A Second Trip to the Cross

According to the Bible, we have three primary enemies: the world, the flesh (our fallen nature), and the Devil. The greatest weapon against all three is the cross of Christ.
The world: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Galatians 6:14)

The flesh: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

The Devil: “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Colossians 2:15)
The cross of Christ was essential to our salvation. It is also essential to our Christian lives. Jesus told his followers to “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” (Luke 9:23-24)

Do you want to experience more of God? It will cost you everything.

You’ll have to die to your own ambitions, the approval of friends and family, and the pleasures of the surrounding culture. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” (Matthew 13:44)

Like the children of Israel, we are wandering through the wilderness hoping that God would hurry up and take us into the Promised Land. But what they didn’t realize (and we don’t either) is that these difficulties are actually God’s way of revealing the true nature of fallen human hearts. To make progress in our spiritual lives, we have to return to the cross of another death – ours. And we have to embrace the cross as God’s power to set us free from the three things that keep pulling us down.

Am I really all that bad?

Jeremiah said it best. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9) God wants us to come to the realization that the fallen nature that we inherited from Adam is hopelessly evil. It cannot and will not ever be obedient to God.

“For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.” (Rom. 8:3-4)

I’ve recently heard a song by Michael English on our Christian radio station that says, “The only thing that’s good in me is Jesus.” Some people would strongly disagree with that statement. They teach that God wants us to have strong self-esteem and to take pride in ourselves. Well, the Apostle Paul doesn’t agree. He wrote, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” (Romans 7:18)

If I agree with God that my human nature is non-redeemable, and worthy of nothing but death on the cross, then I’m ready for the next step: the full identification with Christ’s resurrection.

Lost in the Reformation.

It makes sense that God won’t reveal Himself or empower our fallen natures. The results would be similar to what happened with Lucifer. We would become proud and try to use God for our own warped purposes. God has to put us down in death before he can raise us up to be empowered with his resurrection life.

“So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.” (Romans 7:4-6)

But by taking this second trip to the cross, and admitting that our human nature is a hopeless, helpless mess, we are able to “die” to our human lusts, the temptations of the world, and the demands of the law. Paul wrote, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.” (Gal. 5:24). No more blind servitude to our evil lusts.

Ever since Pentecost, there have been men and women of faith who have embraced the cross, followed Jesus into death to self, sin, and the world, and experienced the power of his resurrection in their lives. Some of their stories are recorded in Scripture (Peter, Paul, Stephan, etc.).

As you know, about 500 years ago, there was a major upheaval in the church called the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther, John Calvin, and many others challenged the Catholic Church to return to Scripture and to salvation by grace through faith. These rediscovered truths have become essential in clarifying what God requires for salvation.

But there were some teachings about the mysteries of life in Christ that were lost in the transition. Years earlier, some Christians in the Catholic Church had discovered and experienced exactly what we are discussing here. Believers like Saint John of the Cross, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint Teresa of Avila, and others had experienced this mysterious presence of Christ and mapped the way for others.

They discovered three distinct stages in the spiritual journey toward union with Christ. The first stage is ‘purgative’ – the purging of our souls of greed, lust, pride, and all other self-sins. The second is ‘illuminative’ – the revelation of the glory of Christ so that we are changed into his image. The third is called the ‘transforming union’ – the ultimate goal of Christ in us and we in him. This has also been referred to over the centuries as ‘the filling of the Holy Spirit.’

Since the reformation, there have been many men and women who lived lives of supernatural power and influence. People like Charles Wesley, D.L. Moody, Mother Teresa, etc. These saints were not self-promoters, but their lives continue to inspire people around the world long after their death.

As Peter writes, “...His divine power has bestowed on us everything necessary for life and godliness through the rich knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and (moral) excellence. Through these things he has bestowed on us his precious and most magnificent promises, so that by means of what was promised you may become partakers of the divine nature (glory), after escaping the worldly corruption that is produced by evil desires (moral excellence).” (2 Peter 1:3-4 NET)