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

 

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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 Bread 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.)

The Message of the Cross: The Measure of Faith and Obedience

As I have said, the word of God comes not as a single entity, but as a word-within-a-word. God’s word speaks to us of many things—doctrines, principles, spiritual laws, promises, visions, prophecies, etc. But behind every one is the Message of the Cross. It is the foundation that gives every word its nutritive and medicinal value unto the life-transforming power of Christ’s life. Because this is so, the Message of the Cross becomes the standard of true faith and obedience.

Why do I emphasize this? It’s because multitudes of people have bought into all kinds of systems of teachings of God’s word that have been stripped of the Message of the Cross. Yet they think that because they have retained the non-nutritive coating of God’s word, they are therefore “believing” the word or “obeying” the word. In fact, they are not—not with faith or obedience that God honors.

You see, the flesh is equally capable of believing and obeying any surface promise or doctrine of God’s word. But flesh-faith does not count in God’s sight. Flesh-faith and flesh-obedience are works, not Spirit-born faith. Spirit-born faith only comes by the working of the cross. And that is the only faith and obedience God honors. What counts is the faith and obedience we have AFTER fleshly faith and obedience have been destroyed by the cross.

Let’s get these two levels of faith and obedience straight, then. Remember what we said previously about how the natural man comes along for the ride of faith. First you have the level of faith and obedience that comes when our flesh life first responds to embrace the “sugar-coated” word of God. This is flesh-faith and flesh-obedience based in our natural life force—our desire to believe, our ability to obey, to respond. It looks good, sounds good, seems good, feels good, tastes good. It is our life’s acceptance of God’s word based in our knowledge of what is good.

Beneath this however are the faith of the cross and the obedience of the cross. This is spiritual faith and obedience that endures the operation of the Message of the Cross within the sugarcoated word received by the flesh. Endures what? It endures the destruction and painful bleeding of the natural life force out of the soul, rendering flesh faith and obedience null and void.

Our very sense of what is good and right is crucified, taken out of us—to be replaced by the eternal life of God through the blood of Christ, giving us an entirely new reference point for the perception of reality. Through the Message of the Cross, we lose our good life to be replenished with God’s Life force.

What we must understand is that, wherever the New Testament speaks of our faith and obedience, it refers to our faith which endures this life-losing process by the Message of the Cross. It does not refer to our natural faith and obedience whereby we first embrace the coating of God’s word on the level of our natural life. (This is the level on which followers first responded to Jesus, and the level on which we get excited that people are responding.)

As good as such faith and obedience is, it is only good—i.e., it is only an image of true spiritual faith. It is still flesh faith, and being so, it is works-faith (faith by human choice and determination), not grace-faith (faith by surrender of the power of human choice and determination). Because it is not God’s faith but is rather faith energized by the very natural life God has ordained to save us from, it does not count for righteousness.

Today in the evangelical and charismatic realms there are two broad emphases pertaining to God’s word. One wing emphasized obedience to commands. The other emphasizes faith for promises. The first is generally categorized as “holiness” teaching; the other as “faith” teaching. In both camps there is much proclaiming of the “Word of God.”

But what you must see is that, in the majority of this proclaiming, the Message of the Cross has been stripped away from the word. As a result, those proclaiming “holiness” are not getting past flesh-level obedience. Those proclaiming “faith” are not getting past flesh-level believing. When the Message of the Cross begins to operate behind any of these words, challenging the flesh-level by destroying the “good” life and effects expected, it is stamped out.

You see, flesh-level faith hinges on good results. Flesh-level obedience promises good results. Both are based in the knowledge of good. But the cross kills the “good” life in prelude to installing God’s Life. So the cross does not produce good results at first. At first, it produces negative results and failure as it destroys the power of the good life.

Because this is contrary to the expectation of the good life, it is what Paul calls an offense. Therefore it is rejected by those holding and preaching the word. It isn’t that people aren’t dealing with the word of God. They are. But they have rejected the Living Word behind the word of coating. They have rather used the word to strengthen their flesh life. People have so invested their entire natural life force in the image word instead of losing that life, that it is virtually impossible to reach them with the Message of the Cross: the life-giving word.

Consequently, for all their professed faith in and obedience to the word, in truth, flesh believers are judged guilty of grossest unbelief and disobedience by God. Their flesh-faith and obedience only serves to seal them up to this most blind state of unbelieving disobedience. So it is that their bread, though from God, has no nutritive value.

