602 The Spiritual Man
God in them. Their misconception about being “dead to self” means
for them the absence of self-consciousness. So they endlessly deliver
their self-consciousness to nought till they sense nothing but the
presence of God. Under this mistaken notion they assume they must
practice death; on each occasion therefore when they become aware
of “self” or are conscious of personal wants, lacks, needs, interests or
preferences they consistently consign these to death.
Since “I have been crucified with Christ,” they argue, then I no
longer exist. And since it is “Christ who lives in me,” then I no
longer live. I having died, I must practice death—that is, I must not
harbor any thought or feeling. Because Christ is alive within me, He
will think or feel in my place. My personality is annihilated,
therefore I will obey Him passively, permitting Him to think or feel
for me. Unfortunately these people overlook what Paul further said
about “the life I now live in the flesh.” Paul died, and yet he has not
died! This “I” has been crucified, nevertheless “I” still lives in the
flesh. Paul, upon having passed through the cross, still declares of
himself that “I now live”!
This confirms that the cross does not annihilate our “I”; it exists
forever. It is “I” who will one day go to heaven. How can salvation
ever benefit me if somebody else goes instead of me? The true
purport of our accepting co-death with Christ is that we are dead to
sin and that we deliver our soul life to death; even the most excellent,
most righteous and most virtuous soul life we deliver to death. God
beckons us to deny the desire to live by our natural power and to live
instead by Him, leaning upon His vitality moment by moment for the
supply of every need. This does not in anyway imply that we are to
destroy our various functions and settle into passivity. Quite the
reverse is true: such a walk with God requires us to exercise our will
daily in an active, consistent and believing manner for the denial of
our own natural energy and the appropriation of divine energy. Just
as neither the death of today’s physical body means annihilation nor
the death of the lake of fire suggests extermination, so co-death with