The meaning of the cross

This thread has nothing to do with the physical design of the cross.
It has nothing to do with anything that is being argued about on the thread called "The Cross" started by joe99. Please stay over on that thread if you have something to argue about concerning the those physical characteristics of crosses.

Thread (unhijacked) is about the New Testament revelation of the Christian's experience of the cross.

I will include lots of Bible verses in my talk. If you don't like Bible verses there are a whole lot of really neat threads on this Forum that have no discussion of Bible verses. Go join one.

" He who loves father or mother above Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter above Me is not worthy of Me;

And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.

He who finds his soul-life shall lose it, and he who loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it." (Matt. 10:37-39)

Every follower of Jesus has his or her own cross to bear.
Every follower of Jesus is taught to pick up his or her own cross.

When Adam fell the self centered, self loving fallen adamic nature came into being. This nature is the stronghold of Satan. Satan, God's enemy is firmly lodged in the corrupted soul, the fallen flesh.

This corrupted humanity is temporary. Anyone who clings to it will eventually find that he or she loses it.

Through union with Jesus Christ a second birth takes place and man receives a new life dispensed into the life that he was born with. To take up the cross and follow Jesus is the transition between the fallen Adamic nature which God will terminated and the new eternal divine nature dispensed into the believer by God.

The cross leads to the true identity of a man - man united with God.

"He who finds his soul-life shall lose it, and he who loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it." (Matt. 10:37-39)

MIsconceptions about the cross of the Christian are many. Here are some misconceptions.


1.) The cross in the New Testament means to suffer. To pick up your own cross and follow Jesus means that God wants you to suffer.

IE. A Christian wife has a difficult husband. She bears him day in and day out. She suffers. This is her "cross" to suffer every day. This suffering is her cross.

No. The meaning of carrying your own cross is not that God wants you to suffer.
It is that God wants you to terminate the old nature so that you no longer suffer.
You are ushered into union with Christ who is victorious and radiant, joyful and overcoming in any circumstance because He is indestructible.

"But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

For neither is circumcision anything nor circumcision, but a new creation is what matters." (Galatians 6:14,15)

The world previously had power over Paul. Its vain glory, its vanity, its pride, its arrogance, its independence from God, all of its temporary boast and glory including its religions.

Paul has discovered it all could be stripped away. It all could be picked off like the removal of so many leeches sucking his blood. It all could be extracted effectively so that he could be "a new creation" - a God-man.

Paul pioneered into the spiritual realm of having the world terminated to him and he to the world. If you put two corpses in a room and close the door, you will hear nothing. There will be no wrestling or argument but only silence.

Paul boasted in the experience of the cross. All the lure of the world was crucified to him. And he was DEAD to all the enticements and vanity of the world. He could live in the world yet be completely unattached to it. He could live in "a new creation".

Part of his being was already in a new age.

So perhaps the biggest misconception about bearing your cross (to the Christian) is that it means to suffer.

No, it means to be terminated. You enter into realm beyond which you can be made miserable because the power of Christ's indestructible resurrection life empowers you.

It is appropriated by faith. It is appropriated by walking in the sphere and realm of the Holy Spirit.

Here Paul says he exercised his faith in his co-death with Christ and his old self has been terminated. His life is now in utter union with the Spirit of the available Savior and Lord Jesus.

"I am crucified with Christ; and it is not longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

I do not nullify the grace of God ..." (See Gal. 2:20,21a)

The life he now lives in the flesh he lives in union with Jesus Christ Who actually has been compounded into his personality. The old way of life he learns has been terminated. The new way to live he victoriously enjoys.

He enjoys it is deeper and deeper levels as he grows in the grace of God. He learns not to nullify the grace of God. He utterly learns how to let the grace of God work FOR him. He found the key. He can live in union with Jesus in actualily. He can enjoy Jesus Christ living in him as his new life.

"I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness is through law, then Christ has died for nothing."

