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Come,
O fellow believer, the Son of man is made sin--made a curse--lifted up
like a serpent. Stand with His mother at the foot of the cross: "A
sword shall pierce through thy own soul also, that the thoughts of many
hearts [yea, your heart, my heart] may be revealed." "But," someone asks,
"why a serpent?--why not a lily or a rose--why not something lovely inasmuch
as it was to typify the King and His redemptive work?" But when God would
seek to picture the accursed character of the sinful self-life He made
no mistake. Only the serpent could symbolize the truth. That throws
an awful ray of light upon me. It shoots me through and through.
I am perfectly photographed--not my sins only, but myself.
What I did only sprang from what I am. The unvarnished
truth is out. It is I, my very self. Why pull down the blinds?
Let me take a square look at the Cross and be willing to abide by the awful
implications.
I see the crowd in Pilate's
hall,
I mark their wrathful mien;
Their shouts of "Crucify!"
appall,
With blasphemy between.
And of that shouting multitude
I feel that I am one;
And in that din of voices
rude
I recognize my own.
'Twas I that shed the sacred
blood,
I nailed Him to the tree,
I crucified the Christ of
God,
I joined the mockery.
Around the cross the throng
I see
Mocking the Sufferer's groan;
Yet still my voice it seems
to be
As if I mocked alone.
-Horatius Bonar.
Does such an admission seem
too dreadful? Do I halt from owning it? But dare I disown it?
Until I own it, I can never disown it. From the throne of the Cross,
high and lifted up, I am drawn first to own and then disown self.
I cease to speak about some of self and some of Christ. I am
cursed, not cut back, but cut down, cut off. The connection is severed
with all the past, and from self itself. I am simply consigned to
the curse in toto. In the person of Another I have come to
a lawful execution, an ignominious termination, and eternal undoing.
This judicial sentence calls
for my most cordial acquiescence. Let me consent to my execution,
and sign on the dotted line. I have not been left to crucify myself.
Such a task is too tremendous, too divine. I have been already devoted
to death, "crucified with Christ." That has been accomplished. But
I must sign my own death sentence. I must consent to God's consignment.
I must choose, in the power of His death, to dethrone and deny self.
The Cross is indeed God's master-weapon. But Christ's death has severing
power only as we are united with it by faith. I must endorse this
divine dying as it applies to me.
Such a denial of self is
no mere severing of this or that indulgence, but putting the axe of the
Cross to the very root of the tree of self. God says, Cut the tree
down, not merely trim it back. All self-righteousness, self-esteem,
self-vindication, self-glory, and fatal self-pity--these and ten thousand
other manifestations are but the fleshly foliage, the myriad branchings
of that deeply rooted tree of self. To trim it back only means that
the very life of self is thrown back into other more rugged roots, to develop
the Pharisee into a more vigorous tree. Outwardly he may appear beautiful
and be highly esteemed among men. But behind the scenes those living
nearest him could bear tearful witness to that bitter fruit that flourishes
on the green bay tree of self.
But there is abundant hope.
I am already grafted into the Crucified, a partaker of the divine nature.
The life |
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