinese, one that I also like very much: "O Lord, breathe Thy Spirit on me" (Hymns, #255). We published it in 1963. One time a brother who had been a preacher among the Brethren for twenty-five years came to me enraged, protesting, "Brother Lee, what kind of hymn is this? Breathing, breathing, breathing. I did not say a word. Less than six years later, this brother said to me, "Brother Lee, the best hymn in our hymnal is that one on breathing!" Why did he have such a change in his taste? It all depends upon our appreciation; this, in turn, depends upon our realization. If you check the various denominational hymn books, you will have a hard time finding a hymn like either of these because there is no appreciation, no interest; they do not live such a life. This is an indication that, when it comes to the Lord Jesus being life to us, today's Christianity is far off the track. Thus, they have no taste for such hymns.

Now the Lord's being life to us is my burden, and I pray that it may become our burden. Without such a life the Lord's recovery has no content; regardless of what we say, it is just an empty formality. What is so precious about the stanza that begins, "'Tis not hard to die with Christ"? As far as we know, A. B. Simpson was probably the first in church history to enter into Philippians 3:10. Who can say that it is not hard to die? Think of all the books you know; who has ever said this? Who could ever say this? Why is it not hard to die? Because His risen life I know. It is not hard to die because I am enjoying, realizing, the resurrection life.

This risen life was in Jesus. When He came forth to minister, the first thing He did was to be baptized. His death on the cross was a baptism. When the mother of the sons of Zebedee came and sought position for them, the Lord asked if they could drink the cup which He was about to drink and be baptized with His baptism (Matt. 20:20-23). That baptism was the Lord's crucifixion. At the beginning of His ministry He entered into a baptism by water; at the very end He had the baptism by crucifixion. He could go through these two baptisms because He had the resurrection life within Him.

A. B. Simpson surely saw something. He may be considered as one of the most spiritual brothers in this country's Christian history

'Tis not hard to share His suff'rings

When our hearts with joy o'erflow.

This joy also comes from the resurrection life. Many teachers point out that the book of Philippians is a book of joy, of rejoicing. Where was Paul when he was rejoicing? He was in prison. Is it not extraordinary that one in prison could write an Epistle saying that he was rejoicing and encouraging the recipients of his letter to rejoice too? He was able to rejoice because of the power of resurrection within him. This hymn is so precious. The chorus states,

All the way to Calvary,
Where my Savior went for me,
Help me, Lord, to go with Thee,
All the way to Calvary.

This is the real experience of Christ, which we all need so much. It first depends upon the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, the revelation with the vision. Then we must respond, we must seek after this, so that we may gain Christ and be found in Him.