It is very essential that we should have a right understanding of what the cross means, of what the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary has really accomplished. Victory in daily life depends on how we enter into the fullest possible experience of the cross and stand there in and with Christ. The new Testament, therefore, reveals with great clearness the threefold message of the atoning sacrifice of the Lord.
"Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again." (John 3:7) There is nothing for anyone in Christian experience unless he has entered into the truth of these words of our Lord.
What does this New Birth mean? Simply a new life, whereby we become the children of our God as we by natural birth became the children of our natural parents.
Where is this new life? "In him was life." (John 1:4) "he that hath the Son hath life." (I John 5:12)
How does this life become ours? "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become sons of God." (John 1;12) The new birth becomes an actual experience the moment we receive by faith the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Savior. By that act, on the ground of His atoning sacrifice, we receive new life, the life of God.
The necessity of the new birth cannot be too strongly emphasized, because it produces the new creation, which is the imperative demand and requirement of God for new life and service. The late minister, Alexander White of Edinburg, has written that "All mankind hangs either at the girdle of Adam or at the girdle of Christ." That is one of the essential facts of the Word of God, and yet many men have little idea of the meaning of it. It is most important to be clear in regard of this.
Human nature, as it has sprung from the old head, Adam, is fallen. It may be capable of reaching high standards of morality, goodness, and nobility of character, but it is utterly unable to adjust to the requirements of God's holiness.
This fallen nature is the material on which Satan works and through which the self life makes its appearance, and, unless we come to the point to which Saint Paul was driven by the sheer logic of his own intellectual and personal experiences in the face of sin, we can never be in a position where we can truthfully say, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1) Such a position is really only really possible when we understand what God has done with the old fallen nature.
We should never wonder in these days at the persistent efforts of Satan to banish from the Bible and books as well as from the preaching from the pulpit the truth of the Atonement, because that is proof of the reality of the fall; nor need we be surprised at the deliberate attempts on his part to discredit the fact of the fall, because that is proof of the necessity of the atonement. But here throbs the heart of the Gospel for the sin-ruined race of men. The old head and the old creature have failed, but God has gotten a new Head, even the Lord Jesus, and he is seaking a new creation.
When Christ went to the Cross, He took the old creation, the offspring of the fall, to the cross with Him, because there was no other way possible for God to get the new creation and for man to experience liberality from the dominion of sin. That is the foundation truth of the Gospel, "Ye must be born again," That is also the foundation fact for Christian life and work, a new head of a New Creation through the new birth.
Now the great herald of the Cross is Saint Paul. What is his gospel? It is more than substitution. We come to the second message of the Cross, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him." (Romans 6:6)
Such knowledge came to the apostle not by man's education but by revelation. It can be acquired by us, not through natural intelligence, but through spiritual enlightenment. It is necessary to make this quite clear, that the plan of God for our redemption embraces no scheme for the improvement of the "old man." Only one place is possible for him, the cross. That is the starting point of a victorious life, "Crucified with Christ."
Our crucifixion with Christ is as much a finished work as the crucifixion of Christ for us. That eternal fact of God is the foundation on which faith rests for a life of deliverance and victory. The whole secret of a triumphant Christian experience lies in understanding the attitude we are to take up and maintain hour by hour, as often as the "old man" attempts to reassert his supremacy. Remember it is not sin, or self, or temptation that dies. It is we who must learn to die. The attitude of these forces that assail us never changes; our attitude towards them must change. What is it? Paul answers in Romans 6:2, "How shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?"
Faith rests on the fact of God and the act of Christ, and reckons the fact to be true because the act is true. What does "reckon," of which the apostle speaks, mean? It is the attitude of the will to sin as we take our place of union with Christ in His death and stand on the victory won by Him for us in His atoning sacrifice. We conquer our sins, not by struggling with them, but by dying to them. "Recon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin."
When that is said, it does not mean there is no more conflict. Sin will never cease its assaults until we see the Lord and become like Him. We can never sit down with folded hands and think the battle is ended.
There is a fight of faith to be fought as well as a rest of faith to be enjoyed,and one of the pressing needs of Christian life is to recognize the foe, his methods and his goal. A weakness of many of God's children is that they are trying to ignore Satan, which is as wise as it would be to try and ignore themselves.
It is not enough to say, "Let us look to the Lord, He will carry us through." A great truth lies in such an expression, but not all the truth. If we fail to discern the enemy by shutting our eyes to his existence, we place ourselves at a serious disadvantage in the spiritual conflict, much as any general would be in a battle on earth if he went into the fight without having made use of his intelligence department. If we look to the Lord and do not watch the foe, we cannot pray intelligently, for we have neglected the means of recognizing the movements of evil and understanding the methods of its operation.
