Part
I
Winter, 1990
“the
offense of the cross” Gal.
5:1
“As
many as desire to make a fair
shew in the flesh, they
constrain you to be
circumcised; only lest they
should suffer persecution for
the cross of Christ” Gal.
6:11
“For
in Christ Jesus neither
circumcision availeth
anything, nor uncircumcision,
but a new creature.”
Gal. 6:15
**********
People
have invested their natural
life force in what they think
is the word of God. Because of
this, it is virtually
impossible to reach them with
the message of the cross.
Success
or no success, I know of no
point short of final glory in
which the message of the cross
must not remain foundational
to our guidance or that we
become free from the
ever-deepening experience of
its reality in us.
Dear
People,
In
the 20 or so years that I have
been saved, I’ve come to have
dealings with the word of God on
a wide range of levels. As a
“fundamentalist,” I came to know
the word in terms of the
Scriptures with all its issues,
plus the preaching and
exposition of it from many
pulpits. Later, as a
“Spirit-filled charismatic,” I
came to also know the word in
terms of present-tense prophetic
revelation through the body, and
(more importantly) as an
intimate personal vision of
reality tailored to every facet
of my humanity.
In
other words, I came to know
God’s Word in terms of His
specific purpose for my own life
through dreams and visions.
As
I grew in spirit through this
maze of levels, however, I came
to discern that, while there
were many things that did change
about the operation of God’s
Word from level to level, there
has been one
thing that never
changes from level to level.
Because of its constancy, I
consider it to be the
fundamental reality
concerning God’s word to man—and
I wish to write about it here
today in my letter to you.
Behind
every word of God of every sort
and level is a fundamental Word
that never changes and must
become part of our experience if
the “secondary word” is to have
any validity in our lives. This
fundamental word is the word
that was manifested by the life
of Christ, exposited by the
apostle Paul, and, for lack of
better description, I will call
it the “Message
of the Cross.” Today, I
want to talk to you about that
message.
“I
have not written unto you
because you know not the
truth, but because you know it.”
I Jn. 1:21
“Wherefore
I will not be negligent to put
you always in remembrance of
these things though you know
them and are established in
the present truth.” II Pt.
1:12
“To
write the same things to you,
to me indeed is not grievous,
but for you it is safe.”
Phil. 3:1
There
were some things that the
apostles felt they just could
not say too many times. As one
with an apostolic call on his
life, I feel the same way. My
experience in the word of God
always brings me back to a core
reality that I feel I simply
just cannot overstate. I feel
compelled to share and re-share
this message as it deepens in me
over my own encounters with the
word. The more I encounter it,
the more persuaded I am of it,
the more compelled I feel to
communicate it if by any means I
might help somebody else keep on
course in God.
Today,
you see, the word of God abounds
as never before—through dream,
through revelation, through
vision, through prophecy. But
even more amazing to me is the
outstanding missing
foundational element
from most of this word. Because
of this missing “message of the
cross,” the present word of God
is proving to actually be more
of a curse and a stumblingblock
to an unbelieving people than it
is a blessing. The word of God
in North America today is
actually doing more to seal
mankind in unbelief than it is
doing to work faith.
Now
I realize you have heard me
write about the cross before.
You’ve heard me discuss
different types of the Word of
God before. So perhaps you are
tempted not to read this letter.
But I hope you will not say “I’ve
already heard this:”
first—because you feel you can
always use one more affirmation
about what you know to be true;
second—because each time I
expound this, it’s because I
have something even deeper to
bring out that you’ve never
considered before and that will
cause one more hidden question
you had to fall into place.
Let
today’s letter be no exception.
Message
of the Cross: White Grain versus
Whole Grain Bread
The
word of God is likened to
“bread” in Scripture. Now then.
There are different kinds of
bread, and there are different
kinds of bread. What I mean is
this. Breads can be
differentiated by grain. You
have rye, oat, wheat,
pumpernickel, etc.
But
there is another type of
differentiation. Bread can be
differentiated by processing
affecting nutritional value.
First you have whole-grain
bread, full of nutrients. But
then you have white bread made
from bleached flour. This bread
is made of flour that has been stripped
of virtually all nutritional
value.
The
point is this: The first thing
we have to understand about the
message of the cross is that you
do not compare this message with
other messages (like the “faith”
message or some doctrine)
as if it were simply a bread of
a different grain. No. Not at
all. Rather, the message of the
cross is the “word behind
every word of God” that
gives every secondary word its
nutritional value.
