The Cross and the Saint

Becoming conformed unto His death.

Phil. iii. 10.

HIS brief passage of Scripture occurs

in the midst of a wonderful piece of spiritual autobiography, in which Paul revealed the bearing of past experiences and of future expectations upon his then present life.

In the first part of the passage we are presented with a picture of the days before Christ apprehended him, as the Apostle declared to the Philippian Christians that, if there were any man who considered he had the right to boast in the flesh, he, Paul, had a greater right.

He next referred to a moment in his life when his whole outlook was changed, when his conceptions of things were radically revolutionized, so that he was able to write, “What things were gain to me these have I counted loss.” It was a moment when he gathered up all the things which hitherto had been most precious to him, and casting them beneath his feet, trampled on them as worthless. It was a moment of which worldly men would speak as the occasion of a great renunciation, or of a great foolhardiness. In that hour he had turned his back upon his ambitions and upon all the things he had valued most; and they were not mean things, they were not base things, they were not ignoble things; they were the things of nationality, of blood, of morality, and of religion. Nevertheless, the vision he saw was of such nature as to make these most sacred things of his life appear in his eyes as refuse.

He then declared, that from the moment when Christ apprehended him, his one ambition, an ambition which had become an all-consuming passion, and constituted the driving force of his life, was that he might apprehend Christ.

That ambition he described in brief but suggestive words, “That I may know Him, and the power of His Resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death.”

These last words do not describe the consummation of his ambition; they rather reveal his conviction as to the only condition upon which that ambition could be realized.

“Being conformed unto His death” is not the ultimate experience; it is the initial condition. The Apostle did not mean to say; I desire to know Him, and the power of His Resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, and then finally; I desire to be conformed unto His death. He intended rather to say: I desire “to know Him, and the power of His Resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings,” by “becoming conformed unto His death.”

All those who have been apprehended of Christ, who have seen the vision, and heard the voice, and known experimentally His victory over them, share the Apostle’s desire to know Him, to know the power of His Resurrection, to know the fellowship of His sufferings. This desire can only be fulfilled as they become “conformed unto His death.” Every living experience of

Christianity begins at the Cross. The experience of the Cross is not final, but it is fundamental.

We are not dealing in our present consideration with that value of the Cross with which our last subject had to do. Therein we considered the fact that the Cross is the manifestation of an activity of God in Christ, in which activity man in his sinful nature can have no part, but out of which activity a value is provided, which man must receive as the free gift of infinite grace.

We are now attempting to deal rather with the subject of that identification with Christ in His Cross, without which there can neither be true knowledge of Himself, nor experience of the power of His Resurrection, and of the fellowship of His sufferings.

This distinction can hardy be over-emphasized. The relation of the Christian to the Cross by faith is twofold; it is first that from which he escapes by Christ’s presence there; it is then that into indentification with which he must come, if he would find Ms way into realization of the Resurrection life which lies beyond.

Our first relation to the Cross is that of the sense that in it, God in Christ experienced that from which we escape.

I see the crowd in Pilate s hall,

I mark their wrathful mien.

Their shouts of Crucify appal,

With blasphemy between.

But of that shouting multitude
I know that I am one.

In this first approach to the Cross, man finds his place not on the Cross, hut in the company of those who have put Christ there. Each one standing before it has to confess: It is my sin that binds Him to the tree, and not the nails which have been driven through His hands and His feet. He is there in my place. The height, the depth, the length, the breadth of it we cannot measure. The infinite mystery of it we can never fathom, for at the centre is God. We can no more lay our measurement upon the mystery of that atoning death than we can compress Deity into the compass of our finite understanding. In this sense we approach the Cross empty-handed, to receive the great and inestimable gift of grace “without monejr and without price.”

That gift beiag received, by our acceptance of it we become identified with the underlying principles which have their supreme manifestation in the Cross. It is ours therefore, reverently to inquire what those underlying principles are, in order that we may imderstand what the Apostle meant when he spoke of becoming “conformed unto His death,” or in the Galatian letter, of being “crucified with Christ.”

First, then, the Cross was the supreme demonstration of Christ’s absolute conformity to the will of God. That principle might be expressed in other terms. We might speak of His submission to the will of God, of His abandonment to the will of God, of His acquiescence in the will of God. Nevertheless, even though it may appear as though I were making a distinction without a difference, to my own mind there are suggestions in all these words of the possibility of elements which were not present. Submission may presuppose a previous rebellion. Abandonment and acquiescence are words which may leave upon the mind the impression that there had been some difficulty which was overcome by voluntary surrender. The word “conformity” does not include any such ideas.

The will of God has been the master-passion of the life of Jesus. That may be granted without argument. It is clearly evident that in the mind of Christ there was the ever-present consciousness that the will of God was ultimately that of suffering and sorrow through which it would be possible for Him — that is, God — to communicate His grace to men. Thrice voluntarily in the story of the life of Jesus, we discover Him choosing the will of God even while He knew that it included suffering, sorrow, and shame: at His baptism, when He consented to be numbered with the transgressors; on the Transfiguration Mount, when He discussed with heavenly visitors the accomplishment of His exodus; on the occasion of the expressed desire of the Greeks to see Him, when, although His soul was troubled. He prayed, “Father glorify Thy name.” He revealed the fact of His conformity to the will of God.

