Lost Through Death and Gained Through Resurrection

You are able to speak on the teachings of resurrection and ascension, but have you transcended all the things of the earth? Do you have this transcending testimony? If you have not, you lack the reality of the ascended and transcending Christ. Your experience of Him is not deep enough to make you fit as a witness to the resurrection of Christ.

Many brothers come to a certain place to learn from the church there. They thought that by learning a few external helps they could return home and preach. They could now teach and practice all these external matters such as baptism, the breaking of bread, and holding various kinds of meetings. By having read a little of the Bible and having understood somewhat, they now considered themselves as knowing all. But their self and natural life had never been lost in the death of Christ; therefore, they could not be witnesses to His resurrection.

About three hundred years ago there lived a famous theologian by the name of Bengel. A student of his who was studying the book of Romans ran up to him one day and said, "I have found the doctrine of sin in the Book of Romans." Bengel was at that time reading a book. He jumped up when he heard this word and asked, "Have you found sin in your life and within yourself?" What would this student be profited if he failed to find sin in himself but only found the doctrine of sin in the Book of Romans? What use would there be if he were to speak to others about how they must hate sin, deal with sin, and put no confidence in the flesh, while at the same time he himself would have no experience whatsoever of dealing with sin? How would he be able to deliver people from sin if he himself were not delivered? A sermon without any reality behind it will be preached in vain because the audience will gain nothing from it.

Paul says in the letter to the Philippians to "know . . . the power of his resurrection." He does not say, "know the power of the cross," for the cross ends in death and is negative. Resurrection, though, is positive in nature because it is life out of death. It is not mere existence, it is resurrected life. It comes out of death. Have your natural life, eloquence, cleverness and talent been through death into resurrection? Things natural are inherited from your parents. Towards these natural things you ought to have this attitude before the Lord: "I have no use of these things, I do not glory in them, I am willing to let them be lost in death, pass through resurrection, and regained by the Father." If you let them go into death, then after a while—perhaps within three days—to your great surprise God will allow your eloquence to return to your mouth and permit your wisdom and talent to come back to you as well. Nevertheless, they are totally different from what they were before. Your natural good is no longer yours, and you dare not use it anymore. There is a cross that separates it from you. It has been lost in death, but now is regained. And this is resurrection. It is just as in the case of the father of the prodigal son who declared: "my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found" (Luke 15.24).

I do not know how much witnesses of Christ have passed through such experience of "dead and alive," "lost and found." But blessed are those who have indeed experienced it. For thus we begin to know what resurrection is. In our daily life, the more we encounter this dead-alive, lost-found situation, the more we shall experience being dead and alive, lost and found. Such experience is circular in nature.

All of both the good and bad in Adam is concluded in the death of Christ. All of what is the new creation commences in the resurrection of Christ. We ought to stand firm on this resurrection ground, for only in this way can we be fit to receive the power of the Holy Spirit and be witnesses to the resurrection of Christ. It was for this reason that the Lord told the apostles not to depart from Jerusalem, because it would have been a mistake had they gone forth immediately to be witnesses. The apostles had to experience Christ in a practical way before they could receive the power of the Holy Spirit and go forth as witnesses.

As witnesses of Christ, therefore, we need to know more of Christ, more of the power of His resurrection, to know in our experience this loss in death and gain in resurrection. Christ entered into death, but He could not be swallowed by it, for death did not have the power to hold Him. He came out of death. So that whatever is not swallowed up by death is resurrection. The more we experience resurrection, the more that things which belong to us shall be left in the grave, for whatever is natural is finished in death. All which is of Adam lives no more after going through death. Resurrection is the life of the Lord which comes out of death. The sad situation today is that many try to testify to Christ with their natural life, yet few of them witness out of their experiential knowledge of the power of His resurrection. May the natural life be decreased more and more in us and may the resurrection life and its power be increasingly manifested. May the Lord have mercy upon us and be gracious to us. Amen!