The Lord Jesus Christ acted in what He did as a great public representative person, and His dying upon the cross was the virtual dying of all His people. Then all His saints rendered unto justice what was due, and made an expiation to divine vengeance for all their sins. The apostle of the Gentiles delighted to think that as one of Christ’s chosen people, he died upon the cross in Christ. He did more than believe this doctrinally, he accepted it confidently, resting his hope upon it. He believed that by virtue of Christ’s death, he had satisfied divine justice, and found reconciliation with God. Beloved, what a blessed thing it is when the soul can, as it were, stretch itself upon the cross of Christ, and feel, “I am dead; the law has slain me, and I am therefore free from its power, because in my Surety I have borne the curse, and in the person of my Substitute the whole that the law could do, by way of condemnation, has been executed upon me, for I am crucified with Christ.”

But Paul meant even more than this. He not only believed in Christ’s death, and trusted in it, but he actually felt its power in himself in causing the crucifixion of his old corrupt nature. When he saw the pleasures of sin, he said, “I cannot enjoy these: I am dead to them.” Such is the experience of every true Christian. Having received Christ, he is to this world as one who is utterly dead. Yet, while conscious of death to the world, he can, at the same time, exclaim with the apostle, “Nevertheless I live.” He is fully alive unto God. The Christian’s life is a matchless riddle. No worldling can comprehend it; even the believer himself cannot understand it. Dead, yet alive! crucified with Christ, and yet at the same time risen with Christ in newness of life! Union with the suffering, bleeding Saviour, and death to the world and sin, are soul-cheering things. O for more enjoyment of them!

These words mean the breaking of my independence with my own hand and surrendering to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. No one can do this for me, I must do it myself. God may bring me up to the point three hundred and sixty-five times a year, but He cannot put me through it.

It means breaking the husk of my individual independence of God, and the emancipating of my personality into oneness with Himself, not for my own ideas, but for absolute loyalty to Jesus. There is no possibility of dispute when once I am there. Very few of us know anything about loyalty to Christ - "For My sake." It is that which makes the iron saint.

Has that break come? All the rest is pious fraud. The one point to decide is - Will I give up, will I surrender to Jesus Christ, and make no conditions whatever as to how the break comes? I must be broken from my self-realization, and immediately that point is reached, the reality of the supernatural identification takes place at once, and the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable - "I have been crucified with Christ."

The passion of Christianity is that I deliberately sign away my own rights and become a bond-slave of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I do not begin to be a saint.

One student a year who hears God's call would be sufficient for God to have called this College into existence. This College as an organization is not worth anything, it is not academic; it is for nothing else but for God to help Himself to lives. Is He going to help Himself to us, or are we taken up with our conception of what we are going to be?

We have to battle through our moods into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus, to get out of the hole-and-corner business of our experience into abandoned devotion to Him.

Think Who the New Testament says that Jesus Christ is, and then think of the despicable meanness of the miserable faith we have - I haven't had this and that experience!

Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims - that He can present us faultless before the throne of God, unutterably pure, absolutely rectified and profoundly justified.

Stand in implicit adoring faith in Him, He is made unto us "wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption."

How can we talk of making a sacrifice for the Son of God! Our salvation is from hell and perdition, and then we talk about making sacrifices!

We have to get out into faith in Jesus Christ continually; not a prayer meeting Jesus Christ, nor a book Jesus Christ, but the New Testament Jesus Christ, Who is God Incarnate, and Who ought to strike us to His feet as dead.

Our faith must be in the One from Whom our experience springs.

Jesus Christ wants our absolute abandon of devotion to Himself.

We never can experience Jesus Christ, nor ever hold Him within the compass of our own hearts, but our faith must be built in strong emphatic confidence in Him.

It is along this line that we see the rugged impatience of the Holy Ghost against unbelief.

All our fears are wicked, and we fear because we will not nourish ourselves in our faith.

How can any one who is identified with Jesus Christ suffer from doubt or fear!

It ought to be an absolute pæan of perfectly irrepressible, triumphant belief.

If there is any remnant of individual conceit left, it always says "I can't."

Personality never says "I can't," but simply absorbs and absorbs.

Personality always wants more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for God; and sin and our individuality are the things that keep us from getting at God. God delivers us from sin: we have to deliver ourselves from individuality, i.e., to present our natural life to God and sacrifice it until it is transformed into a spiritual life by obedience.

