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Galatians 2:20 is a very familiar verse to us. This afternoon we will speak more about it. In the last message, we covered the meaning of an overcoming life. We know that the overcoming life is Christ, and we know that the overcoming life is Christ living in us. The question is how can we enter into the experience of this life. Christ wants to be our life and He can make us victorious. But how can Christ be our life? How can Christ live out His life within us? We have heard the gospel and know that Jesus is the Savior, but how do we take Him as our Savior? We know the salvation of the cross, but how can we be joined to the salvation of the cross? The question we will address in this message is how to be joined to Christ, including what we should do before Christ can become our life and before He can live within us. This afternoon we need to look at Galatians 2:20 .
We will not consider the beginning of this verse or the end of this verse. We will begin with the middle of the verse. There is a wonderful expression in this verse: “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. ” We can say that it is no longer I but Christ. What does “no longer I... but... Christ” mean? These five words mean victory. They speak of the overcoming life which we have been talking about for the past few days. The overcoming life is simply (1) “no longer I” and (2) “but... Christ. ” This is the overcoming life. As long as it is “no longer I” and as long as it is “but... Christ, ” there is victory. “No longer I” plus “but... Christ” is victory, and all problems are solved.
HOW TO BE NO LONGER I BUT CHRIST
Now let us find out how one can be “no longer I... but... Christ. ” We have to start from the first sentence of this verse. “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. ” How did Paul reach the point where he could say that it was “no longer I... but... Christ”? This is a very familiar word. “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live. ” The “I” is out; it is on the cross. The “I” has passed away. Hence, I can say that it is no longer I. However, brothers and sisters, the truth concerning crucifixion with Christ on the cross is not being preached for the first time among us. We have known for a long time that we are crucified with Christ. Why has the doctrine of our crucifixion with Christ not worked with us? Brother Lu, how many years have you heard about the doctrine of crucifixion with Christ? You have heard about it for over ten years. Is it working in you? Please be honest with us. How much has it worked in you? Not much. I would ask Brother Chi the same question. How much has the doctrine of the cross guided you? How effective is it in you? Do you have the power of Paul? Brother Chi said that he felt that he was beginning to have more power in the last few days. We have known the doctrine of crucifixion with Christ for over ten years, but it has not worked in us. We may say that it has worked a little, but it has been so little that it amounts to almost nothing. We cannot say as Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ, ” and we cannot follow with the words, “It is no longer I who live. ” It seems as if the doctrine has not produced much effect in us. I am not merely repeating the doctrine of the cross this afternoon; we know too much already. We want to see the extent to which this crucifixion with Christ should work in us and what we should do before we can say that we are crucified with Christ.
The Overcoming Life
Chapter 4 HOW TO EXPERIENCE
THE OVERCOMING LIFE
CWWN, vol. 24 (LSM)
Praise the Lord, Christ’s death has separated us from the world and the satanic power of darkness! Hallelujah, by being baptised into the death of Christ, our natural life, old nature, self, flesh, and entire old history has been terminated! Hallelujah, we come out of the waters of baptism as a new creation in resurrection, being organically joined to the Lord as one spirit to live one with Him for the building up of the church! " 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, for He lives and dwells within!" 😀
Thanks WI for those kind words. And thanks Ana Lara for your constant enlightening comments about the authors of the hymns. As I recall AB Simpson’s biography, he became deathly ill in his 30s with either tuberculosis or some other respiratory ailment. This was around the time of a major revival, and he was expecting his own healing by the Holy Spirit. However, the healing never came, but instead, he felt that the Lord was healing him each morning, one day at a time. From here, he learned the concept of breathing in the Lord daily, from which we get one of his most famous and touching hymns: “oh Lord, breathe thy spirit in me“. For me, his hymns remain the deepest and most touching in the entire Christian hymn repertoire.
This is such a great picture of the holy anointing oil of Ex. 30.
To die with Christ from the world and self and sin is typified by the myrrh, but the sweetness is typified by the cinnamon. It is so sweet to die with Christ.
The experience of living with Christ in resurrection is typified by the calamus, which is a reed that shoots up out of a marsh. And in resurrection is the serpent and insect repelling cassia in which we reign with Christ, and Satan is crushed under our feet. All of this is compounded into the Spirit (oil) who is joined to our spirit making us one with the incarnated, crucified, resurrected, and exalted One. This is the Spirit of Jesus Christ whose bountiful supply turns all things out to our salvation (Pp. 1:19-20). Thank-You, Lord, for the Spirit of Jesus Christ in our spirit.
This is a rich song. It is full of the experience of Christ (the riches). This hymn addresses the way to live a Christian life and abide in Him. I do see the sweetness of dying a little. Joy is the fruit of the cross. It is Christ's enjoyable life in resurrection. This is the only way to live and abide in Him. This not a shallow hymn. It is written by one of Christ's many lovers.
Albert Benjamin Simpson authored more than 70 books and many hymns and gospel songs. He founded the Christian and Missionary Alliance to send missionaries around the world. He established a publishing house, founded a college, and became a voice for Christian oneness in his generation.