Thrice He overcame temptation in the power of His conformity; firsj,. in the wilderness, when He declineoto accept the suggestion that He should possess the kingdoms by a moment’s homage to Satan; s^coudlv when, in answer to the suggestion of Peter that He should spare Himself, He rebuked him in language full of unutterable sternness; and :toallv. in Gethsemane, in the mystery of that hour of agony, out of which He cried, “Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me”; and immediately added, “Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done.” In the Cross we see the ultimate expression of this conformity, as our eyes rest upon a Man, not entering into conflict with God, but acting in conformity with His will.

Being “conformed unto His death,” then, means that we begin our life where He Anally expressed the master-passion of His own; and that as we receive the benefit of that Cross, coming to us as a gift of grace, by such reception we consent that henceforth our lives shall he mastered by the principle which He therein finally expressed. Becoming “conformed unto His death” means conformity to the will of God — that will, chosen as a principle, discovered in its plan, and obeyed in its programme.

It may be affirmed that this does not seem to be a difficult thing. It is perfectly true that it is not difficult when once the will has actually yielded; but it is in that act of yielding that the experience of the Cross is encountered. Conformity to the death of Christ does not consist in singing hymns about the will of God, or rejoicing in the intellectual apprehension of its perfection. It means rather the actual testing of every desire, and every affection thereby. All those which are out of harmony with that will must be destroyed. When the will of God is truly chosen as a principle, we no longer ask: What will our neighbours think? but. What will God think? no longer. What do we desire? but. What does God desire? no longer. What line of action will be pleasing to ourselves? but, Wbat will please God?

Moreover, the principle must operate not merely in the great crises, but in the commonplaces of life. It is in these that we are made or marred. No man was ever ruined in a crisis, whose moral fibre bad not already been weakened in the commonplaces. Reverently looking at the Cross again, recognizing it as the ultimate expression of the conformity of Jesus to the will of God, we remember the life which led to it, and recall some of its revealing declarations. “I seek .... the will of Him that sent Me”; ‘‘My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me”; “I do always the things that are pleasing Him.” Thus through all His life the mystic music of His declarations revealed the inner passion, the inspiration of His life; until at last, in continuity of co-operation with the will of God, He took His way to the Cross.

Becoming “conformed unto His death” means that we take up the Cross daily, and follow Him; that we consent to deny self and enthrone Him; that whether it be in the hour of some supreme choosing, or for the constant decisions of the passing moments; whether it be as to the calling which we are to follow, or as to the next thing we are to do; whether it be as to the choice of a life partnership, or as to the selection of the acquaintances of the passing days, — there is to he but one question asked: “WTiat is the will of God?

Those who have most fully entered into this experience will say that this is not death; and what they affirm is certainly true. Death is the way into life. That life is described in the previous language of the Apostle, “to know Him, and the power of His Resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings.” That life however, is never entered but by becoming “conformed unto His death”; and in the moment in which we yield ourselves to the mastery of the will of God we inevitably pass through the experience of crucifixion.

II

In the second place, the Cross was the place of Christ’s utter outpouring of Himself in the service of men. As we look again upon Christ crucified, three things are evidently set forth before our eyes: Christ’s estimate of man’s value; His answer to man’s sin; and His method for man’s saving.

No one who has truly seen the Cross of Christ can ever again speak of hopeless cases. He who declares that humanity is hopeless is looking at it, rather than at the Cross. Christ knew what we speak of as the hopelessness of humanity. He stood amidst the men of light and leading in His own day, and said, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children.” “Being evil!” He was familiar with human philanthropy, and that goodness of heart of which to-day we hear much for did He not say, “Ye give good gifts unto your children”? hut He also said, “Ye, being evil,” and said it of men who manifested kindness of heart. When we know His estimate of evil, such language seems to he of the essence of pessimism. When we turn to the Cross we find that, while it still recognizes the fact of the evil of the human heart, it nevertheless reveals in unmistakable manner His estimate of humanity. Being evil, it is yet possible of redemption; it is worth dying for. He saw the stain, and understood its degradation and hopelessness as we cannot, save as we see it with His eyes. He was not deceived about human nature. “Being evil,” nevertheless He died for men whom He thus described.

I repeat therefore, that no man who has looked into the love-lit eyes of the dying Christ can ever speak of another as hopeless. That is what His Cross meant. Tell me what you will about the pollution of the heart; I know it — I am human. Tell me what you will about the forces of evil that drive men astray from birth; I know them well, and no new-born philosophy can rid me of them. Yet over against all such declarations set this other fact; Christ considered that man, in the image of Grod, marred, bruised, broken, spoiled, was yet worth dying for.

