“He that doth not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.” –Matthew 10:38-39.

We have had some of Paul’s great words to the Galatians about the cross and our being crucified with Christ. Let us now turn to the Master Himself to hear what He has to teach us. We shall find that what Paul could teach openly and fully after the crucifixion, was given by the Master in words that could at first hardly be understood, and yet contained the seed of the full truth.

It was in the ordination charge, when Christ sent forth His disciples, that He first used the expression that the disciple must take up his cross and follow Him.

The only meaning the disciples could attach to these words was from what they had often seen, when an evil-doer who had been sentenced to death by the cross was led out bearing his cross to the place of execution. In bearing the cross, he acknowledged the sentence of death that was on him. And Christ would have His disciples understand that their nature was so evil and corrupt that it was only in losing their natural life that they could find the true life. Of Himself it was true that all His life He bore His cross — the sentence of death that He knew to rest upon Himself on account of our sins. And so He would have each disciple bear his cross — the sentence of death upon himself and his evil, carnal nature.

The disciples could not at once understand all this. But Christ gave them seed words, which would germinate in their hearts and later on begin to reveal their full meaning. The disciple was not only to carry the sentence of death in himself, but to learn that in following the Master to His cross he would find the power to lose his life and to receive instead of it the life that would come through the cross of Christ.

Christ asks of His disciples that they should forsake all and take up their cross, give up their whole will and life, and follow Him. The call comes to us too to give up the self life with its self-pleasing and self-exaltation, and bear the cross in fellowship with Him — and so shall we be made partakers of His victory.

“Then said Jesus unto His disciples, ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.'” –Matthew 16:24.

Christ had for the first time definitely announced that He would have to suffer much and be killed and be raised again. “Peter rebuked Him, saying, ‘Be it far from Thee, Lord; this shall never be unto Thee.'” Christ’s answer was, “Get thee behind Me, Satan.” The spirit of Peter, seeking to turn Him away from the cross and its suffering, was nothing but Satan tempting Him to turn aside from the path which God had appointed as our way of salvation.

Christ then adds the words of our text, in which He uses for the second time the words “take up the cross.” But with that He uses a most significant expression revealing what is implied in the cross: “If any man come after Me, LET HIM DENY HIMSELF, and take up his cross.” When Adam sinned, he fell out of the life of heaven and of God into the life of the world and of self. Self- pleasing, self-sufficiency, self- exaltation, become the law of his life. When Jesus Christ came to restore man to his original place, “being in the form of God, HE EMPTIED HIMSELF, taking the form of a servant, and HUMBLED HIMSELF even to the death of the cross.” What He has done Himself He asks of all who desire to follow Him: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself.”

Instead of denying himself, Peter denied his Lord: “I know not the man.” When a man learns to obey Christ’s commands, he says of HIMSELF: “I know not the man.” The secret of true discipleship is to bear the cross, to acknowledge the death sentence that has been passed on self, and to deny any right that self has to rule over us.

Death to self is to be the Christian’s watchword. The surrender to Christ is to be so entire, the surrender for Christ’s sake to live for those around us so complete, that self is never allowed to come down from the cross to which it has been crucified, but is ever kept in the place of death.

Let us listen to the voice of Jesus: “Deny self”; and ask that by the grace of the Holy Spirit, as the disciples of a Christ who denied Himself for us, we may ever live as those in whom self has been crucified with Christ, and in whom the crucified Christ now lives as Lord and Master.

“If any man cometh unto Me, and hateth not his own life, HE CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE. Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come after Me, CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE. Whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, HE CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE.” Luke 14:26-33.

For the third time Christ speaks about bearing the cross. He gives new meaning to it when He says that a man must hate his own life and renounce all that he has. Thrice over He solemnly repeats the words that without this a man cannot be His disciple.