 

Paul and the Circumcisers

This teaching opens us to the deeper meaning of the conflict Paul had with those who were preaching about the necessity of circumcision. When we hear about this conflict, we tend to think superficially about it. We think Paul’s grief was that certain people were teaching that people needed to be circumcised instead of believe the message about the crucifixion of Jesus, or in addition to believing the historic message about the crucifixion of Jesus. But the conflict was not about the historic message of the crucifixion. That was not in play.

The circumcisers were not doubting the message of the crucifixion at all. They believed it. But they believed it superficially. They did not own the underlying Message of the Cross in terms of what it meant personally to their ongoing salvation of soul. The personal owning of the cross is the message they were denying.

The circumcisers were substituting the personal owning of the cross for what they considered a necessary act of obedience—in this case the need to be physically circumcised (which under the New Covenant has no meaning). They owned the historic message alright. But they denied the intrinsic message as it applies to the saved soul, replacing it with superficial belief and obedience.

That this is what Paul meant by the Message of the Cross and what defined his conflict with the circumcisers is so clear from the entirety of Philippians 3:

2 Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision; 3 for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh,

4 although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: 5 circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless. 7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,

9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;

17 Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. 18 For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, 19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.

This unbelief regarding the internalized Message of the Cross is what Paul was fighting. And if Paul were present with us today, he would be fighting it throughout the evangelical and charismatic church as well.

Everyone owns the historic Message of the Cross. There is no dispute about this. But the Message of the Cross as it applies to the ongoing saving of the soul is owned hardly anywhere, but has been replaced by teachings on natural obedience or will-powered faith for promises.

Today, we don’t hear about “having to be circumcised.” We hear about “having to be baptized,” or “having to speak in tongues,” or “having to hold to the fundamentals of the faith” or “having to confess your promises”—all of which, unlike circumcision, are true at a given surface level.

But in the deepest essence, none of these are what the faith is about. The faith of Christ is about embracing the Message of the Cross at the root of our inner man beneath every issue of doctrine, obedience and promise, until we become conformed to the image of the One who died for us.

But tell me: where did you last hear this message preached? Anywhere?

 

The Effects of the Cross (borrowed from Time, Law & the Mystery of Cause and Effect)

The cross causes the pouring out of our soul-life through its activation-unto-loss through the illumination of the word of God unto refusion with the eternal life of the blood of Jesus in the word.

The two aspects of our soul life are our obligation nature and our desire nature, i.e., our soul knowledge of what is morally right and our soul nature of what is good. Each aspect is spoken to by their counterparts in God’s word: commands and promises.

Access to the satanic-energizing tree of knowledge of good/evil is replaced by accessing the Spirit-energized Tree of Life. Sin is replaced by Faith which begins by the self-destruction of the sin nature. Specific effects of loss of soul life and replacement by the blood-word-life of Jesus include:

-         Loss of natural identity and relationship through such identity

-         Loss of image-relation to the word of God

-         Loss of natural sense of obligation (bondage mentality) and what is right

-         Loss of natural sense of desire and what is good

-         Loss of perception of cause-effect (expectation through observation): i.e., the operation of natural energy

-         Loss of perception of sequence (time)

-         Loss of natural sense of what matters, what is important

-         Loss of perception of distance (space)

With each succeeding death proceeds an inward expansion of the word of God personality, leading in turn to further exposure of the mirror-nature within us, leading to further death, etc. The climax of this process is the assumption of a new incorruptible skin for an incorruptible wine—together with all creationary fulfilment mirrored through original desire nature.

The word of God is germinated (activated) by the baptism (watering) of the Holy Spirit, making it effective to the expansion of it unto the ends of human personality mirrored by it.

 

The Centrality of the Cross

The central work in the life of the believer is the work of the cross. Spiritual life and reality has many facets, many involvements. But at the center of all, indispensable to all, is the work of the cross.

What is the work of the cross? It is that working in us whereby our “heart of stone” is turned to a “heart of flesh.” It is the substitutionary process of life for Life, blood for Blood, and image for Reality. It is the gradual transformation of our soul from mortal to immortal, the replacement of natural identity-reference with supernatural identity-reference.

