I received this in an email today. It expresses what is in my heart better than I can.
Going Through The Cross
Charles Elliott Newbold, Jr.
Dec 7, 2005, Jul 13, 2008
Dec 7, 2005
I call a particular of God's people the "crucified ones" because I see them as having not only gone to the cross for the forgiveness of their sins, but as having gone through the cross in total denial of anything for self. Each is willing, as Jesus called, to "take up his cross daily..." (Luke 9:23, Matt. 16:24).
These crucified ones are dead so far as the interests and deeds of their flesh and of the world are concerned. They have come to the end of themselves--the place God wants to bring us all. They understand that the only true life is found in the loss of their own self-life, to be given over completely to the absolute will of God. "Whoever will save his life shall lose it" (Matt. 16:25). They are willing to die, or willing to be made willing to die, for the sake of the gospel.
Jesus is the only issue in their lives. Other great truths and doctrines are important as safeguards against heresy, but, to them, these truths never become dividing issues in the body of Christ. These "crucified ones" are not argumentative or divisive but are, nonetheless, bulwarks for the Truth who is Jesus Christ as Lord.
Under the Headship / Lordship of Christ
The crucified ones have a strong sense of and security in the headship of Jesus Christ. They resist the pressures of traditional Christianity to submit to the headship of other men but are given to the scriptural order of 1 Corinthians 11: 3: "But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." Any other headship, to them, would be false and offensive to their sincere spirits.
Their insistence upon the headship of Jesus Christ is an offense to the traditionalists/institutionalists who, for some reason, want to bring men into submission to men.
Nevertheless, the crucified ones are submitted one to another, especially to those others who are sensitive to the leadings of the Holy Spirit. Having come through the cross as it were, they are humble, broken before the Lord, and eager to examine themselves to see if there is any evil within. They voluntarily and willfully present themselves accountable one to another.
They have no ambition for self but see themselves as servants. They are willing to do their service before God in secret, making no acclaim for themselves. They do not seek for themselves "a city, and a tower, ..and a name" (Gen. 11:4). They are without ambition to increase themselves in power, position, or riches. They are not interested in building churches and memberships for themselves, devising programs, or gaining reputation and titles. They have no agenda of their own. They only want and pursue what God wants.
While they are genuinely submitted one to the other in the Spirit, they are not motivated by the fear of man but by their reverence for God Almighty. Jesus is absolute Lord in their lives. They have renounced all forms of idolatry.
Radical Obedience
The absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ infers radical obedience to Him. The crucified ones have abandoned all to follow Him and are faithful in the least as well as in the greater of things (Luke 16:10).
Such obedience comes out of extreme faith and confidence in God as being sovereign in their lives. Their faith supersedes faith for things, even the things of the Kingdom. Their faith is in God regardless of things and circumstances.
Yet, they are not without knowledge of the wiles of the devil nor without power over all the work of the enemy. In fact, they exert absolute power over the enemy because they are obedient to the Spirit.
They have such confidence in the greater power of God in them that whatever happens to them is regarded more as the sanctification work of the Holy Spirit than as the destructive work of the enemy. They are so given to God and His will that they have that confidence that "...all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28).
Non-Religious
The crucified ones are non-religious, non-traditional, non-institutional and non-liturgical. They see the difference between religion and relationship. They do not need religion because they have a personal relationship with the Christ of Christianity.
Religion is interested in the doing of things to appease the gods while relationship is interested in being in fellowship with the God-person Himself.
Religion is sacrifice; relationship is obedience. Religion is intent on cleaning the outside of the cup; relationship is intent upon being cleansed on the inside (Matt. 23:25-26).
Religion partakes of the symbol only of the body and the blood (communion); relationship partakes of the Person of the body and the blood.
We can no longer offer people the symbol only. They need the Person of the symbol--Jesus Christ, Lord.
The crucified ones no longer base their own lives on the symbol but upon their relationship with the Person. They are so identified with Him that, when they present their own lives as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God (Rom. 12:1), it is as though they are presenting the Person Himself.
Being in relationship with God this way, they will come to know Him, not just know about Him--to understand Him and His ways, to trust Him, to have love and affection for Him, to fear Him, to respect Him, and to obey Him. An inseparable bond is formed between Him and them.
The interest of these crucified ones is to seek only more and more of Jesus. They are those for whom it could be said by their life and power "that they had been with Jesus" (Acts 4:13).
They are not centered upon themselves in any way but are centered and focused upon Jesus and His will. They identify with His plans and purposes in all eternity.
Non-materialistic
They are non-materialistic, having learned that "a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses" (Luke 12:15). They identify with the apostle Paul who said of himself, "...I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content" (Phil. 4:11). It does not matter whether they have or have not. Their confidence is in their God who provides. They think Spirit, not flesh; eternal, not temporal; spiritual, not material.