“If a man hate not his own life.” And why does Christ make such an exacting demand the condition of discipleship? Because the sinful nature we have inherited from Adam is indeed so vile and full of sin that, if our eyes were only opened to see it in its true nature, we would flee from it as loathsome and incurably evil. ‘The flesh is enmity against God”; the soul that seeks to love God cannot but hate the “old man” which is corrupt through its whole being. Nothing less than this, the hating of our own life, will make us willing to bear the cross and carry within us the sentence of death on our evil nature. It is not till we hate this life with a deadly hatred that we will be ready to give up the old nature to die the death that is its due.

Christ has one word more: “He that renounceth not all that he hath,” whether in property or character, “cannot be My disciple.” Christ claims all. Christ undertakes to satisfy every need and to give a hundredfold more than we give up. It is when by faith we become conscious what it means to know Christ, and to love Him and to receive from Him what can in very deed enrich and satisfy our immortal spirits, that we shall count the surrender of what at first appeared so difficult, our highest privilege. As we learn what it means that Christ is our life, we shall count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord. In the path of following Him, and ever learning to know and to love Him better, we shall willingly sacrifice all, self with its life, to make room for Him who is more than all.

“Then Jesus, beholding him, loved him, and said: ‘One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.'” –Mark 10:21.

When Christ spoke these words to the young ruler, he went away grieved. Jesus said: “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!” The disciples were astonished at His words. When Christ repeated once again what He had said, they were astonished out of measure, “Who then can be saved?” “Jesus looking upon them said, ‘With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.'”

Christ had spoken about bearing the cross from the human side, as the one condition of discipleship. Here with the rich young ruler He reveals from the side of God what is needed to give men the will and the power thus to sacrifice all, if they are to enter the kingdom. He said to Peter, when he had confessed Him as Christ, the Son of God, that flesh and blood had not revealed it unto him, but His Father in heaven, to remind him and the other disciples that it was only by divine teaching that he could make the confession. So here with the ruler He unveils the great mystery that it is only by divine power that a man can take up his cross, can lose his life, can deny himself and hate the life to which he is by nature so attached.

What multitudes have sought to follow Christ and obey His injunction — and have found that they have utterly failed! What multitudes have felt that Christ’s claims were beyond their reach and have sought to be Christians without any attempt at the whole-hearted devotion and the entire self-denial which Christ asks for!

Let us in our study of what the fellowship of the cross means take today’s lesson to heart and believe that it is only by putting our trust in the living God, and in the mighty power with which He is willing to work in the heart, that we can attempt to be disciples who forsake all and follow Christ in the fellowship of His cross.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit. He that loveth his life loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” –John 12:24-25.

All nature is a parable of how the losing of a life can be the way of securing a truer and higher life. Every grain of wheat, every seed throughout the world, teaches the lesson that through death lies the path to beautiful and fruitful life.

It was so with the Son of God. He had to pass through death in all its bitterness and suffering before He could rise to heaven and impart His life to His redeemed people. And here under the shadow of the approaching cross He calls His disciples: “If any man will serve Me, let him follow Me.” He repeats the words: “He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.”

One might have thought that Christ did not need to lose His holy life ere He could find it again. But so it was: God had laid upon Him the iniquity of us all, and He yielded to the inexorable law: Through death to life and to fruit.

How much more ought we, in the consciousness of that evil nature and that death which we inherited in Adam, be most grateful that there is a way open to us by which, in the fellowship of Christ and His cross, we can die to this accursed self! With what willingness and gratitude ought we to listen to the call to bear our cross, to yield our “old man” as crucified with Christ daily to that death which he deserves! Surely the thought that the power of the eternal Life is working in us, ought to make us willing and glad to die the death that brings us into the fellowship and the power of life in a risen Christ.

Alas, how little this is understood! Let us believe that what is impossible to man is possible to God. Let us believe that the law of the Spirit of Christ Jesus, the risen Lord, can in very deed make His death and His life the daily experience of our souls.

“O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou will.” –Matthew 26:39.