Legal perception and personality are replaced by Grace. Awareness of cause and effect is replaced by awareness of the flow of God’s Spirit. Knowledge becomes unlearned. What is “right” and “good” gives way to the Presence of the Lord. We exchange the mediated image of the word of God through our natural life for the infusion of the Living Word Himself into our bloodstream. This is the work of the cross.

Whether we are speaking of relationship, or of ministry; of answered prayer or of inner vision for one’s life; of natural labor or of supernatural gift and anointing—the work of the cross must remain central if that of which we speak is to retain its validity. For wherever the work of the cross becomes bypassed or set aside, all else then serves to only reinforce that life force from which we were ordained to become saved.

When this happens, what God meant for our good becomes our undoing. Our natural goods and our spiritual treasures become our snares and stumblingblocks. I have seen it time and again wherever I go. The blessings of God are our idols. Our spiritual blessings are spiritual idols.

Behold, I show you a mystery. All that God gives us in this life—both natural and supernatural, is ultimately given to facilitate the work of the cross in us, to facilitate its administration toward some quadrant of our soul. For this cause, the true work of God at any moment is always one step ahead of where we think He is with us. The issue and matter at hand is always one step behind God, for it is given only to service that unknowable work ahead of it.

Ultimately, the issue of importance to us is never the issue. In the end, we will see the base insignificance of all we ever thought to be “the issue.”

I show you another mystery. All that God gives us is ultimately for the work of the cross. Yet despite our realization of their own insignificance, we must enter into all He gives—natural and supernatural—so that the unknowable work may yet be done. Our faithfulness to the work of the cross must never become its own excuse for failing to enter into all God has given us.

Yet this too I have seen wherever I go. Our professed faithfulness to the work of the cross becomes its own stumblingstone to our entry into some new facet of life given to facilitate that work. By our natural understanding of that work, we cut off our further entry into the true work for fear of departure from it. This too is idolatry—the idolatry of our own confidence in our own understanding of the work of the cross (itself a gift). This is the more subtle idolatry.

What then? We must embrace the work of the cross amid all that God has given us, and we must enter all that God has given us if we are to embrace that work. This is the mystery of eternal life at work in the human soul—cycle to cycle, and stage to stage. Yet in all things, we must allow the work of the cross to remain central to us—whether we speak on things outside of it, or whether we speak of the work itself. The work, you see, is ever greater than our comprehension of it.

 

The Work of the Cross: “Whatsoever You Shall Ask in My Name, That Will I Do”

As we consider the work of the cross, we inevitably run up against the myriad promises of God—blanket promises enjoining us to believe for everything and anything with assurance that it will be done. How do we reconcile these promises with the work of the cross?

We have established that the Lord crucifies our sense of what is important, good, desirable and worthy of our becoming. If so, if all things are—as we have said—not important, how is it He enjoins us to believe Him for that which He Himself does not believe in? For all that we can ever ask is based on our sense of what is important, what matters to us, what is therefore worth asking for.

How can He promise to fulfil that which we ask for seeing that all we ask is based on that which He does not identify with and wishes to destroy? Moreover, the testimony of countless saints throughout the centuries bears witness that anyone rarely receives what he asked for from God the way he asked for it, or i.e., the way he first expected to receive it and first desired it.

We seem forced to conclude that, from the perspective of original desire and expectation, God is either a liar or else whatever the secret is to obtaining such promises is so elusive and rarely found that it just isn’t worth the pain and trouble to believe Him for anything. How then do we reconcile the work of the cross with the promises?

First, we have to recognize that God does not work at odds with Himself. It is not so that the work of the cross which destroys our sense of importance is of one realm while the promises we read and respond to in terms of our sense of importance are of another. No, the two must be in harmony (otherwise they are not from the same god.)

Furthermore, we have already established that the work of the cross is central to all. That work is God’s ultimate purpose. If so, then God’s promises must be designed to serve that purpose, not compete with it.

And such is the case. God’s promises have a purpose. They serve the work of the cross. This is something few of us comprehend. Because of our failure to comprehend, we either ignore them or else misapply them toward the reinforcement of that from which we are to be delivered. In truth though, the promises are vital to the service of the work of the cross.

The purpose of the promises is to evoke from us the manifestation of our sense of importance. It highlights them, stimulates them, brings them to life, expression and exposure. The promises are to our sense of importance what the law is to our sense of morality. As the law evokes our striving nature, so the promises evoke our desiring and expectational nature. That is their purpose.