Non-Sensational
They are non-sensational. They are Spirit-immersed, likely to speak in unknown tongues, believe in the present day operation of the gifts and ministries of the Spirit as set forth in the scriptures, and are anxiously awaiting the second coming of the Lord. But these things are no longer the issue with them. Their interest is to receive spiritual gifts as tools to go on in the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
The Pentecostal experience is not the end, but the means toward the higher goal of attaining Him, of being found in Him (Phil. 3: 7-11). They are less inclined to seek the sensational, outward manifestations of miracles and healings and more inclined to seek that "holiness without which no man shall see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14). They desire more that hidden work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. In the long run, however, the greater and truer signs will follow them.
Their main interest is to be separated unto God. "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification..." (1 Thess. 4:3). They are quick to admit to sin and to repent. Holiness, to them, is attained through the purging, purifying, cleansing fire of the Holy Spirit--transforming and conforming them into the image of Jesus.
They are patient to wait upon the Lord--to rest, wait, listen, and then and only then, to do.
They have a profound confidence in the Bible as the word of God and live as though God said what He meant and meant what He said.
They also have a profound confidence in the Holy Spirit of God and operate on the basis of Zechariah 4:6: "Not by might, nor by power but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts." They put no confidence in the flesh (Phil. 3:3).
The Church without Walls
The crucified ones are the church without walls. They have gone outside of the camp with Jesus, bearing His reproach (Heb. 13:12-13).
The churches are like walled cities within which to keep their own.
The ecumenical movement is an attempt to overlap these walls so as to give an appearance of unity. But all of these attempts will never remove the reality of the walls.
More often, even among the most sincere believers, these walled cities become social clubs for their kind. God is not calling for Christian country clubs. Rather He is calling for His people to come out of them. The only wall that God and His crucified ones are interested in is that wall of fire mentioned in Zechariah 2:5: "'For I,' says the Lord, 'will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her.'" These crucified ones are a people who have been called out of a people: the ekklesia, "called out ones." 3 {1}
They view the gifts of the Spirit and the ministries of the Spirit as belonging to the whole body without regard to particular church membership.
The crucified ones have taken for themselves no other name but His name: the name of Jesus (Acts 15:14).
They gather in no other name but His (Matt. 18:20).
They submit to no other headship/Lordship except the headship/Lordship of Jesus Christ who is the true head of the church (Eph. 1:22; 4:15; 5:23).
They follow no one but the Holy Spirit of God who is Himself bound only to do and say what Jesus, the Head, is doing and saying (John 16:13).
They know no other voice but that of the Good Shepherd (John 10:14-16).
They are joined to no one or no thing but to Him (1 Cor. 6:17).
They have been bought with a price (1 Cor. 7:23) and, therefore, dare not attempt to own anyone or to be owned by anyone except Him. Yet, they belong to each other in the deepest spiritual sense of the word (1 Cor. 3:22 NAS).
They have no other life to live but that His life should be lived in and through them (Gal. 2:20).
Prophets
The crucified ones are a people who say what God says, do what God does, and are what God has made them to be.
They are true prophets of God. By the use of the term prophet, I do not infer that they are all called to the equipping gift ministry of prophet. Nevertheless, their lives are styled after that of the prophets of God--the Elijah spirit--having this radical relationship with God in the Spirit, speaking for God by their very life-style, bringing conviction to the world, preparing the way of the Lord's second coming.
They appear as mavericks in the body of Christ but are in fact the very opposite. They are each given absolutely to the will of God at all cost to themselves. There is no rebellion to be found within them.
As each of them follow the Spirit, they find that He leads according to the Scriptures; that the gifts and ministries of the Spirit will emerge and begin to flow together without walls; that His body, the church, will begin to come together in good scriptural order and liberty as one man according to Ephesians 4:13; that His divine purposes and plans are revealed; that His presence and power is manifested; and that they themselves are emerging as a corporate son throughout the world.
These things have to be the work of the Holy Spirit who is building God's house. "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it" (Ps. 127:1).
No man knows how to build God's house. Man cannot legislate or institutionalize God's divine order. He can only submit to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit who is doing the building and be radically obedient to that particular thing he is shown by the Spirit to do. Any attempt to build, legislate, or institutionalize ahead of the Spirit is carnal, resulting in legalism and death. "...the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Cor. 3:6).
Rivers of Living Water from Within
These crucified ones are self-starters. The life and power of the Spirit is the driving force within them. They have themselves become that living water welling up from within their innermost being, flowing as rivers of life (John 7:38).
They do not need to be prompted to praise and worship, to pray, to fast, to give, to respond to all that is demanded by the Spirit.
They do not need to run to this seminar on healing or that workshop on deliverance. They will not have to buy all those books and tapes on "how to this" and "how to that."
They will not have to try to grasp the promises of God in their lives through endless incantations of faith confessions.
The Kingdom of God is within them (Luke 17:21). The Word of God is within them. They are in Him and He is in them. They are one, even as He is one with the Father (John 17:21). The Word of God is the promises of God; therefore, the promises of God are within them and cannot be attained by grasping outwardly for them.