The death of Christ on the cross is the highest and the holiest that can be known of Him even in the glory of heaven. And the highest and the holiest that the Holy Spirit can work in us is to take us up and to keep us in the fellowship of the cross of Christ. We need to enter deeply into the truth that Christ the beloved Son of the Father could not return to the glory of heaven until He had first given Himself over unto death. As this great truth opens up to us it will help us to understand how in our life, and in our fellowship with Christ, it is impossible for us to share His life until we have first in very deed surrendered ourselves every day to die to sin and the world, and so to abide in the unbroken fellowship with our crucified Lord.

And it is from Christ alone that we can learn what it means to have fellowship with His sufferings, and to be made conformable unto His death. When in the agony of Gethsemane He looked forward to what a death on the cross would be, He got such a vision of what it meant to die the accursed death under the power of sin — with God’s countenance so turned from Him that not a single ray of its light could penetrate the darkness — that He prayed the cup might pass from Him. But when no answer came, and He understood that the Father could not allow the cup to pass by, He yielded up His whole will and life in the word: “Thy will be done.” O Christian, in this word of your Lord in His agony, you can enter into fellowship with Him, and in His strength your heart will be made strong to believe most confidently that God in His omnipotence will enable you in very deed with Christ to yield up everything, because you have in very deed been crucified with Him.

“Thy will be done” — let this be the deepest and the highest word in your life. In the power of Christ with whom you have been crucified, and in the power of His Spirit, the definite daily surrender to the ever-blessed will of God will become the joy and the strength of your life.

“Then said Jesus: ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.'” –Luke_23:34.

The seven words on the cross reveal what the mind of Christ is, and show the dispositions that become His disciples. Take the three first words, all the expression of His wonderful love.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He prays for His enemies. In the hour of their triumph over Him, and of the shame and suffering which they delight in showering on Him, He pours out His love in prayer for them. It is the call to everyone who believes in a crucified Christ to go and do likewise, even as He has said, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which persecute you.” The law of the Master is the law for the disciple; the love of the crucified Jesus, the only rule for those who believe in Him.

“Woman, behold thy son!” “Behold thy mother!” The love that cared for His enemies cared too for His friends. Jesus felt what the anguish must be in the heart of His widowed mother, and commits her to the care of the beloved disciple. He knew that for John there could be no higher privilege, and no more blessed service, than that of taking His place in the care of Mary. Even so, we who are the disciples of Christ must not only pray for His enemies, but prove our love to Him and to all who belong to Him by seeing to it that every solitary one is comforted, and that every loving heart has some work to do in caring for those who belong to the blessed Master.

“Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.” The penitent thief had appealed to Christ’s mercy to remember him. With what readiness of joy and love Christ gives the immediate answer to his prayer! Whether it was the love that prays for His enemies, or the love that cares for His friends, or the love that rejoices over the penitent sinner who was being cast out by man — in all Christ proves that the cross is a cross of love, that the Crucified One is the embodiment of a love that passes knowledge.

With every thought of what we owe to that love, with every act of faith in which we rejoice in its redemption, let us prove that the mind of the crucified Christ is our mind, and that His love is not only what we trust in for ourselves, but what guides us in our loving intercourse with the world around us.

“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” — “I thirst.” — “It is finished.” –Matthew 27:46, John 19:28,30.

The first three words on the cross reveal love in its outflow to men. The next three reveal love in the tremendous sacrifice that it brought, necessary to deliver us from our sins and give the victory over every foe. They still reveal the very mind that was in Christ, and that is to be in us as the disposition of our whole life.

“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” How deep must have been the darkness that overshadowed Him, for not one ray of light could pierce, and He could not say “My Father”! It was this awful desertion breaking in upon that life of childlike fellowship with the Father, in which He had always walked, that caused Him the agony and the bloody sweat in Gethsemane. “O My Father, let this cup pass from Me” — but it might not be, and He bowed His head in submission: “Thy will be done.” It was His love to God and love to man — this yielding Himself to the very uttermost. It is as we learn to believe and to worship that love that we too shall learn to say: “Abba, Father, Thy will be done.”