God does not pay any attention to our natural individuality in the development of our spiritual life. His order runs right across the natural life, and we have to see that we aid and abet God, not stand against Him and say - I can't do that. God will not discipline us, we must discipline ourselves. God will not bring every thought and imagination into captivity; we have to do it. Do not say - O Lord, I suffer from wandering thoughts. Don't suffer from wandering thoughts.

Stop listening to the tyranny of your individuality and get emancipated out into personality.

"If the Son shall make you free . ." Do not substitute 'Saviour' for 'Son.' The Saviour sets us free from sin; this is the freedom of being set free by the Son.

It is what Paul means in Gal. 2: 20 - "I have been crucified with Christ," his natural individuality has been broken and his personality united with his Lord, not merged but united.

"Ye shall be free indeed," free in essence, free from the inside. We will insist on energy, instead of being energized into identification with Jesus.

Home of our hearts, lest we forget What our redemption meant to Thee, Let our most reverent thought be set Upon Thy Calvary.

When Christ hung on the Cross of Calvary He was, apparently, the biggest failure the world had ever seen; for no other man had even dared to make such astounding claims as He, yet there He hung; nailed to the cross of shame, exposed to the view of a coarse, mocking crowd; cut off in early manhood; betrayed by one of His own personal friends; deserted by all of the other apostles—one of whom, after loud professions of devotion had denied Him with oaths and curses. It seemed as if that most wonderful and touching of all intercessory prayers (recorded in John 17) had never reached the Father’s ear; and as if the words “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son” (John 17:1) were impossible of fulfillment.

Not one soul, even of those who loved the Savior best, understood Him and His lifework; therefore not one friend could really sympathize with the God-man, who, on His human side, so hungered for sympathy.

If you and I are truly following in the Master’s footsteps, we too must be willing to risk apparent failure in the eyes of the world; and, harder still, must often be content to be misunderstood by our fellow-Christians. It is only when we have learned the faith and obedience which leave all consequences with God that we can know the power and deep joy contained in these words, that once sounded so terrible—“I have been crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20).

Jesus, Thou living bread, Ground in the mills of death, Let me by Thee be fed; Thy servant hungereth.

Jesus, Thou choicest vine, Nailed to the Cross of woe, Now let Thy life Divine Into my being flow.

Strength for the coming day Thy Body doth impart, Thy Blood doth cleanse away The sins that stain my heart.

Let not my heart be cold, Nor doubt when faith doth prove That in my hand I hold Thy Sacrament of love.

Jesus, be not a guest That tarrieth but a day; Come to my longing breast, Come, and for ever stay.

He reigneth! He reigneth, but let us never forget that it is from the throne on Golgotha!

We would in Thee abide, In Thee be glorified, And shine as candles “lighted by the Lord.”

For long the wick of my lamp had served my purpose, silently ministering as I read beside it. I felt ashamed that I had not before noticed its unobtrusive ministry. I said to the wick:

“For the service of many months I thank thee.”

“What have I done for thee?”

“Hast thou not given light upon my page?”

“Indeed, no; I have no light to give, in proof whereof take me from my bath of oil, and see how quickly I expire. Thou wilt soon turn from me as a piece of smoking tow. It is not I that burns, but the oil with which my texture is saturated. It is this that lights thee. I simply mediate between the oil in the cistern and the fire on my edge. This blackened edge slowly decays, but the light continually burns.”

“Dost thou not fear becoming exhausted? See how many inches of coil remain! Wilt thou be able to give light till every inch of this is slowly charred and cut away?”

“I have no fear so long as the supply of oil does not fail, if only some kindly hand will remove from time to time the charred margin . . . exposing a fresh edge to the flame. This is my twofold need: oil and trimming. Give me these and I shall burn to the end!”

God has called His children to shine as “lights in the world.” Let us, then, beware of hiding our light— whether household candle, street lamp, or lighthouse gleam—lest men stumble to their death.

It is at variance with the teaching of the wick to try to accumulate a stock of grace in a sacrament, a convention, or a night of prayer. The wick has no such stores, but is always supplied!

You may seem altogether helpless and inadequate, but a living fountain of oil is prepared to furnish you with inexhaustible supplies: Not by your might or power, but by His Spirit. Hour after hour the oil climbs up the wick to the flame! You cannot exhaust God!

Let us not flinch when the snuffers are used; they only cut away the black charred debris. He thinks so much of His work that He uses golden snuffers! And the Hand that holds the snuffers bears the nailprint of Calvary! F. B. MEYER

We have to get our eyes off others before we can have the full vision of Jesus. Moses and Elijah had to pass to make possible the vision of Jesus only.

