Experiencing Christ’s Death

The experience of the cross of Christ is critical to the believers’ progress in the spiritual life. Even the more, it is essential to God’s carrying out of His economy, His plan. But how can the believers experience the cross of Christ practically?

In His earthly ministry, Christ made it unequivocally clear that for Him to fulfill God’s purpose He needed to go to the cross. He revealed His impending crucifixion to His disciples on a number of occasions (Matt. 16:21-27, 17:22-23, 20:17-19). He also made it clear to them that they, too, would have to take the way of the cross in order to be counted faithful (Matt. 16:24-25; Mark 8:34-37; John 12:24-26).

Why do Christians need to experience the death of Christ?

How can Christians Experience the Death of Christ?

In response to the Lord’s call, Christians throughout the centuries have desired and endeavored to be delivered from their fleshly lusts, from their old man with all his failings, and from all the worldly attractions. Many have had the realization that they were crucified on the cross with Christ, according to Galatians 2:20 and Romans 6:6, but have never been able to enter into the experience of this precious fact. They may have tried to reckon themselves dead to sin according to Romans 6, but to little or no avail. Others have practiced asceticism and extreme self-deprivation to the point of damaging their physical and psychological well-being, only to find that they are still just as subject to sin, temptation, and the world as ever. What then is the lacking? How can Christians enter into the genuine experience of the death of Christ?

The answer is the Spirit as the reality of the crucified Christ. Paul presented this Christ to the problematic church in Corinth as their unique solution:

“But we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness; but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Cor. 1:23-24)

Paul later went on to reveal to these believers that this crucified Christ also resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45, 47; 2 Cor. 3:6, 17). Christ as the life-giving Spirit is the key to experiencing all of the riches of Christ’s person and work revealed in the New Testament, including His powerful, prevailing death. It is as the Spirit that Christ is realized and received by His believers. This wonderful Spirit is the Triune God who became a man of flesh in incarnation, and then became the life-giving Spirit in resurrection. Through these processes of incarnation and resurrection, Christ incorporated His uplifted humanity along with His human experience of death and resurrection into the Spirit. This great fact is developed more fully by Andrew Murray in his spiritual expository masterpiece, The Spirit of Christ.

Paul also wrote to the believers in Rome regarding the application of the death of Christ. In chapter six, he presents the facts concerning their co-crucifixion with Christ, but not until chapter eight does he reveal the secret to experiencing these facts. In Romans 8 Paul explains that it is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus that has set him free from the law of sin and of death. Furthermore, he refers to both the indwelling Spirit (v. 9) and the indwelling Christ (v. 10) and uses these titles interchangeably. Then he tells them in verse 13,

“For if you live according to the flesh, you must die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, you will live.”

How can the believers put to death the sinful practices of their body? It is only the Spirit. Where is this Spirit? He is dwelling within them. And who is this Spirit? He is none other than the resurrected and glorified Christ Himself. Herein lies the secret to the Christian life: the Spirit of the glorified Jesus within the believer.

God gave us a wonderfully descriptive type in the Old Testament to prefigure the all-inclusive “Spirit of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:19) in the New Testament, and that is the ointment compounded and prepared for the service of the tabernacle (Exodus 30:22-33). In the Bible, oil represents the Spirit of God, and the four spices which were added to the oil to produce the compound ointment typify all that was “added” to the Spirit through Christ’s incarnation, human living, crucifixion and resurrection. What are these ingredients, and what do they represent?

(For a in-depth and scholarly presentation of the type of the compound ointment and its significance, please see The Compound Spirit by Ed Marks.)

What this very detailed compounding process signifies is that today, the Spirit of God has been “enriched” with several crucial elements in order to meet the need of fallen man. Due to the fall, sin infiltrated man and caused unfathomable damage. What is God’s solution to indwelling sin? The death of Christ—not merely in an objective sense, but actually and practically applied to the believer’s inner being through the Spirit. In addition, through sin, death also entered into man, rendering him impotent in everything related to God. What is God’s remedy for man’s dead condition? The resurrection of Christ with its transcendence, supplying the believer with the power that overcame death itself and enables the believers not only to serve God in newness of life (Rom. 6:4), but even the more, to be conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29). Everything the believer needs is in the Spirit of Christ. Oh, the freedom of abandoning all our struggling and opening up our inner being to the supply of this wonderful, indwelling Spirit! He frees man from the law of sin and of death and supplies him with His victorious resurrection life and power.

May all the Lord’s believers progress in their realization of the marvelous, all-inclusive death of Christ and increasingly know the sweetness of its application to them by the Spirit. In this way, they will experience not only redemption, but also the termination of all the troublesome negative elements within them in a real and practical way. By experiencing the Spirit, they will go on to be transformed into “the same image” as Christ the Lord (2 Cor. 3:18) and will thus be able to be built up with others to be the “one new man” on the earth to express and represent God corporately.

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