This
means that, no matter what topic
God’s Word is dealing with on
the surface, if you have the
word of the cross in operation
behind it, then your word has
nutritive value. But if the
message of the cross is not the
underlying dynamic behind a
word, then that word is the
equivalent of “white bread”
made from bleached spiritual
flour. It has no lasting
spiritually nutritive
value—whether a scripture, or a
doctrine, or a revelation, or a
prophecy.
The
great problem today in
Christianity is not that people
aren’t hearing from God. The
problem is that most of what
people are hearing is
not founded in the message of
the cross. And those who
have received that message at
one time or other have since
departed from it as their
foundation, considering it to be
merely one among many equal
words from God.
Consequently,
our land is “full of bread,” but
it is bread that cannot sustain
the spiritual life of a
laboratory rat, never mind a
human.
How
the Message Works: A
Candy-Coated Pill
“Take
it, and eat it up; and it
shall make thy belly bitter,
but it shall be in thy mouth
sweet as honey.” Rev. 10:9
If
you have followed my writings at
all over the years, then you
know that I have taught that the
foundational purpose of God’s
Word is to change us into
Christ’s image. God’s word does
this by “killing” our natural
life and replacing it with
Christ’s life which it carries
within itself. This is in
essence what the Message of the
Cross is all about. It is a
message of painful exchanging of
life for Life, and blood for
Blood.
But
what we have to understand is
how the word of God comes to us.
The difference between the
purpose of God’s Word and the
way it comes to us is as great
as the difference between
medicine in a pill and the
coating on the pill that enables
us to enjoy swallowing it.
Haven’t
you ever taken one of those
pills for a cold that was coated
with a sweet coating? I remember
when I was a kid. My dad would
give me this blue pill that
tasted sweet. One time, I sucked
on it before swallowing it
because I wanted to see what it
really tasted like underneath.
After
a bit, I got to the real
pill—and it was bitter! Quickly
I downed it to get that taste
out of my mouth! Never again
would I do that. In any case, it
was clear that, were it not for
the sugar coating, there’s no
way in the world anybody would
take that pill.
If
you understand this
illustration, then you can
understand how the message of
the cross works underneath the
coating of the word of God. You
see, the true medicine behind
every word of God is the message
of the cross. It is a bitter
message and accomplishes its
life transforming work through a
process of suffering within the
soul.
But
on the surface, that’s not how
the Word of God comes to us. Not
at all. In its approach
to us, the Word of God comes to
us on the level of our natural
life—it appeals
to us on the basis of what our natural
life can appreciate
and desire,
like a sweet coating.
For
example, consider God’s promises
to us, both in scripture, and
through prophecy, and through
personal vision and revelation.
He promises to give us the
desires of our heart. He
promises us great ministries and
opportunities of service for
Him. And when these promises
come to us, they come and we
receive them on the level our
natural life can appreciate
them. They stimulate a certain
natural response from us in the
form of natural expectation and
desire for certain things to
come to pass. We say, “Wow!
Yes! I want this Lord!”
It
all sounds so glorious to our
natural ears. Eagerly therefore
and most gladly therefore do we
embrace the words.
But
what happens? After we swallow
the word that David calls “sweeter
than honey in the honeycomb,”
we suddenly find ourselves
feeling sick in our stomach with
bitterness as life itself turns
against us for the sake of the
words we have embraced.
What
is happening? The medicine has
been released into our soul. The
bitter message of the cross has
begun its deadly work of
crucifixion. In fact then, what
we do not realize is that the
word of the cross actually comes
in to destroy the natural life
force by which we so gladly
swallowed the sweet word of
promise that coated it. Before
the promise can come to pass,
the life by which we first
gladly received it must be bled
out by the word behind the word.
That
is how the message of the cross
works. Its operation doesn’t
come to us at face value. We
would never swallow such a word.
It comes coated in the myriad of
lesser truths, doctrines and
promises that are first able to
appeal to and arouse some
response from the natural life
force within us that it is
destined to destroy and replace
with Eternal Life.
Despite
its bitterness however with its
suffering and alienations, it is
the message of the cross behind
the words of God that gives
every word its true medicinal
and nutritive value as applied
to our souls.
(As
an aside, we could note how
different ministries alter the
chemistry of this pill according
to their own bent. Some, as we
have seen, remove the inner
bitter medicinal value
altogether, substituting nothing
but a pure candy pill. Others
oppositely remove the candy
coating from the real pill,
preaching a “message of the
cross” only in its raw bitter
form, one that nobody could
swallow, and that not even they
would have swallowed had it
first been presented to them
that way. But we won’t get off
on this here.)