Moreover, they not only have the Kingdom, the Word, the promises, and the Person of the Word within them, they are themselves becoming the manifestation of the word of God in and through their lives. They are living epistles (2 Cor. 3:2-3), oracles (1 Pet. 4:11). They are the Word made flesh in their own bodies as they are the body of Christ in the world.
Normal Christian Life
This is not to say that these crucified ones are an elite body of people in terms of how the world thinks of elite. On the contrary, they are the subject of much ridicule and disdain in the world.
The crucified life is that to which God has called all of His disciples. It is considered normal Christian living from God's point of view. Any attempt at life in Christ that is less than this is sub-normal, immature discipleship.
Yet, it is not something that one can attain in one's own strength.
Jesus alone is the fulfillment of all the feasts and courts. He is our redeemer and our redemption, our justifier and our justification, our deliverer and our deliverance, our sanctifier and our sanctification, our glorifier and our glorification. If we want any of these things we have to get Him. He is it!
It is not a matter of God being willing to redeem, justify, deliver, sanctify, and glorify. He's already done it. It's a matter of our believing in Him as the finisher of His own work--done on our behalf--and of our being willing for God to work in us all that he has done for us.
Some people are not willing to go on in sanctification and glorification. You cannot have glorification without first going through sanctification. You can not have sanctification without first going through justification. We were justified, we are being sanctified, we will be glorified--together, this is the salvation process. We are becoming who we are in Christ Jesus.
Thus, we not only have all three feasts and courts fulfilled in Jesus, but they are being worked out in our lives as we are willing and yielded. Oswald Chambers, in his devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest, wrote, "It is not a question of whether God is willing to sanctify me; is it my will? Am I willing to let God do in me all that has been made possible by the Atonement?"
Born out of Fire
These crucified ones are born out of fire. Acts 8:1-4 records an example of this among those first century Christians. Here we read that Saul had consented to Stephen's death; thus great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem. Because of this persecution, the disciples were scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. These scattered Christians went forth preaching the word.
Jesus Christ had given those first disciples the commission to "go...and teach all nations, baptizing them..." (Matt. 28:19-20), but they were at ease in their Jerusalem cove and were not going out as they had been commissioned. Therefore, it took persecution to scatter them and the word abroad.
I sense that once again, it will take persecution to scatter the saints for the spread of the true gospel.
I say "true" gospel because any gospel that does not preach "Jesus Christ and Him crucified" is not the true but is "another gospel." Social justice, the rebirth experience, holiness, faith, prosperity, church order, and other such teachings may be truths but are not in and of themselves "the" gospel. They may be by-products of the gospel to one extent or the other. But the gospel, according to the apostle Paul, whose writings we hold inspired and sacred, is Christ and Him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2:2: "For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified."
Persecution is often God's shaking--His tool for the fulfillment of the great commission.
A Higher Realm in the Spirit
Having gone from Passover through Pentecost, the crucified ones have crossed over into a higher realm in the Spirit, reaching over into Tabernacles even before it's fulfillment. (I will stress again that this higher realm is expected of and available to every true, hungry, seeking disciple.)
We have a type of this in the Old Testament when David and his men ate the consecrated bread (1 Sam. 21:4-6). In regard to this, Matthew 12:1-8 tells of a time when Jesus and His disciples were walking through a grain field on a Sabbath and ate some of the grain. The Pharisees saw them and questioned Jesus about this unlawful thing they did. Jesus reminded them of how David had entered the house of God and ate the consecrated showbread which he was not permitted by law to do. Yet, he was blameless.
Jesus then declared that something greater than the temple was there. He was referring to Himself--that He was the Lord of the Sabbath. In other words, David, because of his intimate relationship with God, reached beyond the Law and laid hold of the Lord of the Law Himself. He moved in a higher realm in the Spirit.
There is a bread for the children of God of which we have not been privileged to partake until now because we have not yet crossed over into that crucified life for ourselves. We have been operating in the mercy and grace of Him who went in before us once and for all as the Great High Priest: Jesus Christ, Lord.
Once the crucified ones have truly crossed over into the Holy of Holies--the place where Jesus is the only thing there is, where Christ is not only preached as crucified but where the believer himself is a living example of that sacrificial life (Rom. 12:1)--they will have come to a place where they may never be sick, crippled, or diseased again; where demons cannot oppress, torment, or tempt; where material things are irrelevant because these things have nothing to do with a dead man. Moreover, the blessings of God will be in pursuit of them.
Jesus is their pattern. His sacrificial life becomes their lives, and their lives become His. The Holy Spirit gave gifts and ministries as tools to equip the saints for the work of "service" to the end of becoming like Him. We are fast approaching the end and the perfecting of the saints--those who are willing to go through the cross in Christ.
Footnotes
{1} Ekklesia is the Greek word that has been translated "church" but which literally means "called-out ones."
