How Man of Us are Really Dead?

Let us not despise this word “die.” It is not enough simply to be a grain of wheat. To be a regenerated child (see Matt. 13.8,38) is merely to be a newborn baby who can at first do little if anything for God. Neither is it enough only to fall into the ground, for though we may be willing to suffer and to be hidden, we remain as one grain without any increase if we do not die. Death is the final, decisive step. Death is the door to life. Death is the only way to fruitfulness. Death is absolutely necessary. But how many of us are really dead? Death is the cessation of all movements. Once having died, the self can no longer be active. It is the end of man’s day. Nonetheless, this death is not something forced, because the Lord declares that this life must be hated. Hate is an attitude, a sustained attitude. For this reason, we must willingly deliver this life to death, fully recognizing its deficiency and hating it with all our heart.

What, though, is the result of the dying of this life? “Much fruit.” The reason—the only reason—why our Lord cannot use us is because our soul life with its intellect, affection and so forth is of an inferior order which cannot bear any spiritual fruit if we depend on it. Although there are many of what we would consider to be good points surrounding the self life, nevertheless, our Lord Jesus makes clear that only “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3.6). The self life with all that it includes can be of no help here. But in the event of our truly delivering ourselves—delivering our life and all that we are capable of and all that we are—to the cross of Christ, we shall then see how God can use us. If we are truly empty of ourselves, the living water of God can and will flow from us without any blockage. And such fruit-bearing as this is out of the ordinary because it shall bear much fruit. Yet it all hinges on our death.

Therefore, even as our self filled us in the past, let us now let Christ fill us; otherwise, we will not have obtained full salvation. The turning point in anyone’s full salvation lies in that one being delivered from self. A self-centered believer is prone to fall into sin. To be wholly dead to sin demands of us that we also die to self. Christ is not only the Savior from our sins, He is also the Savior from our self. To die to the self life is the only pathway to spiritual life. Only God can cause us to die to self; nobody else is able to. But if we are not willing, then this cannot be done even by God himself. The works of the self life are sometimes very subtle, they being covered over or hidden by a spiritual veil. It is beyond the discernment of the believer. So much so that God will have to use outside circumstances to break through such a heavy veil and cause the believer to know his own self. Self-knowledge is extremely rare. We do not know ourselves, at least not until we have been tried by God’s hand and been shown the wickedness of our self life. If we have no experience of the death of self, our spiritual life will have little real progress. However, if we are willing from now on to let the Spirit of the Lord work the dying of self in us, then we will be able to live out a life in the Spirit.

Let us all say with one accord what our Lord Jesus prayed to His heavenly Father: “not my will, but thine be done” (Luke 22.42).