Rock of Offense

Cross Eternal Selflessness

The cross is the centerpiece of redemption. More than that, the cross is the way of life for all believers. More than that the cross is the essence of the Godhead. The cross means denial of self. The eternal character of the Godhead is self denial. Before there was ever a creation, the way of the cross is the way of God. The Father is selfless, and thinks only of the Son. The Son is selfless and thinks only of the Father. The Spirit is selfless and thinks only of the Father through the Son.

When God created man, He made man in His own image He could not make man in His own image, if He was not aware of self. So while God is selfless, He has self awareness. Man, in the image of God, has a spirit, soul and body. The soul is the self awareness part of man. When Adam was created, he had self awareness, but before his fall, he was selfless, like God. After the Fall, Adam became selfish, or, self centered, and so, too, all the rest of mankind.

Dead to Sin

Denial of self is not the denial of self awareness. The new birth, with crucifixion with Christ (Gal. 3:20), is not the eradication of self. This experience is by faith (Eph. 3:17) and is experienced by dieing daily (1 Cor. 15:31). The cross is applied to our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:13) as we choose being spiritual (Rom 8:6) daily.

Since our walk in Christ is by faith, we are ever open to the possibility of choosing carnality instead of spirituality. As Christians of the new birth, the old man has been crucified with Christ, and we have died and are dead to sin. Consider what Paul says:

Rom 6:6-12
6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. (KJV)

Paul speaks in the past tense regarding our having died with Christ. We are already dead to sin. Nonetheless, he warns us to not let sin reign in our moral bodies that we should obey the lusts thereof. If we are dead to sin, how then can it reign again?

It is generally believed by the church that we still have the sin nature and walk in the flesh because of that. However, there are an abundance of verses that say the opposite.

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (2 Pet 1:4 KJV)

Peter said that we are partakers of the divine nature and that we escaped - past tense - the corruption of the world through lust. The question is, "can we have two natures at the same time?" Jesus said, " A house divided against itself shall not stand." (Matt. 12:25). If Jesus said that about Satan, would He do the same thing to His kingdom? No! Christianity for many believers is like the Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin movie, "All of Me", where two lives struggled to live in one body. This is not from our new nature. Our nature is our roots. The root of human life is the human spirit. Before regeneration our human spirits were trapped as a sinful nature. But after the regeneration we were given a new spirit (Ezek. 11:19, 36:26), one that has been joined to the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17). A sin nature means that we are slaves to sin who can not help but to sin because it is our nature to sin.

Rom 6:16-18
16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. (KJV)

New Man and Old Man

We are made free from sin. Yet, Paul said, "to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey" shows that we have the choice. Where is the choice coming from? Peter said it: "having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust."(2 Pet. 1:4). Lust is not the sin nature, but desire made obsessive. Desire is natural. The world is the system set up by Satan to ensnare people into bondage. This is external, not internal. Paul encourages us:

Rom 12:1-2
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (KJV)

We are to deny the natural self, which is encouraged by the world, and to consciously participate in the transformation by the renewing of our minds. The old way of thinking surrounds us, and we have to consciously resist that old life. In Ephesians Paul talks about the "old man" and the "new man".

Eph 4:22-24
22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. (KJV)

Earlier Paul referred to this "new man" as the "inner man".

Eph 3:16
That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; (KJV)

If the new man is the inner man, then the old man is the "outer man". Lazarus in his resurrection is the new man, but his grave clothes are the old man. Notice that the new man is "renewed in the spirit of your mind" (Eph. 4;23) which is similar to what he said to the Romans "to be transformed by the renewing of your minds" (Rom 12:2). The old man or outer man, then, is the soul, not the spirit. Renewing the spirit of our minds is teaching the old man about the new man, so that it may be transformed.

The job of the soul is to express the spirit. The soul is the mind, will and emotions. The mind maintains the memories of the past life. The will makes the choice in decisions, and the emotions move us to action (emote means to motivate or move). This, then is the struggle of Christian living. To daily deny self which is to bear our cross daily, or better said, to deny the soul, and choose to follow the spirit instead. The sin nature is destroyed, but the choice of the flesh is daily. To be spiritual is for the soul to choose to follow the spirit. To be carnal is for the soul to follow the body. Hence, Paul says that we are to "present our bodies a living sacrifice" (Rom. 12:1).

Jeremiah said,

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jer 17:9 KJV)

The heart is the abode of the spirit and soul. Christ dwells in our hearts by faith (Eph. 3:17), but is joined to our spirits (1 Cor. 6:17). Our spirit is new, but our souls are not. Our souls give us self awareness, but were selfish in the Old Man. In the regeneration, we gained a new heart (Ezek. 18:31 & 36:26), but the soul remains because God wants us to still be individuals within His body. Collectively we are the body of Christ, individually we are His children.

The Rock of Offense

The soul within the new heart is deep. Even though we are consciously following Christ, the depth of our hearts are beyond our understanding. But Jesus knows the hearts of every man (John 2:24). Jesus alone is the Great Physician and the Good Shepherd. Jesus is the true mentor of every disciple. Consider this small sampling of scriptures that show God working in us.

Phil 1:6
Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: (KJV)
Eph 3:20
Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, (KJV)
James 1:21
Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. (KJV)

The work that God is working is the cross going deeper into our hearts. Watchman Nee calls this the Breaking of the Outer Man. Jesus said that He was the stone that:

"... whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." (Matt 21:44 KJV)

Being broken is our voluntarily bearing our cross, but being ground to a powder is to resist the work of God in our lives.

God, by His Spirit through the power of the cross, is crucifying those areas of our heart that move us that still belong to the Old Man, yet we are wholly unaware of. He uses circumstances and hardships to break us (that is the Old Man in us) so that we may completely die to those desires.

Dying to Co-Dependency of Sin

The power of Satan in the world, is to tempt us with desires that we still have. This power can be compared to a co-dependent relationship. In such relationship the one who has no desire for the relationship is the master, whereas the one who thinks he or she needs the relationship is the slave. You cannot be tempted for that which you have no desire. This is what Paul means when he said that "he that is dead is freed from sin." (Rom. 6:7). But this death cannot be done by ourselves. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to crucify the desires that Satan uses to tempt us into sin. If we follow Paul's admonition to "through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body," (Rom 8:13 KJV) by prayer and supplication, we have a temporary victory. But complete victory comes by the Lord working in our lives through circumstances and choices over a period of time in crucifying completely those desires that Satan can tempt us with. When the work of the Lord is complete in an area, then true death to those desires occur, and we are dead to sin and free.

All desires that have been corrupted by the sin nature, Satan and the world began with a wholesome desire that is God given. Dying to self is only one side of the door of the cross. The other side is resurrection. Once we truly die to a desire, then God can resurrect the desire in the new man. For God gave us the desire in the first place, and the crucifying process is for a holy new birth of the desire for God's pleasure who delights in giving us the desires of our heart (Psalms 37:4).

Self help books, 12 step programs, and all such teachings are works of the flesh. There is no pleasing God apart from His only begotten Son. The only answer to the flesh that the Bible gives is death. God loves us too much to let us be a house divided. Anything less than Jesus Christ is unacceptable before God. Trials in your life can be self induced if you are choosing sin. But if you are choosing the cross in self denial, trials may be from God to break your outer man, that is, to fully crucify the old man. There are other trials that come from Satan that God wants us to fight back. That is the subject of spiritual authority, and will be discussed in another article.