" He who loves father or mother above Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter above Me is not worthy of Me; (v.37)

And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. (v.38)

He who finds his soul-life shall lose it, and he who loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it." (v. 39) (Matt. 10:37-39)

There is a reason why I included verse 37 in this quotation. Verse 37 talks about loving Christ above the family members.

Some people think this means the disciple of Jesus should hate his mother, father, wife, or husband. Some mistakenly think it means that the disciple of Jesus should hate his children.

The Apostle Paul instructs the Christians that if they do not provide for the needs of their own family they are worse than an unbeliever and have denied the Christian faith.

" But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." (1 Tim. 5:8)

Many people think that only bad and gross things are the aspects of man keeping him from serving God. Some think only the stealing, the fornicating, the murders committed cause the sinner to be separated from God.

Jesus teaches that anything that replaces God can be an idol.
Anything made more important than God can be an idol.
Not only the gross and unclean can be a replacement for God.
Our natural love of someone or someplace or something we may hold higher than God.

The cross terminates everything that has grown up in the fallen man to replace God.
One's race, or country, or nationality, or gender, or dogmatic viewpoint, or sense of "freedom" and "liberty" or wealth or philosophy or politics or "good doing" or sense of tolerance or sense of self protection or family member or can be exalted above God.

The love of Jesus grows in the disciple increasing more and more, filling the believer to seek FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness, to love Christ supremely. He knows that all things which he needs will be provided by God.

Since Jesus Himself lived this way concerning His Father, to follow Him is to learn to live this way about Him. It is a growing matter which spans over one's whole lifetime as a Christian. It is a matter of a man FINDING his true identity - a man mingled with God.

It is about a woman finding her true eternal identity - a woman mingled and united with God's indestructible life.

" And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his soul-life shall lose it, and he who loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it."

You follow Jesus to find reality.
You follow Jesus to be saved from idols of unreality that replace ultimate truth and obscure who you really are.

For an unbeliever to deny himself means that he probably then has nothing left.
For one who is born again to deny himself is to have Christ as the "leftovers".
And Christ's wealth is impossible to calculate. He is unsearchably valuable.

The meaning of the cross is for the follower of Jesus to deny himself.
He cannot follow himself if he denies himself.
If he denies himself there is Someone within him to live by - the Son of God.

"The Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.

For whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life or My sake shall find it.

For what shall a man be profited if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul-life? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul-life?'

For the Son of Man is to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will repay each man according to his doings." (Matt. 16:24-27)

The repayment here is to repay the believer for denying himself to live Christ.
The repayment is the enjoyment of reigning with Him in the millennial kingdom.

He lost his self centered fallen "life" in the church age to follow Jesus.
He is repaid in the kingdom age to enter into the joy of co-reigning with Christ over the earth.

He refused to save his self centered fallen self-life of independence from God.
For the sake of saving his soul and finding his soul he denies that independent life to follow Jesus.

When Jesus comes he is caught up in the very same glory of Jesus with His Father and the glorious angels.

At that time some of the people spared to live in the millennial kingdom will marvel at the divine transfiguration that has taken place within and upon those Christians -

"When He [Christ] comes to be glorified in His saints and to be marveled at in all those who have believed (because our testimony to you was believed) in that day." ( Second Thessalonians 1:10)

What is hidden within the Christians spirit will burst out like a blossoming flower to those who have denied themselves. The glory will be marveled at and Jesus will be glorified in His overcoming saints.

This concerns the followers of Jesus finding themselves, that is their true identity as sons of God.

When the whole issue of a Christian continuing in sin arose in the church in Rome, Paul spoke out about co-death with Christ.

Can I conceivably just continue to live as an unbeliever Paul, still loving my fallen life ?
Paul exclaims that we have to SEE something.
Paul says we have to grasp a revelation as a governing vision.
Paul says he does not want us to be ignorant of this truth.
We have been co-terminated with Jesus in His death on the cross.

"What then shall we say? Should we continue in sin that grace may abound ?