December 15, 1843, on Prince Edward Island, A. B. Simpson was born to James and Jane Simpson. In 1865, he graduated from Knox College in Toronto and married Margaret Henry. They had six children. Despite the difficulties of obtaining a good education and suffering from serious health problems, Simpson became a Presbyterian minister and served congregations in Ontario, Kentucky, and New York.
But Simpson’s heart of obedience to the Lord and his overwhelming burden to preach the gospel to the masses, caused him to become stifled by and dissatisfied with the coldness and divisiveness found in the culture of formal Christianity. Simpson became burdened for two main matters: the gospel outreach to the world, and the inner-life experiences that most Christians were missing. Simpson became a beacon of light pointing believers to Christ and Christ alone. Albert Benjamin learned how to live a resurrection life, and how to maintain a moment by moment, contact with the Lord. His “in breathing of the fullness of God” became his “daily renewal of life. ” Indeed, after spending several hours of fervent prayer for missionaries in Jamaica and abroad, he greeted the Lord in glory the following morning morning, Wednesday, October 29, 1919, the age of 76, having lived twice as long as doctors predicted.
If Christ is preached to the extent that He is "appointed" as the Lord, there will not be quietness and dullness but disturbance!
Singing hymns concerning spiritual experience, such as Hymns, #482 and #333, or singing hymns concerning the assurance and joy of salvation, such as Hymns, #297 and #1003, are not fitting for the remembrance of the Lord.
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.
Hymns, #482, another hymn by A. B. Simpson, is also on the subjective experience of our co-death and co-resurrection with Christ:
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.
Oh! it is so sweet to die with Christ,
To the world, and self, and sin;
We have at least ten hymns in our hymnal that were written by A. B. Simpson, such as, "I am crucified with Christ" (Hymns, #482), "Once it was the blessing, / Now it is the Lord" (Hymns, #513), and "Jesus only is our message" (Hymns, #511). Hymns, #255 speaks of breathing the Lord in stanza 7, saying, "I am breathing every moment, / Drawing all my life from Thee; / Breath by breath I live upon Thee, / Lord, Thy Spirit breathe in me." The experience of this hymn is very rich; the author was breathing continuously, drawing his life from the Lord. Although many of God's children have gone astray, there is a practical, simple, convenient, and proper way to breathe in and receive the Lord's life every moment.
Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 7 in the principle of incarnation. The principle of incarnation is that God enters into man and mingles Himself with man to make man one with Himself. Thus, God is in man and man is also in God. This can be illustrated by grafting. When two trees are grafted together, both trees must be cut. The cut in the first tree is an opening to receive the other tree. The second tree must also be cut in order to be put into the first tree. Then the two cuts are put together and the two trees begin to grow together. In order for us to be grafted into Christ, Christ and we must be cut. This cut was made at the cross of Christ. Christ as the good, cultivated olive tree (Rom. 11:17-18; John 15:1) was cut through His death on the cross. We also were cut by our crucifixion with Christ on the cross (Gal. 2:20). When we believed into Christ and were baptized into Him, we were grafted into Christ, the two cuts were put together, and we began to live together with Christ. There was no exchange of lives; rather, two lives were joined together and began to grow together organically (Rom. 6:4-5).
A stanza in a hymn written by A. B. Simpson (Hymns, #482) speaks of the matter of grafting:
This the secret nature hideth,
Harvest grows from buried grain;
A poor tree with better grafted,
Richer, sweeter life doth gain.
DEALING WITH THE DISPOSITION THROUGH THE PROCESS OF SIFTING
When we love, we do not love by ourselves. We love with Christ, through Christ, and in Christ, and Christ loves through us. This kind of love does not express our human virtue alone, but our human virtue with Christ's divine attributes. His divine love becomes the very essence of our human love. This is not two loves existing together, but one love living in the other. This can be compared to a hand in a glove. The hand and the glove are not two parties merely existing together. Rather, the hand is put into the glove, making the two objects one. When we are loving others, it is Christ who is loving, but not by Himself; Christ is loving through us. He is the "hand" and we are the "glove," not as a pair, but as one in the other. The human life has the divine life within it as its content, and the divine life has the human life as its expression. If this is not clear to us, we can never understand the Christian life.
Thank the Lord that there is such a thing as grafting. Hymn #482 in Hymns was written by A. B. Simpson, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Verse three says:
This the secret nature hideth,
Harvest grows from buried grain;
A poor tree with better grafted,
Richer, sweeter life doth gain.
There is a tremendous difference between death in Adam and the death of Christ. We loathe death in Adam, but we appreciate the sweetness of Christ's death. Christ's death is dear and lovable, and we may abide restfully in it. How wonderful that a believer baptized into the all-inclusive Christ is also placed into the death of Christ! In the words of a hymn written by A. B. Simpson, "It is so sweet to die with Christ" (Hymns, #482). Rest and victory are found in Christ's death.
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.
Do you feel that it is hard to die? Here is a word that tells us it is not hard to die. To die with yourself is hard, but to die with Christ is not hard. It is not hard to die with Christ "when His risen life we know." This refers to Philippians 3:10 where Paul says, "To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death."
Hymn #482 is another excellent hymn by A. B. Simpson on being identified with Christ's death and resurrection. I especially appreciate the third stanza:
This the secret nature hideth,
Harvest grows from buried grain;
A poor tree with better grafted,
Richer, sweeter life doth gain.