“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.

“We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?” –Romans 6:2.

After having, in the first section of the Epistle to the Romans (1:16 to 5:11), expounded the great doctrine of justification by faith, Paul proceeds, in the second section (5:12 to 8:39), to unfold the related doctrine of the new life by faith in Christ. Taking Adam as a figure of Christ, he teaches that just as we all really and actually died in Adam, so that his death reigns in our nature, even so, in Christ, those who believe in Him actually and effectually died to sin, were set free from it, and became partakers of the new holy life of Christ.

He asks the question: “We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?” In these words we have the deep spiritual truth that our death to sin in Christ delivers us from its power, so that we no longer may or need to live in it. The secret of true and full holiness is by faith, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, to live in the consciousness: I am dead to sin.

In expounding this truth he reminds them that they were baptized INTO THE DEATH OF CHRIST. We were buried with Him through baptism into death. We became UNITED WITH HIM by the likeness of His death. Our “old man” was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away — rendered void and powerless. Take time and quietly, asking for the teaching of the Holy Spirit, ponder these words until the truth masters you: I am indeed dead to sin in Christ Jesus. As we grow in the consciousness of our union with the crucified Christ, we shall experience that the power of His life in us has made us free from the power of sin.

Romans 6 is one of the most blessed portions of the New Testament of our Lord Jesus, teaching us that our “old man,” the old nature that is in us, was actually crucified with Him, so that now we need no longer be in bondage to sin. But remember it is only as the Holy Spirit makes Christ’s death a reality within us that we shall know, not by force of argument or conviction, but in the reality of the power of a divine life, that we are in very deed dead to sin. It only needs a continual living in Christ Jesus.

“Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” “He believed God, who quickeneth the dead.” –Romans 4:3,7.

Let us now, after listening to the words of our Lord Jesus about our fellowship with Him in the cross, turn to St. Paul, and see how through the Holy Spirit he gives the deeper insight into what our death in Christ means.

You know how the first section of Romans is devoted to the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ. After speaking (1:18-32) of the awful sin of the heathen, and then (2:1-29) of the sin of the Jew, he points out how Jew and Gentile are “guilty before God,” “All have sinned and come short.” And then he sets forth that free grace which gave the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (3:21-31). In chapter 4 he points to Abraham as having, when he believed, understood that God justified him freely by His grace, and not for anything that he had done.

Abraham had not only believed this, but something more. “He believed in God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth the things that are not as though they were.” The two expressions are most significant, as indicating the two essential needs there are in the redemption of man in Christ Jesus. There is the need of justification by faith, to restore man to the favor of God. But there is more needed. He must also be quickened to a new life. Just as justification is by faith alone, so is regeneration also. Christ died on account of our sins; He was raised again on account of our justification.

In the first section (down to chap. 5:11) Paul deals exclusively with the great thought of our justification. But in the second section (5:12 to 8:39) he expounds that wonderful union with Christ, through faith, by which we died with Him, by which we live in Him, and by which, through the Holy Spirit, we are made free, not only from the punishment, but also from the power of sin, and are enabled to live the life of righteousness, of obedience, and of sanctification.

“If we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.” –Romans 6:8.

The reason that God’s children live so little in the power of the resurrection life of Christ is because they have so little understanding of or faith in their death with Christ. How clearly this appears from what Paul says: “If we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him”; it is the knowledge and experience that gives us the assurance of the power of His resurrection in us. “Christ died unto sin once; but the life that He liveth, He liveth unto God” (ver. 10). It is only because and as we know that we are dead with Him, that we can live with Him.

On the strength of this, Paul now appeals to his readers. “Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus” (ver. 11). The words “even so reckon yourselves” are a call to an act of bold and confident faith. Reckon yourselves to be indeed dead unto sin, as much as Christ is, and alive to God in Christ Jesus. The word gives us a divine assurance of what we actually are and have in Christ. And this not as a truth that our minds can master and appropriate, but a reality which the Holy Spirit will reveal within us. In His power we accept our death with Christ on the cross as the power of our daily life.

Then we are able to accept and obey the command: “Let not sin reign in your mortal body; but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead; for sin shall not have dominion over you” (vers. 12,13,14). “Being made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness; present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification. Being now made free from sin, ye have your fruit unto sanctification” (vers. 18,19,33).

The whole chapter is a wonderful revelation of the deep meaning of its opening words: “How shall we, WHO DIED TO SIN, live any more therein?” Everything depends upon our acceptance of the divine assurance: If we died with Christ, as He died, and now lives to God, we too have the assurance that in Him we have the power to live unto God.