Absolutely not! We who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?

Or are you ignorant that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death ?

We have been buried therefore with Him through baptism into His death." (Rom. 6:1-3)

So a Christian can pray effectively something like this:

"Lord Jesus, I thank You that you not only died for me that I may be forgiven. I thankyou not only that Your redeeming blood have washed all my sins away.

Lord Jesus, I thank you that Your death has also TERMINATED all in me that makes me sad, unahappy or foolish. Through Your death You have crucified that old self with all its misery and delusion, darkness and vanity. I have been absolutely crucified with You. Thankyou Lord. I stand upon this fact by faith.

Lord, I do not believe my feelings. I do not believe my failures. I believe that I have died with You to rise with You and walk in newness of life.

Lord Jesus, I refuse to be ignorant. I have been buried in Your death, terminated and grafted into You. It is not longer I who live. It is Jesus Christ Who lives within Me.

Thankyou Lord You died FOR me. And You DIED FOR me. I can utilize Your death on the cross. I can appropriate the power of Your terminating death to put to death all that plagues me. It is now Christ Who lives in Me with Your terminating and resurrecting power of grace."

The terminating death of Christ with its power is in the Holy Spirit. He only needs our faith and cooperation. He only needs that we would not be ignorant but see and believe.

So the crucifixion of Jesus was the crowing event of a life which continually denied the self in order to live the Father's will. All His human life Jesus bore a cross of terminating what He as the best human being could do. Instead He lived by the Father.

1.) Jesus did not do anything out of Himself -

"Then Jesus answered and said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, The Son can do nothing from Himself except what He sees the Father doing, for whatever that One does, these things the Son also does in like manner." (John 5:19)

He lived out of what He saw the Father was doing.

2.) Jesus did not do His own work but did the work of the Father.

" Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work." (John 4:34)

"I have glorified You [the Father] on earth, finishing the work which You have given Me to do." (John 17:4)

His living was not for Himself but was for the Father's work.

3.) Jesus did not speak His own words but the Father's.

" Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak from Myself, but the Father who abides in Me does His works." (John 14:10)

"He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me." (John 14:24)

His speaking was out of the Father Who sent Him and lived through Him.

4.) Jesus did not seek His own will but the Father's.

"I can do nothing from Myself; as I hear, I judge, and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will but the will of Him who sent Me." (John 5:30)

He sought His Father's will not His own. And He could not live a life of self seeking but rather seeking His Father's will.

5.) Jesus did not seek His own glory but the glory of the Father who sent Him.

"He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but He who seeks the glory of Him who sent Him, this One is true, and unrighteousness is not in Him." (John 7:18)

He sought not self glory but the Father's glory Who sent Him and lived in Him.

In all these aspects we see before Jesus physically went to His cross, He already His whole life lived a life of denying Himself - a crucified life. He lived out the Father.

Such a One lives in the born again Christian.

Yeah there is only so much smiting the air that you can do. Why not attempt dialogue instead of monologue?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Yeah there is only so much smiting the air that you can do. Why not attempt dialogue instead of monologue?

Why are you reading my posts? Go back and argue about the weight, shape, material and design of torture stakes on the other thread The Cross.

What do you care if I carry on a monologue?

The experience of the cross is more than crucial to the Christian. And it is of top concern to the Devil.

You see the spiritual enemy of God knows that he cannot pass through the cross but we human beings can.

I said that a evil spiritual parasitic relationship came about between Satan and man. The experience of the cross in the Holy Spirit SIFTS Satan OUT. But MAN Passes through. So Satan has a terrible vested interest in Christians NOT experiencing the cross.

As a matter of fact to believe in Jesus Christ is probably the FIRST step in being "crossed out" and entering into new life. Therefore the enemy of God flashes red danger signs to the fallen soul - "Danger! Danger! No! No! Just say No!." The enemy of God wants us to save out soul-life for that is his fortress and hiding place and ground of power.

More on this below.