“Becoming conformed unto His death” means that we take that estimate of humanity. If we come to the Cross with empty hands to receive the gifts of grace, and rejoicing in our gifts, neglect humanity, we are traitors, renegades, blasphemers; we crucify Christ afresh. If on the other hand, we come to the Cross of Christ with empty hands to receive the gifts of grace, and then hasten in the Passion of the Cross to break our bread to hungry men, to share our life with dying men, we are “becoming conformed unto His death.”

“Becoming conformed unto His death” means also that we answer man’s sin as He answered it, by pouring out our lives in sacrificial service, understandiing that we can only help in the saving of men by dying for them.

The lonely mystery of the pain of God is apart from us, but out of it fiows the river, and of that river we drink and live. When we do so, we are committed to the principle from which the river flows, and henceforth we must have fellowship with His sufferings. When we accept His great salvation, we commit ourselves to fellowship, and thus enter into a contract of partnership. He poured out Himself for us, and “becoming conformed unto His death” means that henceforth we pour out our lives for others.

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And finally, the Cross was Christ’s pathway toward His crowning. He chose that pathway as against the suggestion of Satan, which was that of compromise; as against the suggestion of men, which was that of self-pity. He chose it because it was according to the purpose of God. He could have reached His throne in no other way. Through abandonment to the will of God and service of humanity, both at the utmost, the throne was reached. He might have made for Himself, as other men have done, a throne lasting a few years. He might, perchance, have created a dynasty continuing for centuries. But He could not have ascended the throne of empire, and held it through all ages, except by the way of His Cross. It was along the highway of His dying that He passed into the spaciousness of His reigning.

So also if we would reign in life we must be at the end of ourselves. We must give ourselves up for the sake of others. It is by the Cross that we triumph, not by policy, not by prudence, not even by passion, but by conformity to His death.

What throne do we covet? All the lesser thrones that are based on dust, I dismiss as unworthy of consideration. What place do we really desire of beneficent power, of helpful influence? Whatever it may be, there is but one way to find it, and that is by way of the Cross. We cannot reign in life until we have done with our own ambitions. It is always after some night of bruising and breaking that Jacob becomes Israel. Do noti let us pity the man who limps, if his limping is the result of a night spent by the Jabbok. There is a limp which is a patent of nobility. In some lonely vigil of the night, when

I lay in dust life’s glory dead,

then

From the ground there blossoms red,

Life that shall endless be.

Thank God for those who are facing the great campaign, the flush of youth upon their cheek, the gleam and glow of health in their eye; spiritually ambitious, desiring to reign in life, as preachers, teachers, witnesses, as winners of souls; hut let all such remember they must die in order to live, they must be conformed to His death in order to be transformed by His life from cumberers to conquerors.

Surely, if from that infinite imveiling of the Passion of God in the Cross, we are ready to take the gift of love, we ought to he prepared to answer the call of Christ which asks us, seeing that we have received the gift, to enter into fellowship with the Giver.

What is the hindrance? The question is asked, hut none can answer it for another. The hindrance is often the fear of men, the fear of persecution, the dread of the world’s misunderstanding. All such fear is evidence of lack of faith in the One Who calls us to fellowship with Him in the Cross. We are afraid of the sequence of abandonment to the will of God. We are like the men of Gadara. Jesus landed on their shore, and there found men devil-possessed; and found also an unholy traffic in swine. He flung the devils out of the men into the swine, and destroyed the traffic. The men of Gadara immediately said: Prevent His coming nearer. If upon the shore He rebukes us thus, and destroys our profits, what will He do if He be permitted to enter into our cities?

In answer to all difficulties, what shall we say? There is but one reply: Consider Him, behold Him, meditate upon Him, understand Him. He was rich. Can we measure that? Can we measure His riches? An Apostle spoke of “the unsearchable riches of Christ’’! But, though He was rich, yet “for your sakes He became poor.” Can we measure that? Can we measure His poverty? Consider Him. As we do so He says to us:

gave My life for thee,

What hast thou given for Me?”

Let us hold up the idol to which we cling in the light of His Cross. Let us bring that forbidden thing with which we should have parted long ago, into the presence of His Cross. Let us hold our fears face to face with His courage. Let us command our lack of faith to consider His ability to help and keep.

That is the final answer to all faltering in the presence of His Cross. If we can but see Him, we shall be willing to stretch out these hands that they may be nailed to His Cross. If we look at the Cross we cannot do it! If we look at our hands we dare not do it! But if we consider Him, we can, we dare, we do. “Becoming conformed unto His death.” His death; it is the vision of the Christ that woos us to willingness to die.

“Becoming conformed unto His death.” What then? We shall know Him, we shall know the power of His Resurrection, we shall have fellowship with His sufferings. Let the chapter be read again. Before we are through we shall discover the word “conformed” once more. But now the writing is not “conformed unto His death.” It is “the body of our humiliation .... conformed to the body of His glory.”

So, by identification with the Cross, the saint passes into identification with the glory which is to follow.