By exposure, the Lord may destroy our sense of importance, including the power of expectation. The work of the cross is activated.

But what of the promises then? Are they liars? No, ‘tis not true, though first it seems.

What we must understand is that the promises to our desiring nature and our desiring nature which receives the promises are of two different worlds. The heavenly nature of the promises speaks to a fulfilment beyond what our desiring nature is able to anticipate or desire or expect. Our desiring nature can only present us an image of what the promises have to offer in fulfilment.

All fulfilment from God is unknown to us at the beginning. Yet jot for jot and tittle for tittle the fulfilments are true to the original image when they appear. But the process by which they finally appear involves the slow, painful death of the original images by which we first desired and anticipated them.

This is the work of the cross, the work for which the promises are given—not merely the fulfilment of our original senses of importance and desire, but the transformation of our sense themselves to receive the realities which our first nature can only mirror to us in the beginning.

For in all things the true work of the cross is always one step ahead of whatever we speak, we think or we deal with at any time. In all that we deal with, therefore, let us allow the work of the cross to be central.

 

The Mystery of Simultaneous Importance and Non-Importance

If the world is ultimately unknowable and even beyond our professed grasp of it and allegiance to it, how can we be sure we are allowing the cross to be central in us? Let’s consider the simultaneous importance and non-importance of all things. Consider these statements:

-         Nothing is important

-         Everything is important, but nothing is important for the reasons it seems to be.

What is important to us is not important to God. You see, our sense of importance of things rises out of our natural bloodstream, one that God does not share. To us, many things are important: family, vision for one’s life, ministry, “right” thinking, health, morality, relationships—to name a few. Yet our sense of importance of all these arises from our native power of life.

Again, God does not share this life. Therefore He does not share this sense of importance with us. To God, nothing is important—that is, nothing outside of Himself. So it is that, nothing is important.

At the same time though, all things hold potential for bringing us into deeper union with the Life of God also in us—a Life that is important. While nothing outside God holds any self-sustaining importance, everything outside Him mirrors something in Him that is important.

All things mirror some intricate facet of the eternal life of God, something, in the blood of God—of which Life and Blood we are to be increasing partakers. Because all things mirror God’s Life in this some way, they assume an indirect importance for us, though they possess no intrinsic importance in themselves. So it is that everything is important, but nothing is important for the reasons it seems to be at first.

There are many things that we strive for and agonize over in life—and only because they are important to us. (If they are not important to us, we don’t strive for or agonize over them!) No two people strive for or agonize over anything from the exact same perspective and experience. We each feel what is important to us. What we sense is important we first sense as important within ourselves, whether or not anybody else shares a similar sense about it. If we don’t feel it in ourselves, then it is not important to us, whether or not someone else feels a thing is important.

Yet in all of this, God shares none of these feelings. He neither hungers nor thirsts, nor worries about deadlines, or disappointing others. He does not deal with sexual impulses, nor is under any sense of compulsion to see that certain things happen, or get done. Neither is He worried about Greek translations, logical arguments for making points with others, or following correct procedures, orders and traditions. Nor is God upset over disease or troubling circumstances.

So it is that neither among men nor with God is there any such thing as universal importance. “Importance” is an individual sense from within the life of one’s own bloodstream. Yet it is the best sense for communicating the essence of the work of the cross and how we can gauge how well we are allowing it to be central to us. Here it is:

The essence of the work of the cross is to kill (“crucify”) our natural, individualized sense of what is important to us so that it may be replaced by the Life of God which carries God’s sense of importance in Himself, a sense that is universally shared by all others possessing that Life (and which therefore also gives them primary esteem, affinity and priority in our eyes.)

By crucifying our natural sense of importance about all things, bringing us to the same sense of non-importance God already has toward all things, the work of the cross leads us into the various facets of the Life of God mirrored by those natural senses of importance, bringing about as well the corresponding manifestations of the fulfilment of the Life in both time and eternity.

This makes our original senses of importance to have actual importance, but not for the reason they seem to be. For instance, my natural sense of family importance, though not important in itself, is important because the cross will use it to lead me to the truly important life of God pertaining to the mystery of His family of which I am part and for which certain fulfilment awaits me.

The best way then for knowing whether we are allowing the cross to be central is by measuring what is happening to our private sense of importance of all things. As we accept the challenge to be involved with life, we discover what matters most to us. It is those things which matter most over which the work of the cross takes place.

