CRUCIFIXION OF SELF
‘By whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.’
The reason which St. Paul gives here for his glorying in the Cross of Christ seems strange at first sight.
I. But the dying of the Lord Jesus upon the Cross suggests some very striking points of resemblance to ‘the crucifying of the body of sin.’—All true followers of Christ must undergo that death to sin which is like the crucifixion of the body. Such as suffered upon a cross, died by degrees; death for them was a slow and lingering process.
II. Was it ever anything but painful to mortify a sinful lust?—And there are many such lusts which must be put to death. ‘Our old man’ must be stretched as it were upon his cross. Alas, it is to be feared that as the nails are being driven in and the flesh begins to quiver, too many draw back; they come down, so to speak, from their cross. Others, again, become impatient because the ‘death of the body of sin’ is so long in being accomplished, that is, the death of the old self. They have mortified it again and again, only to find it reviving anew. Let us not despair. As crucifixion was a slow death for the body, so is the crucifixion of the flesh, with its affections and lusts, for the soul. ‘The body of sin,’ the old self, must be kept fast to its cross, until its life shall have ebbed away.
III. There is this further analogy between the death of the Cross and the crucifixion of our sinful selves.—Death, for one who was crucified, set in at the extremities and travelled slowly to the vital parts, and when it reached the heart the struggle was over. This thought suggests some points for reflection as we think of the death of the body of sin. When a soul is truly converted to God, it is the open and more gross forms of sin which are first mortified. These may be likened to the hands and feet of the body of sin. But there are sins more subtle by far and harder to kill, sins woven as it were into the fibre and tissues of our nature, sins like pride and selfishness. When may it be said that such sins as these die outright within us? In most of us they will only become extinct when we cease to breathe.
IV. The Apostle alludes to a particular kind of death for the Christian when he speaks of being ‘crucified to the world.’—It means the putting to death of that affection which is known as ‘the love of the praise of men.’
—Rev. F. K. Aglionby.
Illustration
‘Macarius, a saintly Father of the early Church, was giving a lecture to young men in his monastery on the Epistle to the Galatians, when one of them asked, “What does it mean to be dead to the world?” The saint said to him, “Take thy staff and go out into the burial ground and smite thrice upon the grave of our brother who was buried yesterday, and say, ‘A hypocrite thou livedst, a hypocrite thou diedst, and thou hast now thy portion with the hypocrites.’ ” When he had done as he was told, he was asked, “What did our brother say to thee?” “Nothing,” was the reply. “Go again to the grave and say, ‘A saint thou livedst, a saint thou diedst, and with the saints thou dost rest.’ ” When he returned the second time he was again asked, “What did our brother say?” “Nothing.” Then he was told, “When thou art as regardless of the world, as indifferent to its praise, as deaf to its censures, as our departed brother was to thy words, then thou mayst be said to have died to the world.” ’