In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah says, I saw the Lord. His eyes and hopes had been upon the mighty and victorious earthly leader, and with his death all these hopes had sunk in despair. But the stars come out when the lights of earth fade. It was then Isaiah’s true vision and life began.

It is not enough to see Jesus along with other things and persons. What we need is to have Him fill all our vision, all our sky, all our heart, all our plans, and all our future. What He wants from us is “first love,” that is, the supreme place; and He cannot really be anything to us satisfactorily until He is everything.

He is able to fill every capacity of our being and without displacing any rightful affection or occupation, yet so blend with all, so control all, so become the very essence of all thought and all delight that we can truly say, “For to me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21 KJV), for “the love of Christ constraineth” me (2 Corinthians 5:14 KJV), shuts me up and in from everything else as a pent-up torrent in its narrow course, to live not unto myself but unto him “who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20 KJV).

Holy Spirit, bring us our transfiguration, take us apart to our Mount of vision, let Moses and Elijah pass, and let us see no man save Jesus only.

In this passage, God is wrestling with Jacob more than Jacob is wrestling with God. The “man” referred to here is the Son of Man—the Angel of the Covenant. It was God in human form, pressing down on Jacob to press his old life from him. And by daybreak God had prevailed, for Jacob’s “hip was wrenched” (v. 25). As Jacob “fell” from his old life, he fell into the arms of God, clinging to Him but also wrestling until his blessing came. His blessing was that of a new life, so he rose from the earthly to the heavenly, the human to the divine, and the natural to the supernatural. From that morning forward, he was a weak and broken man from a human perspective, but God was there. And the Lord’s heavenly voice proclaimed, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome” (v. 28).

Beloved, this should be a typical scene in the life of everyone who has been transformed. If God has called us to His highest and best, each of us will have a time of crisis, when all our resources will fail and when we face either ruin or something better than we have ever dreamed. But before we can receive the blessing, we must rely on God’s infinite help. We must be willing to let go, surrendering completely to Him, and cease from our own wisdom, strength, and righteousness. We must be “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20) and yet alive in Him. God knows how to lead us to the point of crisis, and He knows how to lead us through it.

Is God leading you in this way? Is this the meaning of your mysterious trial, your difficult circumstances, your impossible situation, or that trying place you cannot seem to move past without Him? But do you have enough of Him to win the victory?

Then turn to Jacob’s God! Throw yourself helplessly at His feet. Die in His loving arms to your own strength and wisdom, and rise like Jacob into His strength and sufficiency. There is no way out of your difficult and narrow situation except at the top. You must win deliverance by rising higher, coming into a new experience with God. And may it bring you into all that is meant by the revelation of “the Mighty One of Jacob” (Isaiah 60:16)! There is no way out but God.

At Your feet I fall, Yield You up my all, To suffer, live, or die For my Lord crucified.

Ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.—I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.—I am his.—The Son of God . . . loved me, and gave himself for me.

Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.—The Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day.

Ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.—Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.—A spiritual house, an holy priesthood.

They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.—All mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.—The glory of his inheritance in the saints.

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence.

God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

I am crucified with Christ.

They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us.

I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us.

He brought me up... out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.—The Son of God... loved me, and gave himself for me.—He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?—God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.—Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.—Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.—We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.—A ransom for many.

No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.—I will love them freely.—The Son of God . . . loved me and gave himself for me.

He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.—He hath made us accepted in the beloved.

Heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.—All things are yours.—My beloved is mine.—The Son of God . . . loved me, and gave himself for me.

The Lord spake unto Aaron, Thou shalt have no inheritance in their land, neither shalt thou have any part among them: I am thy part and thy inheritance among the children of Israel.

Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.

My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.—I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land.

I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard.

Little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.

He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.

By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.

Without faith it is impossible to please him.

He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.

Faith worketh by love.

Faith without works is dead.

We walk by faith, not by sight.

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory; receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.

None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.

Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.

Let no man seek his own: but every man another's wealth.

Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not.

For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.

I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.—That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.—Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.

If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.—Reckon ye . . . yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Because I live, ye shall live also.

I give unto them eternal life: and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

I and my Father are one.

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God . . . For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?—I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.—He died for all, that they which live should not live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.—If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

We are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ.—As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.—Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.—Because I live, ye shall live also.

To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and wilt give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.