First, it levels our sense of what is important, reducing it to its true importance: nothing. Then it eventually replaces it with the Life of God, the true counterpart of what we first thought important, the reality and fulfilment to which our imaged importance pointed all along.

We may not know what the reality behind our natural sense of importance is. In fact, I’m sure we do not. Yet we must accept the double challenge in life of, first, being willing to engage God over what is important to us; and second, being willing to see our sense of what is important destroyed through that engagement: the work of the cross. Only as we do this can we become eventual partakers of the unknown eternal realities to which our “importances” speak and point by reflection.

Stop now to reflect on everything you presently value, esteem, and assign importance to, both natural and supernatural, earthly and spiritual. Next, know that that sense of importance defines the charted course for the work of the cross in your life. The reason those senses of value have been left to you is not because they are important. (They are not.)

But they have been left to you by way of reflection to point in every case to an unknowable reality behind them, a reality rooted in the important Life of God, a reality to which the work of the cross will eventually bring you, a reality in which all who share God’s Life may one day share with you in rejoicing. It is for this hope alone that the things we esteem important have any actual reflective importance at all.

Jesus died that we might live. At this moment He bears our infirmities before the Father. Why does He do this? He bears our infirmities and sufferings that our wretched reflective life with its “importances” might be replaced with His eternal enduring Life with its counterpart Real Importances found from the Father’s Nature and Hand.

He died that our blood, through our death, might be replaced with His Blood. This is the double work of the cross, both at Calvary, and in you. But for His work to be effective for us, we must allow it to be central in us. That is the theme of this letter.

As long then as we have a private sense of values, esteems and importances, we should not be surprised to find sufferings related to these. Neither however should we cease striving and agonizing over our importances before God. For this they were left to us—till we discover their unimportance, and then we partake of the real importance to which they unknowingly pointed all along. This is the work of the cross—in love, in relationship, in ministry, in desire, in need, in passion, in sickness, in vision, in all that ever matters to us.

Nothing will ever replace the work of the cross. Nothing will ever upstage it. Nothing in spiritual reality will ever be found to be more important than it. All else will ever work to serve it. It is this work for which the founding apostles gave their lives. It is this work which is the essence of the true Gospel.

If we allow this work to remain central with us in every avenue of spiritual and natural encounter, we will be preserved blameless till the coming of the Lord. If however we allow this work to be upstaged by either things outside it, or by our assumptive confidence in our understanding of the work itself, then we will go astray. We will become reinforced natural and/or metaphysical idolaters.

Savior, let the work continue….

 

The Work of the Cross: The Validator of Spiritual Experience

The purpose of the work of the cross is to substitute the life of our bloodstream with the Life of the Lord. We have said that all things have been given to serve that work. “All” includes the supernatural gifts and anointings of the Holy Spirit: the “charismata.”

There is perhaps no greater controversy in the church today than over the operation of the charismata. Because of the uniqueness of the realm through which charismata function, it is subject to greatest dispute. On one end are those who deny the operations of spiritual experience (including those who profess faithfulness to the work of the cross). On the other end are those who extol the glories of the realm of the charismata simply because of the uniqueness of the realm itself, without regard for the work of the cross.

The truth however is this: The charismata are a vital tool for the work of the cross, yet at the same time quite invalid (though accessible) apart from that work. Without the charismata, there are important facets of the soul to which the work of the cross cannot be ministered. Yet the charismata are only valid when serving the purpose of that work. Apart from that work, they become mere conductors of what may be termed “metaphysical experience.” Let’s examine this more closely.

The chief point of misunderstanding and confusion centers in the following little-comprehended reality: the spiritual realm of charismata, which is a bonafide realm of present-day operation of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, can be accessed by the natural-life force of the human bloodstream (a force otherwise known as “the flesh”).

Because this is so, it does indeed allow for the possibility of corrupt experience of what is otherwise a genuine spiritual reality from God. What does this mean? It means that: 1) encounter with the spirit-realm of charismata does not prove the purity or validity of that encounter, and 2) evidence of corrupt experience does not disprove the reality of the realm of the charismata when so encountered.

(It has been the perpetual assumption by both sides that encounter with the realm of charismata validates itself—and is therefore the guarantee of its own purity—which is responsible for the deep alienation between charismatics and non-charismatics.)

