2. I Know Christ Crucified

I have found myself drawing from 1 Corinthians 2 often, more than most other chapters of the Bible. In this chapter, Paul gives us a definition of human consciousness, humans as a living soul, and how our consciousness operates the same as God’s, that we are designed like God.

This definition, however, is found inside of Paul’s overriding concern in this first letter to the Corinthians, which is to impart the depths of meaning in that the Spirit makes us to be one body together, members of each other, drinking of the same Spirit, what I have called the eleventh and twelfth ruling verses of the Bible.

Gospel Thinking. As I have been working with the text of 1 Corinthians, the most problematic letter Paul wrote, I have realized that Paul knew nothing of Nicene Christian thinking, a way of thinking imposed upon his words centuries later. At the same time, I find myself inside a knowing of the pure gospel of Christ in all my thinking, as I have never known before. I think this present season began last December when, to my utter amazement, Revelation 16 left the list of “awful Bible chapters” and became a wondrous part of the revelation of Christ and of Salvation revealed. I am still aware of the other way of thinking, but I do not know it. And neither did Paul.

Seeing the Cross Verses. I made only small changes to the page of The Jesus Secret II for 1 Corinthians Chapter 1. For Chapter 2, I condensed a bit and added another box, “A Door Closed Behind Me.” I am also adding another page that will have the heading, “The Spirit of God Is inside of Me.” I will be working on that page next and will share it when it is finished.

I want to share with you the page “I Know Christ Crucified.” You already have the original in the rough draft of The Jesus Secret II, but here I will give you the new draft. I begin with the realization that the reader needs to see all the powerful “cross” verses together in one mighty blast.

I Know Christ Crucified. For the love of Christ holds us together, having concluded this, that if One has died for all, then all have died (2 Corinthians 5:14). – I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ (Galatians 2:20). – By [God’s] desire, we are already made devoted, belonging only to God, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all… This One, moreover, having offered one unlimited sacrifice for sins, sat down inside of the right hand of God… For by one offering, He has perfected those who are continuously being made devoted [by God] (Hebrews 10:10-14).

For you have already and fully died, and your life has been hidden together with Christ inside of God. …Christ your life (Colossians 3:3-4). – Having already been symmorphosed, sharing the same form with His death (Philippians 3:10). – Therefore, if anyone is inside of Christ, he is a new creation. The old things are already gone; look and see, the New has already become. And all things are now out from God (2 Corinthians 5:17-18).

Next, I merged the confessions of faith from part of Chapter 2 with a larger knowledge of the meaning and extent of the cross.

Confessions of Faith. I know that the cross of Christ is total and absolute, larger than the universe and already complete and finished. I know that the entire old creation perished upon the cross. I know that every human died upon the cross, regardless of any present outward appearance. I know that all sin and sinfulness perished upon the cross.

I know that I AM crucified with Christ; I know that I share the same form with His death. I know that nothing remains in me or in my way that is not coming out from God my Father.

I know that I live, yet it’s not me, but Christ; Christ Jesus is my only life. I know that I am made devoted by the body of Jesus offered once for all. I know that I am already perfected by one offering, even as I am continuously being made holy by God. I know that only the new is real; I know that all things come out from God.

I am inside of Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus has become as me wisdom and just innocence, devotion and redemption. I boast in the Lord, Christ Jesus made personal as me.

I know only Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I walk in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. I speak in the demonstration and proof of Spirit and power. My faith is inside of the power of God. I speak the wisdom of God among those who are complete in Christ.

Enter Appease. Now we come back to Appease and its role in preventing believers in Jesus from knowing their full union with Christ. Appease takes everything of the sacrifice of Jesus and turns it into a negotiation with God designed to allow an individual to keep their own story of sinful self, even while imagining an escape from the judgment of God and going, someday, into “eternal bliss.” Appease persuades those who give it ear to take their eyes off of Jesus and to look only at themselves. In doing so, it creates a perverse and psychotic relationship between a believer and “the cross.”

Not Knowing Jesus. For the most part, Appease keeps its masters in front of the cross, weeping (that is, worshipping) over how “great” their sinful selves really are. – Entirely too much for God. This is called “Christian repentance,” but is only an abject refusal to enter through faith into the Lord Jesus.

But there is a strange sub-group of people who, finding Galatians 2:20 in their Bibles, decide to live as if the cross is all there is. They don’t want to know Jesus in them or them in Jesus. They say, “I’m just a dead man walking. There is no ‘me.’” Yet, to an outside observer, it is clear that their continual denial of the existence of “me,” leaves them only with self, for where is Jesus?

No Other Life. God’s purpose for the cross is that we would KNOW that we live only inside of Jesus and Jesus inside of us. That He is our life, and that we have NO OTHER LIFE. The cross then becomes to us a closed and locked door, keeping sin and death barred from our life inside of Jesus.

The law of the Spirit of life inside of Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2).

But to understand this place in which we now live, we must understand what we are as living souls, made the same way as God, who Himself is a Story of Words inside of a Spirit Self-awareness. – The topic of the next page.

A Door Closed Behind Me. I acknowledge that I am already inside of Christ, put there by God, having already entered through the open door of the cross. Here inside of Christ, I see that door now closed, forever protecting me from all sin and death. I never leave Christ to join with the unbelievers weeping before the cross, refusing to acknowledge its meaning, holding to their own story and consciousness of sins. I remain always inside of Jesus through faith, as He commanded me to do. The cross is a door closed behind me.

A Bold Statement of Faith. I had finished the page with a bold statement of faith. I will keep that in place, rather than making “A Door Closed” any larger. I think it’s better to keep that as a seed planted.
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The word of the cross is the power of God to me. I know only Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I am inside of Him. I am inside of His death, and I am inside of His life, Christ, the power and wisdom of God.