“For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
I Corinthians 2:2 (NKJV)
For Christians everywhere, as for the Apostle Paul, the Cross of Christ stands at the centre of understanding God’s call to faith and His gracious invitation to us, that we might know the forgiveness and restoration that God summons us into, out of His holy love. An invitation into knowing, not simply about the Cross, but an intimacy of sharing with Jesus Christ in His crucifixion. Discipleship is cruciform.
The Cross is a place of substitutionary sacrifice, where Jesus willingly bears the consequence of human sin and failing in our place (Romans 3.25): yet the Scriptures do not stop there, in what they want us to celebrate and know of the Cross, as Jesus entered into and experienced what it brought to Him. In and through what Jesus entered and endured, there is the outflow of God’s healing for the nations – the touch of wholeness ministered into our lives (Matthew 8.16-17). There is a maturing and a perfecting of His humanity – and therefore of ours – in and through his pursuit along the path of obedience (Hebrews 2.10-11; 5.7-9). Such is that desire for a deeper knowing of this, that the Apostle Paul can declare, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20 NKJV). Discipleship is cruciform.
Jesus taught this before Paul longed for it. He taught his disciples to disown their own lives in order to discover life, through the way of the Cross. This echoes throughout the first three Gospels (Matthew 16.24; Mark 8.34; Luke 9.23), with the 4th Gospel emphasising that this way is the path of true fruitfulness and effectiveness, to be found and expressed, in our lives (John 12.24). Discipleship is cruciform.
But why the Cross? Why such a need for entry into and identification with His death in this way, that we are summoned to through baptism (Romans 6.3)? The answer is found again with Paul, who longs, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:10-11 NKJV ). Because discipleship that is cruciform is discipleship that is infused and empowered with the Spirit who demonstrates authenticity, enabling resurrection reality to be expressed now, in and through our lives (Romans 6.4).
Ethical challenges and moral dilemma will be overwhelming issues whenever wrestled with by a church that has not grasped the significance and necessity of cruciform discipleship. It is simply not enough to debate and to be clear over doctrine: theories change nothing and empower no one.
But for those who set out to know Jesus Christ, and Him crucified? To those who embrace the beatitudes of Matthew 5 as a way of living, not just believing? For those who see Christ’s way of dying not simply something to gawk at but a reality to be entered into? For such people, there will be a discovery of a power that comes through the Holy Spirit that will, indeed, lift them to new levels of intentional, sacrificial and effective holy living, as the Apostle celebrates in prayer and expects of disciples (Ephesians 1.18-21).
Are you possibly wearied with ‘spectator orthodoxy’ and the extremes of harsh or impotent ethics that issue from it? Are you a little disillusioned with ‘Holy Spirit lite’ living? Look in a new way to discipleship as cruciform. Embrace the baby in the manger in this way; and may God renew you in joy, through resurrection living, this Christmas and into the New Year.
This is the third of six, introductory essays, designed for social media. The fourth will follow.