“I thirst.” The body now gives expression to the terrible experience of what it passed through when the fire of God’s wrath against sin came upon Christ in the hour of His desertion. He had spoken of Dives crying “I am tormented in this flame.” Christ utters His complaint of what He now suffered. Physicians tell us that in crucifixion the whole body is in agony with a terrible fever and pain. Our Lord endured it all and cried: “I thirst”; soul and body was the sacrifice He brought the Father.

And then comes the great word: “It is finished.” All that there was to suffer and endure had been brought as a willing sacrifice; He had finished the work the Father gave Him to do. His love held nothing back. He gave Himself an offering and a sacrifice. Such was the mind of Christ, and such must be the disposition of everyone who owes himself and his life to that sacrifice. The mind that was in Christ must be in us, ready to say: “I am come to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” And every day that our confidence grows fuller in Christ’s finished work must see our heart more entirely yielding itself like Him, a whole burnt offering in the service of God and His love.

“‘Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit.’ And having said this, He gave up the ghost.” –Luke 23:46.

Like David (Psalm 31:5), Christ had often committed His spirit into the hands of His Father for His daily life and need. But here is something new and very special. He gives up His spirit into the power of death, gives up all control over it, to sink down into the darkness and death of the grave, where He can neither think, nor pray, nor will. He surrenders Himself to the utmost into the Father’s hands, trusting Him to care for Him in the dark, and in due time to raise Him up again.

If we have indeed died in Christ, and are now in faith every day to carry about with us the death of our Lord Jesus, this word is the very one that we need. Just think once again what Christ meant when He said that we must hate and lose our life.

We died in Adam; the life we receive from him is death; there is nothing good or heavenly in us by nature. It is to this inward evil nature, to all the life that we have from this world, that we must die. There cannot be any thought of any real holiness without totally dying to this self or “old man.” Many deceive themselves because they seek to be alive in God before they are dead to their own nature — a thing as impossible as it is for a grain of wheat to be alive before it dies. This total dying to self lies at the root of all true piety. The spiritual life must grow out of death.

And if we ask how we can do this, we find the answer in the mind in which Christ died. Like Him we cast ourselves upon God, without knowing how the new life is to be attained; but as we in fellowship with Jesus say, “Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit,” and depend simply and absolutely upon God to raise us up into the new life, there will be fulfilled in us the wonderful promise of God’s Word concerning the exceeding greatness of His power in us who believe, according to the mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.

This indeed is the true test of faith — a faith that lives every day and every hour in absolute dependence upon the continual and immediate quickening of the divine life in us by God Himself through the Holy Spirit.

“When Jesus had received the vinegar, He said: ‘It is finished.'” — John 19:30.

The seven words of our Lord on the cross reveal to us His mind and disposition. At the beginning of His ministry He said (John 4:34): “My meat is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and TO FINISH HIS WORK.” In all things, the small as well as the great, He should accomplish God’s work. In the High Priestly Prayer at the end of the three years’ ministry He could say (John 17:4): “I have glorified Thee on the earth, I HAVE FINISHED THE WORK which Thou gavest Me to do.” He sacrificed all, and in dying on the cross could in truth say: “It is finished.”

With that word to the Father He laid down His life. With that word He was strengthened, after the terrible agony on the cross, in the knowledge that all was now fulfilled. And with that word He uttered the truth of the gospel of our redemption, that all that was needed for man’s salvation had been accomplished on the cross.

This disposition should characterize every follower of Christ. The mind that was in Him must be in us — it must be our meat, the strength of our life, TO DO THE WILL OF GOD IN ALL THINGS, AND TO FINISH HIS WORK. There may be small things about which we are not conscientious, and so we bring harm to ourselves and to God’s work. Or we draw back before some great thing which demands too much sacrifice. In every case we may find strength to perform our duty in Christ’s word “It is finished.” His finished work secured the victory over every foe. By faith we may appropriate that dying word of Christ on the cross, and find the power for daily living and dying in the fellowship of the crucified Christ.

Child of God, study the inexhaustible treasure contained in this word: “It is finished.” Faith in what Christ accomplished on the cross will enable you to manifest in daily life the spirit of the cross.