Crucifixion with Christ

Love made perfect requires as its antecedent that perfect surrender which, in the strong language of St. Paul, is crucifixion with Christ. The difficulty with average Christians is, that they faint beneath the cross on the via dolorosa, the way of grief, and never reach their Calvary. They do not by faith gird on strength for the hour when they must be stretched upon the cross. They shrink from the torturing spike, and from the spear aimed at the heart of their self-life. This betokens weakness of faith. But when the promise is grasped with the grip of a giant, no terrors, no agonies, can daunt the soul. In confidence that there will be after the crucifixion a glorious resurrection to spiritual life and blessedness, the believer yields his hand to the nail, and his head to the thorn crown. That flinty center of the personality, the will, which has up to this hour stood forth in resistance to the complete will of God, suddenly flows down, a molten stream under the furnace blast of divine love, melted into oneness with "the sweet will of God." After such a death there is always a resurrection unto life. An interval of hours or even of days may take place before the angels shall descend and roll away the stone from the sepulchre of the crucified soul, and the pulsations of a new and blissful life be felt through every fiber and atom of the being. It is not the old life that rises, but a new life is breathed forth by the Holy Ghost. "I am crucified with Christ, it is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me." (R. V. Am. Committee.) "Dead indeed unto sin," "but alive unto God through Jesus Christ."

"He walks in glorious liberty,
To sin entirely dead:
The Truth, the Son, hath made him free,
And he is free indeed.
"Throughout his Soul Thy glories shine;
His soul is all renewed,
And deck'd in righteousness divine,
And clothed and filled with God."

He who enjoys this repose is brought so intimately into sympathy with Jesus Christ that he is all aflame with zeal, and aroused to the utmost activity to save lost men. As a venerable preacher, widely known, quaintly expressed it, "I enjoy the rest of faith that keeps me in perpetual motion."

— Half-Hours with St. Paul, Chapter 10.

Trust and Consecration

Some writers on advanced Christian experience magnify the will, and say to inquirers, Yield, bow, submit, to the law of Christ. While the evangelist of the Wesleyan type says, Believe, believe Christ's every word. Both are right. Perfect trust cannot exist without perfect consecration. Nor can we make over all our interests into Christ's hands without the utmost confidence in his word.

Hence, crucifixion with Christ implies perfect faith in him, not only when he is riding in triumph into Jerusalem amid the huzzas of enthusiastic men and the hosannas of willing children, but when the fickle multitude are crying, "Crucify him." From the beginning Jesus intimated that discipleship must be grounded on an acceptance of himself, stripped of all the attractions of riches or honor. To know him after the flesh, from some selfish and worldly motive, is to fail to know him in that way which insures eternal life. To an enthusiastic scribe who had just seen the glorious display of power in the healing of Peter's wife's mother and the casting out of demons, and who was taking only a romantic, rose-colored view of discipleship prompting the thoughtless promise, "I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest," Jesus replied, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." "Let him who follows me know that he is following a pauper, fed at the tables of friends, and soon to be buried as a beggar at their expense." "If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me."

Here over the very gateway of the kingdom of Christ, stand chiseled the stoney words "Crucifixion of self." Hence, it is no stern requirement of the so-called higher Christian life; it is the condition of the lowest degree of spiritual life. The higher the degree of life the higher the required consecration.

— Half-Hours with St. Paul Chapter 10.

The Age of the Holy Spirit is Opened!

In that sublime formula of worship, the Te Deum Laudamus, which has dropped from the lips of dying sires to living sons for fifteen centuries, there is found this sentence, referring to the work of Christ in opening the dispensation of the Spirit:

"When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, 

Thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers." 

To make the Church realize the presence of [the Holy Spirit], "The Executive of the Godhead," there must be more praying in the Holy Ghost, more preaching with the demonstration of the Spirit, more singing with the Spirit, and testifying as the Spirit giveth utterance, with the attesting fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, and peace. There must be more faith in the Holy Spirit as "the greatest gift that man could wish, or that heaven can send."

One Self or Two?

QUESTION: Is there a self-life that is holy, and a sinful self?

ANSWER: There is but one self, not two. If this one self leans toward sin, it needs to be changed so as to lean toward holiness. St. Paul calls these two different states, the old man and the new. Hence some erroneously think there are two persons. When we speak of self-crucifixion we do not mean self-annihilation, but the change of the soul's gravitation from downward to upward, or from being self-centered to God-centered. The self which bears the full image of Christ does not need to be nailed to the cross. 

— Steele's Answers p. 78.

Spiritual Crucifixion

QUESTION: The Telescope, my religious weekly, in an article on "Spiritual Circumcision" has the following sentences which I wish you to discuss: (1) "Paul makes no distinction between believers, saying that they crucified, while others are not." (2) "That spiritual crucifixion is in the past tense and refers to justification." (3) "There is no text in proof that a second work is required that the believer may be spiritually crucified."

ANSWER: (1) This does not harmonize with 1 Cor. 3:1-3, where "brethren," "babes in Christ," are described as largely carnal and very much in need of such a change as Paul testifies to in Gal. 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer (American Revision) I that live, but Christ liveth in me." Again, in Phil. 2:19-21, Paul sorrowfully complains that even in his company of Christian ministers only Timothy was like himself wholly consecrated to Christ and dead to selfishness, and that "all" the rest of them "seek their own and not the things of Jesus Christ." This very plainly teaches that there is a wide difference between Christians, some being dead to self, while others are in great need of self-crucifixion, having a selfish regard for themselves, obstructive of their highest usefulness in places where they may have abundant occasion for self-denial and self-sacrifice in promoting the glory of Christ and the well-being of his Body, the church. The Telescope has made the discovery that "crucifixion and death mean only separation." This is well said and it implies a separation from the bent to sinning sought and found by one who is already forgiven and inspired with spiritual life. (2) Justification or pardon is an instantaneous work done for us. It takes place in the mind of God while the new birth and spiritual crucifixion are definite and momentary works of the Holy Spirit wrought in us, the past tense (the Greek aorist) denoting that each of these works is an act and done once for all. (3) 1 Thess. 5:23 is a decisive proof-text which no opponent can explain away. The Greek word "wholly" is used in the New Testament only here. It signifies "perfect, complete in all respects." "Entire" is in the Greek used but twice in the New Testament, "denoting," says Thayer, "ethically, free from sin, faultless." The aorist tense of "sanctify" implies that the act of entire purification is instantaneous and decisive. A similar text is 2 Cor. 7:1, together with the four preceding verses. What sin can be left after cleansing all defilement of the flesh (sins through the body) and spirit (mental sins)? There can be no other kind of sins. Finally, all prayers for entire sanctification and all exhortations to seek it imply its absence in many believers and the possibility of its immediate obtainment, are such proof-texts.

— Steele's Answers pp. 61-63.