If it is possible for flesh-life force to be given access to the realm of the Spirit such that encounter with that realm cannot itself be the validator of that encounter, then by what can we prove the validity, i.e, the purity of such encounters? The answer is: the work of the cross. Does our encounter with the spirit-realm foster the work of the cross for which it was given or does it not? If it does not, then the encounter is invalid, even though it may be a real encounter.

So the whole truth is this: We need access to the realm of charismata if we are to receive the full benefits of the work of the cross in our lives. But access alone does not guarantee that the work is taking place. Unless it is received unto the purpose for which given, access to the charismata only serves to reinforce natural life force in the bloodstream in a most hideous and grotesque way.

We see this wherever mobs of “charismatic” Christians sway and swoon to the preaching of men who speak of the power of “spiritual forces” and through whom grandiose revelations and miracles pour forth. In word, they exalt the Name of Jesus. In spiritual reality, they deny the work of the cross. So while the world they encounter may be genuine, their own access to it is flesh empowered and so invalid.

Now whenever flesh empowered encounter with the charismatic realm is realized, it produces what is called “metaphysical experience.” Metaphysical experience is the paradoxical beholding of God without knowing Him. One may have an out-of-the-body encounter with the living God, yet not know Him (such as those who stand before God at judgment day, yet destined for hell).

The true knowledge of God comes only by the work of the cross. This happens as natural life is replaced by eternal life in the bloodstream. Now where charismatic experience does not facilitate such transfusion, it only results in dead metaphysical experience. Such death is heard in the preaching of charismatic preachers who reduce encounter with God to a matter of encounter with “spiritual laws.” (Note: laws always speak of death, even spiritual laws.)

So it is that the power of God’s Spirit may actually be released through the lives of men who are otherwise blind to Him because that power has not served the work of the cross toward replenishing their souls with the knowledge of God through the eternal living blood of Jesus.

Some still have difficulty accepting the reality that it is possible to encounter the true God through the false life of the natural man. They find it hard to believe that either 1) such encounter, if indeed from natural life, could be with the true God, or 2) such encounter, if indeed with the Living God, could be of “the flesh.” Truly though, this should not be hard to see at all.

Consider the example already given: those who stand before God destined for hell. The fact that they are beholding the Living God does not mean they know Him and are alive. Vice versa, the fact that they themselves are dead to God does not mean it is not the true God they are beholding.

Consider also the real life story of Balaam. Here is a man that encountered God through divination. The fact that he encountered God and prophesied did not validate his divination experience. Vice versa, the fact that he divined (a work of the flesh) does not mean he didn’t encounter God or prophesy from God.

What does this tell us? The only validator of spiritual experience is the work of the cross. Spiritual experience not facilitating that blood transfusion is nothing more than exercise in charismatic witchcraft, divination and metaphysics—though it be from the Spirit of God.

Given this most precious of gifts and anointings, it is vital that we remember their true function. Equally important is that we accept the challenge to enter into this realm with its gifts so that the work may be done in us that can be done no other way. Remember, all that God gives is good and to be received. The fact that some are gluttons should not stop us from eating food. The fact that some worship creation should not stop us from enjoying nature.

So likewise, the fact that natural man has the capacity to corruptly engage the spiritual realm in metaphysical idolatry should not stop us from receiving all we need for spiritual growth through that realm. All things—whether in nature, or of the Spirit, are given to facilitate the work of the cross. Let us receive that work in our bloodstream through every means afforded by the Living God—in earth, and from heaven.

 

The Work of the Cross and the Second Coming

All things are given to serve the work of the cross. This includes all doctrine, among which is the hope of the Second Coming. How does the awareness of the Second Coming serve the work of the cross? The awareness of the Second Coming presents a guideline to the soul—a guideline along which forward and upward progress in soul transformation may take place. The awareness of the Second Coming always provides us a goal ahead of wherever we are in spiritual growth, a goal that helps liberate us from earth-bound consciousness, giving us something ahead of and beyond ourselves on which to gaze.

The best illustration I can think of here is that of a ski lift. The awareness of the Lord’s imminent return is like the guide wire along which the lift chair rides. The work of the cross is the actual motion that takes place. The guide wire gives us a clear, straight, and unencumbered direction to the mountain summit. To undergo the work of the cross without the awareness of the End Times is like trying to climb the mountain without the benefit of the ski lift. The trip is still entirely possible, but much more tedious and slower due to the immediacy of ground obstacles and shortsightedness of vision.

