The Lord Jesus always spoke of taking up the cross as the test of discipleship. On three different occasions (Mt. 10:38; 16:24; Lk. 14:27), we find the words repeated, “If any man will come after Me, let him take up his cross and follow Me.” While the Lord was still on His way to the cross, this expression of taking up the cross was the most appropriate to indicate the conformity to Him to which the disciple is called. But after His crucifixion, the Holy Spirit gives another expression in which our entire conformity to Christ is still more powerfully set forth – the believing disciple is himself crucified with Christ. The crucified Christ and the crucified Christian belong to each other. One of the chief elements of likeness to Christ consists of being crucified with Him. Whoever wishes to be like Him must seek to understand the secret of fellowship with His cross.

At first sight, the Christian who seeks conformity to Jesus is afraid of this truth. He shrinks from the painful suffering and death with which the thought of the cross is connected. As his spiritual discernment becomes clearer, however, this word becomes his entire hope and joy. He glories in the cross because it makes him a partner in a death and victory that has already been accomplished, in which the deliverance from the powers of the flesh and of the world has been secured to him. To understand this, we must carefully notice the language of Scripture.

“I am crucified with Christ,” Paul says, “nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Through faith in Christ we become partakers of Christ’s life. That life is a life that has passed through the death of the cross, and in which the power of that death is always working. When I receive that life, I receive, at the same moment, the full power of the death on the cross working in me in its never-ceasing energy. The life I now live is not my own life. The life of the Crucified One is the life of the cross. Being crucified is a thing past and done. “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him” (Rom. 6:6); “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh” (Gal. 5:24); “I glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:14). These texts all speak of something that has been done in Christ, and into which I am admitted by faith.

It is of great consequence to understand this and to give bold utterance to the truth: I have been crucified with Christ; I have crucified the flesh. I thus learn how perfectly I share in the finished work of Christ. If I am crucified and dead with Him, then I am a partner in His life and victory. I learn to understand the position I must take to allow the power of that cross and that death to manifest itself in mortifying, or making dead, the old man and the flesh, in destroying the body of sin (Rom. 6:6).

For there is still a great work for me to do. But, that work is not to crucify myself: I have been crucified; the old man was crucified, so Scripture says. But, what I have to do is to always regard and treat it as crucified, and not to suffer it to come down from the cross. I must maintain my crucifixion position. I must keep the flesh in the place of crucifixion. To realise the force of this I must notice an important distinction. I have been crucified and am dead: the old Adam was crucified, but is not yet dead.

When I gave myself to my crucified Saviour, sin and flesh and all, He took me wholly. I with my evil nature was taken up with Him in His crucifixion. But, here a separation took place. In fellowship with Him, I was freed from the life of the flesh. I myself died with Him. In the innermost centre of my being, I received new life: Christ lives in me. But the flesh, in which I yet am – the old man that was crucified with Him – remained condemned to an accursed death, but is not yet dead. And now it is my calling, in fellowship with and in the strength of my Lord, to see that the old nature be kept nailed to the cross, until the time comes when it is finally destroyed. All its desires and affections cry out, “Come down from the cross. Save yourself and us.” It is my duty to glory in the cross, with my whole heart to maintain the dominion of the cross, to set my seal to the sentence that has been pronounced, to make every uprising of sin dead, already crucified, and not to allow it to have dominion.

This is what Scripture means when it says, “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Rom. 8:13). “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth” (Col. 3:5). Thus, I continually and voluntarily acknowledge that in my flesh dwells no good thing. My Lord is Christ the Crucified One, and I have been crucified and am dead in Him. The flesh has been crucified and, though not yet dead, has been forever given over to the death of the cross. And so, I live like Christ, in every deed crucified with Him.

In order to fully enter into the meaning and the power of this fellowship of the crucifixion of our Lord, two things especially are necessary to those who are Christ’s followers. The first is the clear consciousness of their fellowship with the Crucified One through faith. At conversion, they became partakers of it without fully understanding it. Many remain in ignorance all their life long because of a lack of spiritual knowledge. Brother and sister, pray that the Holy Spirit may reveal to you your union to the Crucified One. “I am crucified with Christ.” “I glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me.” Take such words of holy Scripture, and, by prayer and meditation, make them your own with a heart that expects and asks the Holy Spirit to make them living and effectual within you. Look upon yourself in the light of what you really are, “crucified with Christ.”

Then you will find the grace for the second thing you need to enable you to live as a crucified one, in whom Christ lives. You will always be able to look upon and to treat the flesh and the world as nailed to the cross. The old nature continually seeks to assert itself, and to make you feel as if it is expecting too much to always live this crucifixion life. Your only safety is in fellowship with Christ. “Through Him and His cross,” says Paul, “I am crucified to the world.” In Him, the crucifixion is an accomplished reality. In Him, you have died, but also have been made alive: Christ lives in you. The deeper this fellowship of His cross is in you, the better. It brings you into deeper communion with His life and His love. To be crucified with Christ means freed from the power of sin – a redeemed one, a conqueror. Remember that the Holy Spirit has been specially provided to glorify Christ in you, to reveal within you, and make your very own, all that is in Christ for you.

Do not be satisfied, as so many others, to only know the cross in its power to atone. The glory of cross is, not only to Jesus, but to us, too, the path to life. But, each moment it can become to us the power that destroys sin and death, and keeps us in the power of the eternal life. Faith in the power of the cross and its victory will day by day make dead the deeds of the body, the lusts of the flesh. This faith will teach you to regard the cross, with its continual death to self, as all your glory. The banner under which complete victory over sin and the world is to be won is the cross.

Above all, remember what still remains the chief thing. It is Jesus, the living, loving Saviour, who Himself enables you to be like Him in all things. His sweet fellowship, His tender love, and His heavenly power make it a blessedness and joy to be like Him, the Crucified One. They make the crucifixion life a life of resurrection-joy and power. In Him, the two are inseparably connected. In Him, you have the strength to always be singing the triumphant song: “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”

Prayer: “Precious Saviour, I humbly ask You to show me the hidden glory of the fellowship of Your cross. It is long since I knew the power of the cross to redeem me from the curse of sin. But how long I strove in vain as a redeemed one to overcome the power of sin, and to obey the Father as You have done! I could not break the power of sin. But now I see, this comes only when Your disciple yields himself entirely to be led by the Holy Spirit into the fellowship of Your cross. There You let him see how the cross has broken forever the power of sin, and has made him free. There You, the Crucified One, live in him and impart to him Your own Spirit of wholehearted self-sacrifice, in casting out and conquering sin. Oh, my Lord, teach me to understand this better. In this faith I say, “I have been crucified with Christ.” Oh, You who loved me to the death, not Your cross, but Yourself the Crucified One, You are He whom I seek and in whom I hope. Take me, Crucified One, hold me fast, and teach me from moment to moment to look upon all that is of self as condemned, and only worthy to be crucified. Take me, hold me, and teach me, from moment to moment, that in You I have all I need for a life of holiness and blessing. Amen.”