If, on the other hand, we allow ourselves to be taken up with the forces of darkness without keeping before us the vision of an almighty, victorious and reigning Lord, then we shall become oppressed and depressed by the developments of Satanic power, and we shall find ourselves in danger of being crushed in spirit and disheartened in work. We must look unto Jesus, and keep our hearts and minds alert to evil, to its source, methods and objectives. and this makes necessary the attitude of constantly acting on the fact of God, taking our place of union with Christ through His death, claiming in experience the power of victory won on Calvary and keeping our spirits in touch with Him on the throne.
Now what is the great secret of maintaining this attitude? Saint Paul tells us in Romans 8:2. Only a law can set us free from a law. And what is a law? It is the steady pressure of a power. There is the lower law of the fallen nature, which ever seeks to drag us down into sin and death. In opposition to that is the higher law of life, which is in Christ Jesus, which aims to lift us to higher ground and set us free. It is the steady pressure of that law, made operative by our yielding to the Holy Spirit which overcomes the influence of the law of sin, and keeps us in the experience of liberty.
Victory, therefore, as revealed in the purpose of God does not become ours through the attempt to meet sin in our own strength, to crush down the rising passion by a strong effort of will, but by dying to it, asserting our position of union with Christ in His death and thus giving the Holy Spirit the opportunity to bring into heart and nature the superior force and the life of Christ Jesus, whereby being dead to sin we are alive unto God.
The late Dr Andrew Murry of South Africa has said that "two bodies cannot occupy the same place; if one comes in, the other goes out, and in the measure in which we go out, Christ comes in." In the measure in which we yield to the Holy Spirit, the law of life in Christ Jesus overcomes and drives out the law of sin and death, and we are free.
There is a third message of the cross to which we must give heed if we are to know the full tide of victory.
"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they Loved not their lives unto death." (Revelation 12:11)
This book of Revelation is the record of the war between the Lamb and the dragon. The devil was no myth to Christ in the days of His flesh, and he is no myth in the Bible. The moment we recognize the reality and personality of this great foe, we get the explanation of many things which are full of mystery, and we begin to understand how to meet him. Many causes of trouble in this world are due directly to Satan, and it is the very essence of spiritual strategy to know how to direct the power God has given us onto the right spot.
Here, then, is the full Gospel of grace, deliverance from sin, the old man, Satan and all his works. "They overcame him." How? "By the blood of the Lamb."
That is the basis of our opposition to Satan. In the finished work of Christ on the Cross is found the weapon by which we can fight every manifestation of evil and put to flight the enemy. Calvary is the only place where he will admit defeat. To know how to bring the victory of the Cross on to the battlefield and claim its fruits for the lives of men is to find obstacles vanishing and prayer being wonderously answered.
This is far more the a glad confession of the power of the Savior to save. It means to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in His judgment upon Satan. What is that? "Now is the prince of this world cast out."
When the Lord went to the Cross He broke the power of Satan and expelled him from the place of sovereignty in the world which by deceit and falsehood he had wrested from Adam. The testimony of the Holy Spirit is that Satan is defeated and conquered. Then remember it and remind him of it. He is exercising authority in lives to which he has no right, because he has succeeded in blinding their eyes to his defeat and the fullness of the victory won by the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our Lord requires of us that in the daily conflict there will be manifested by us an aggressive attitude of spirit and will in opposition to Satan and all his works, as we bring to bear upon him and the forces at his command the power of the blood of atonement. Take your home with all its needs and anxieties, your environment with all its difficulties and perplexities, your work with its tests and fears and joys, and stand on the fact of the victory of Calvary, claiming the destruction of every power which seeks to disturb the atmosphere of the home, to embarrass you in your position in the world or hinder you in the service of God. That is making Christ the Lord of your surroundings and cooperating with the Holy Spirit for deliverance.
We are engaged in a conflict, and we require ability to stand. In the heart of the struggle we shall find that we must continually resort to the "Fountain filled with blood" (1 John 1:7) to receive cleansing from sin and healing for our wounds, and we must go back again and again to the fact of God revealed in Romans 6:6. In the face of every assault of sin there has to be a perpetual attitude of reckoning ourselves dead. That is the bed-rock position of victory. Standing in this spirit, the Holy Spirit will make it real.
This conflict calls for the fullest surrender of will and life, that there may be given us the fullest measure of victory. As the Holy Spirit shows us what God asks, we must obey, giving all, and through struggle and conquest we will share with Him in His triumph and glory.
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