The awareness of the Lord’s imminent return provides an anchored goal for the soul, keeping it from becoming unnecessarily bound in other earthbound enterprises and involvements which only hinder and compete with the true vision God has for one’s life.

The sense of imminence intrinsic to awareness of the Lord’s Return is not a factor of time but a quality of the soul as the soul nears a breakthrough into the eternal realm. From the founding apostles forward, the sense of impending imminence of the Lord’s Return has been crucial to effective forward movement into God through the work of the cross. As the work deepens, the sense of imminence heightens as the soul impinges on the fringes of eternity, losing more and more of its earthbound awareness native to natural life.

Another way of saying all this is to say that, as the work of the cross replaces natural life with eternal life in the bloodstream, time consciousness becomes lost and is replaced with eternity-consciousness. Eternity consciousness is primarily characterized by the awareness of the imminent return of Jesus.

Time consciousness is an intrinsic quality of natural life. As that life is lost through the cross, so is time consciousness. As the soul is replenished with eternal life, it is filled with eternity consciousness marked by imminent awareness of Jesus’ Return. This accounts for the testimonies of the imminency of Christ’s Return throughout this age beginning with the founding apostles. The second coming of the Lord, you see, has as much to do with the rising of the soul to meet Jesus as it does with the actual physical appearance of Jesus at a point in time still to appear.

 So it is that the work of the cross and the increasing imminency of the awareness of the Lord’s Return go together. So it is therefore that the teaching of the Lord’s Second Coming serves the work of the cross. It is indispensable as a guideline for the soul as that work ministers to it the transfer from time consciousness to eternity consciousness.

While the Lord’s Return will certainly affect the earth’s affairs as a point-in-time event, it will not be met through the power of point-in-time expectation as found in the life of the human bloodstream (what Jesus calls the power of “observation”).

Those who function according to the power of point-in-time expectation of natural life, whose life has not been dealt with by the cross, will not see Him when He actually does come and His immediate presence takes over the earth. This is because “without holiness, no man shall see the Lord,” holiness being the work of the cross that substitutes natural life (governed by cause-effect awareness) with eternal life through which vision of the Lord is conducted.

The truth is that when Jesus comes back to the point that His Presence actually directly governs the cause-effect affairs of earth, very few people will actually see Him. Only those who have obtained sufficient development of eternal life in their souls by the work of the cross to be able to see Him will see Him. All others will be relegated to the varying degrees of outer darkness until their eyes are sufficiently developed by that work, a work that will continue to cause “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” even as it does now.

It is precisely because of these realities that Jesus both told His followers to “Watch,” yet said they would not be able to “expect” Him. “Watching” refers to the development of eternal vision through the cross. “Expect” refers to the time-bound consciousness of natural blood life which cannot mediate eternal life nor therefore see Him. So no matter how much we might naturally try to expect the Lord, we will not be able to. To rise to meet the Lord in soul at His coming requires an entirely different life substance, one obtainable only by the work of the cross.

(The most that anyone who has not endured the work of the cross when His Coming finally breaks through into the realm of time will be able to see of Jesus is the brightness of His glory, as of a star which for the sight thereof cannot be naturally endured but from a great distance, and from which one’s face must be turned away. II Th 2:18; Rev. 1:7.)

Conclusion: the teaching of the Second Coming services the work of the cross, and the work of the cross is vital to participation in the Second Coming.

 

The Message of the Cross: Summary

In these last 7 essays we have considered the work of the cross and its relationship to three agencies of ministry. In the first essay, we identified the work of the cross as the center of God’s dealings with and purpose for us His People, in all things and conscious issues outside of Himself. We saw that it is the core of the gospel, and that all else serves it, and that apart from it nothing else has any validity. Apart from that work, all else given as tools of that work to liberate us from natural life force in the bloodstream can only serve to reinforce that life.

In the succeeding essays we examined the work of the cross with respect to three different agencies by which new life is ministered to three particular sectors of the soul. First we examined the agency of the promises of God used by the cross to minister new life to our desire nature. Second we examined the agency of the “charismata” used by the cross to minister new life through the soul’s access to spiritual realities beyond the 5 senses. Lastly we examined the agency of the teaching and awareness of the Second Coming used by the cross to minister new life to the soul’s nature of “sequence perception” (i.e., time vs. eternity).