Satan knows that the cross will eliminate his parasitic hold on fallen Adamic man.
We pass through and enter on the other side one with God.
Satan is stripped away by the experience of the cross.

So the cross is so central to God fulfilling His eternal purpose. At least a remnant, a representative army must pass through the experience of the cross of Christ.

If you cooperate to allow the cross of Christ to work upon your soul-life you are involved in a shifting of the balance of power which will bring the Lord Jesus back to this earth. It is a high calling and a great honor to participate in personally. And men and women, boys and girls may be a part of this purpose.

I said above that Satan's hold, stronghold, hiding place, and fortress of power in the creation is in the fallen nature of man.

He had NO GROUND in Jesus. And here Jesus tells His disciples that though Satan instigated man to execute Him, Satan had no ground, no standing, and no vantage point of operation in anywhere within Jesus' being -

"I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and in Me he has nothing." (John 14:30)

Nowhere in the mind, emotion, will, imagination, memory or any part of His soul did Satan have anything. Satan, "the ruler of this world" since the sin of Adam and Eve, had nothing in Jesus.

But in your and I whether believers or unbelievers, Satan has a lot of ground. He occupies a lot of space in fallen man. He had NO ground in the man Jesus.

What is the cross of Christ to the Christian? It is the means by which God systematically eliminates the GROUND that Satan has in fallen man. The cross crosses OUT Satan's enfluence and imparts God INTO the believer.

Paul was one who BOASTED in the work that the cross did in the Holy Spirit within him. He said it caused him to be dead to the world and the world was dead to him.

" But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world." (Gal. 6:14)

These last days will see a revival - a special revival of a remnant army of Christians who experience the crossing out of the fallen self that Christ may be dispensed into them for the second coming of Christ.

But whether He comes in my lifetime or not, I am still ahead to experience the transformation that allowing the cross to work brings about. We cannot lose as Christians going along with God's new testament economy.

A note on John 14:30

3. The Prince Of This World Had Nothing In Jesus.
"He hath nothing in me," Jesus said. That is, he had no hold upon Christ. Have you ever attempted to pick up a large object which had no convenient handles or grasping places on it? Not that it was too heavy for you; it simply did not come supplied with "hand holds" on it. Such an article is difficult if not impossible to move without more hands than one person has. This is the force of what the Lord said about Satan coming into his life. Jesus had done the necessary self-examination and found that there were no convenient grasping places for Satan. His loyalty was completely undivided. He had no personal affection for this world. His physical family was secondary to his loyalty to God. Heaven was more important than earth. The kingdom of God was esteemed by him as of more importance than any carnal pursuit. Life with God was better than life on earth. Earthly pleasure and worldly joy were relegated to negligible status. Satan could find no serviceable "hand holds" on him!

http://www.bible.ca/ef/expository-john-14-30.htm

The cross experienced in the Holy Spirit eliminates Satan's hold on any believer.
This is therefore a matter of strategic advantage of man over Satan and man in conjunction WITH God.

Where the commentator says about "Heaven was more important than earth" I would have put it differently. The Kingdom of the Heavens, meaning the kingdom whose SOURCE is in heaven yet is a kingdom on the earth, was more important.

Originally posted by sonship
Why are you reading my posts? Go back and argue about the weight, shape, material and design of torture stakes on the other thread [b]The Cross.

What do you care if I carry on a monologue?[/b]

Why am i reading your posts? because its a public forum intended to be read by members of the public. If you want to blog why don't you start one. I have no issues regarding the implement that Christ was put to death on nor have I mentioned it here.

Why am i reading your posts? because its a public forum intended to be read by members of the public. If you want to blog why don't you start one. I have no issues regarding the implement that Christ was put to death on nor have I mentioned it here.
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There is also no rule against writing "monologues" if no one has a constructive comment right away. Besides, Jehovah Witnesses have demonstrated that they can talk to 30 people in public and still be beating the air as far as New Testament truth is concerned.