“Ye were made dead to the law, through the body of Christ.” “Having died to that wherein we were holden, so that we serve in newness of the spirit.” Romans 7:4,6.

The believer is not only dead to sin, but dead to the law. This is a deeper truth, giving us deliverance from the thought of a life of effort and failure, and opening the way to the life in the power of the Holy Spirit. “Thou shalt” is done away with; the power of the Spirit takes its place. In the remainder of this chapter (7:7-24) we have a description of the Christian as he still tries to obey the law, but utterly fails. He experiences that “in him, that in his flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” He finds that the law of sin, notwithstanding his utmost efforts, continually brings him into captivity, and compels the cry: “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” In the whole passage, it is everywhere “I,” without any thought of the Spirit’s help. It is only when he has given utterance to his cry of despair that he is brought to see that he is no longer under the law, but under the rule of the Holy Spirit (8:1,2). “There is therefore now no condemnation,” such as he had experienced in his attempt to obey the law, “to them that are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” As chapter_7 gives us the experience that leads to being a captive under the power of sin, chapter_8 reveals the experience of the life of a man in Christ Jesus, who has now been made free from the law of sin and death. In the former we have the life of the ordinary Christian doing his utmost to keep the commandments of the law, and to walk in His ways, but ever finding how much there is of failure and shortcoming. In the latter we have the man who knows that he is in Christ Jesus, dead to sin and alive to God, and by the Spirit has been made free and is kept free from the bondage of sin and of death.

Oh that men understood what the deep meaning is of Romans 7, where a man learns that in him, that is in his flesh, there is no good thing, and that there is no deliverance from this state but by yielding to the power of the Spirit making free from the power and bondage of the flesh, and so fulfilling the righteousness of the law in the power of the life of Christ!

“What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” –Romans 8:3.

In Romans 8:7 Paul writes: “The mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.” Here Paul opens up the depth of sin that there is in the flesh. In chapter 7 he had said that in the flesh there is no good thing. Here he goes deeper, and tells us that it is enmity against God: it hates God and His law. It was on this account that God condemned sin in the flesh on the cross; all the curse that there is upon sin is upon the flesh in which sin dwells. It is as the believer understands this that he will cease from any attempt at seeking to perfect in the flesh what is begun in the Spirit. The two are at deadly, irreconcilable enmity.

See how this lies at the very root of the true Christian life (vers.3,4): “God condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” All the requirements of God’s law will be fulfilled, not in those who strive to keep and fulfill that law — a thing that is utterly impossible — but in those who walk by the Spirit, and in His power live out the life that Christ won for us on the cross and imparted to us in the resurrection.

Would God that His children might learn the double lesson. In me, that is in my flesh, in the old nature which I have from Adam, there dwells literally no good thing that can satisfy the eye of a holy God! And that flesh can never by any process of discipline, or struggling, or prayer, be made better than it is! But the Son of God in the likeness of sinful flesh — in the form of a man — condemned sin on the cross. “There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

“I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And my preaching was in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” –1_Corinthians 2:2,4.

This text is very often understood of Paul’s purpose in his preaching: to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But it contains a far deeper thought. He speaks of his purpose, not only in the matter of his preaching, but in his whole spirit and life to prove how he in everything seeks to act in conformity to the crucified Christ. Thus he writes (2_Corinthians 13:4,5): “Christ was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth through the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him through the power of God toward you.” His whole ministry and manner of life bore the mark of Christ’s likeness — crucified through weakness, yet living by the power of God.

Just before the words of our text paul had written (1:17-24): “The word of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness; but unto us who are being saved it is the power of God.” It was not only in his preaching, but in his whole disposition and deportment that he sought to act in harmony with that weakness in which Christ was crucified. He had so identified himself with the weakness of the cross, and its shame, that in his whole life and conduct he would prove that in everything he sought to show forth the likeness and the spirit of the crucified Jesus. Hence he says (2:3): “I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.”

It is on this account that he spoke so strongly: “Christ sent me to preach the gospel, not in wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made void” (1:17); “My preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (2:4). Have we not here the great reason why the power of God is so little manifested in the preaching of the gospel? Christ the crucified may be the subject of the preaching and yet there may be such confidence in human learning and eloquence that there is nothing to be seen of that likeness of the crucified Jesus which alone gives preaching its supernatural, its divine power.

God help us to understand how the life of every minister and of every believer must bear the hallmark, the stamp of the sanctuary: Nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.