All of these essays speak to the core realities over which we find ourselves drawn in the negotiating of our salvations at these critical hours in the church and in human history. They are perhaps not the only realities, but they are central. Failure to engage God over our desire nature through His promises, over our access to the charismata and spirit-realm experience, and over the awareness of the imminency of His coming—these are to me, by personal experience, the key areas I see us failing to fulfil the hope of our calling.

We are afraid “to bleed” seriously over His promises to our desires, afraid “to die” through our encounter with His spirit-gifts, and afraid to “lose our lives” over the imminent possibility of His Return. And where we are not afraid to engage any of these areas, I tend to see where we make our involvement in these agencies ends in themselves, separated from the cross, reinforcers of our natural bloodstream life.

The promises, for example, are being used to reinforce our base lusts. The charismata are used to reinforce spiritual ego, and our awareness of the end is being used to reinforce the prospect of one more earthbound “kingdom of God” which we must somehow strive to establish by our might.

Amidst all this we have lost sight of the cross with its painful yet life transforming work. The cross is central to all. Without it, all else is pure rot. While all these agencies are necessary to the work of the cross to give it its definition in our lives, the work itself, not the agency, is predominant.

The promises of God, for example, are necessary to that work, but the work is primary. The charismata are necessary to that work, but the work is predominant. The awareness of the Lord’s Return is necessary to that work, but the work of the cross transcends all our awareness of His coming, and of all else. The work of the cross both leads us to engage these agencies, but then demands command of our allegiance throughout that engagement:

-         We must be willing to accept the call of our desires over the promises of God. The cross calls us to it. But then we must remain loyal to the cross throughout the struggle over our hopes of fulfilment and the receiving of those fulfilments when they appear.

-         We must be willing to accept the call of our spirits into the charismata and spiritual realm. The cross bids us to it. But we must stay by the cross throughout our encounters with tongues, revelation, prophecy, miracles, anointings and gifts.

-         We must be willing to accept the call of our awareness to the end of the age with the hope of our King and His kingdom, saying goodbye to the systems of this world. The cross leads us to it. But then we must keep the cross central throughout our increasing awareness of the kingdom coming from within as well as our perception of outward end time events.

This is the work of the cross…unto a perfect man.

The work of the cross must not only be entered in each of these agencies, it must be endured through the disappointments, failures, and sufferings of soul encountered through each—sufferings which spell the loss of natural life in advance of receiving new life. Yet most who first accept the challenges of these agencies pull back after they get hurt.

Many are there for example who take up the challenge to believe God’s promises over their desire nature, but then draw back when the promises seem to fail them at first. Likewise many are there who accept the challenge of encountering the charismata, but then draw back when they are hurt by a prophecy that didn’t seem to come to pass, or a bad revelation, or a confused encounter with tongues. Again, many are there who accept the challenge of acting on the awareness of the Lord’s imminent Return, but then draw back because He did not come back as they expected and they became laughingstocks to others for their actions.

Of such who draw back, God says His soul has no pleasure in them. It is precisely such hurts and failures that mark the hidden work of the cross amid our encounters with these agencies and for which the agencies are given. It is because we don’t recognize the centrality of the work of the cross that we pull back when we get hurt, not realizing that the hurt is a designed part of the process. This is the bleeding of soul, the pouring out of soul, the draining out of natural life from the bloodstream we are ultimately called to endure through all things.

We have to conclude by asking ourselves, how do we respond to these agencies?

-         Do we misapply our encounter with them by denying the work of the cross that undergirds them, using them instead to gratify and reinforce our natural life from which they were given to deliver us?

-         Or do we perhaps refuse to encounter them because any one or all of them do not fit into our understanding of the work of the cross, an understanding which itself must undergo that work through our willingness to take up the call to engage these agencies?

-         Or do we perhaps accept the call at first to engage these agencies, but then draw back when the cross begins to work through failure and we get hurt for having dared to believe, daring to act?

-         Or will we last of all be true disciples, both accepting the challenge to engage God over these agencies, then enduring to the absolute end all bitter experiences of the cross over our encounters with them, obtaining the eventual fulfilment of God in the context of new life coursing through our veins?

It is to this end that we might be partakers of the last option that these essays have been written.

 

Chris Anderson
written at Merrimack, New Hampshire

First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org

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