We must notice that these are not the first words in this text. Many sincere souls try to put them first in their experience, in order to attain to a higher state of resurrection power. And this is the case with many devout Romanists, and others who seek, but never find, this higher state. Penances, and all kinds of self-inflicted chastisements are all in vain, except it be to feed our religious pride and Pharasaism. How many have sunk into dark infidelity through thus reversing the order of the word of God. Let us look at the scripture just as it stands.
“That I may know him.” We will begin one verse previous: “And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law [or which would be on the principle of law], but that which is, through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” We cannot understand verse 10 if we have not utterly renounced all thoughts of attaining to righteousness on the principle of works of law: otherwise we shall be putting our own sufferings, or our own conformity to His death, call it what we will, in the place of the atoning death of Christ. And this will imperceptibly lead us into the heresy of infused righteousness, and thus deny “righteousness of God.” Satan may use this soul-destroying error in a great variety of ways.
Are you, my reader, seeking to have on “mine own righteousness?” Are you struggling for this? Then dream not of fellowship with the sufferings of Christ. Your refusal of the great truth of righteousness of God is direct antagonism against Christ. Oh, how Saul of Tarsus would have sought righteousness on the principle of works of law, had he not been led by the heavenly vision of Christ to utterly and forever renounce all his own supposed righteousness as dung! Think of his own righteousness being, to Paul, as loathsome as dung! Have you learned this lesson in the light of the heavenly vision? When God gives faith, He gives faith’s object—His beloved Son, who has accomplished all His will in our redemption. What would faith be without this object? Hence he goes on to verse 10.
“That I may know him.” Do you know Him? We may read about Him, and preach about Him, and yet not know Him. Next to seeing Him at His coming, above all things, the believer longs to know Him, our Great High Priest in every sorrow and temptation; to know Him our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption; and to know Him in all the tender intimacies of His infinite love—that same Jesus who was in an agony at the prospect of bearing my sins. And yet He did bear them, nailed to the cross—that Man who passed through the darkness of God’s wrath due to me.
Not only this: “And the power of his resurrection”—that new creation, where all is new, and all is of God. To know the power of this “us ward.” To know Him, raised from the dead, the beginning of the new creation. To see our old selves passed away out of sight. To know Him, and to know the power of being in Him in that new creation of resurrection, where all is of God. All this must be known in our souls before we talk of conformity to His death. Nothing can be more dangerous to souls than to seek a sort of Romish attainment of death first.
Twelve stones must be taken out of Jordan first in resurrection power. We must first know Him, and our place with Him in resurrection, before the twelve stones can be put into Jordan, and there remain. We must be perfectly clear about our place in the heavenlies with Christ, in actual possession on the principle of faith, before we take the place of conformity unto His death. It is quite true we get into this place of life through death; but is it through our death or dying, or through His death for us? The moment we admit the thought of its being through our death, we are going rather fast on the road to Rome. We may not know it, but there is not a more dangerous road, and, perhaps, nothing we need to be more on our guard against.
But if we well know that we have been brought, through the riches of the grace and the exceeding greatness of the power of God, into this resurrection place of blessedness through the death and resurrection of Christ, we may now go on to what is “the fellowship of his sufferings,” and what it is to be made conformable unto his death. With His atoning suffering at the hands of God, we can have no fellowship, no share. He was absolutely alone, bearing the wrath, of God due to our sins. He was alone when made sin for us. But what He suffered at the hands of men, led on by Satan, we may share. The Satanic hatred of man against Him still continues, and God, in His own tender mercy, still endures the hatred of man.
Oh, how little did Saul know that his mad and cruel persecution of the saints was hatred against God! Yes, God the Son, revealed in glory, said, “Why persecutest thou me?” It was the continuation of man’s hatred, and His suffering in every member of His body on earth. And Saul the persecutor had soon, as Paul the Christian, to have fellowship in these sufferings. Does not our head feel what any member of our body suffers? so Christ as Head of the body feels what affects His saints.
If we know our place in Christ, in resurrection standing, shall we desire to be with that world which still hates and persecutes Christ, in His true members, though it be as sincere and religious as was Saul? Or shall we not, like Paul the converted, be desiring the rather to know the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ? Which way lean you, beloved Christian? To the world that still hates Christ, or to the Christ that is hated? Have you not been separated from that world by the death of Christ? Have you not been baptized into this very profession of death with Christ?
Now where is the practical conformity to His death? You may say, Oh, well, all this is now given up in Christendom. Within the last few years all is changed. Yes, even as it is written, there are “Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God: having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” (See 2 Tim. 3:1-51This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. (2 Timothy 3:1‑5).) It is like the story of the spider and the fly. Come into my parlor, says Satan, and enjoy my world’s pleasures, and pastimes to your hearts’ content; and do not really believe a word God says in the scriptures. Reader, will you listen to the old serpent? Remember it is written, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Here you join issue. The Father loves the Son: the world hates Him. Can you have fellowship with both? You must then give up the world that hates Christ, and take your place, bearing His reproach and suffering here; or you must give up Christ, and accept Satan’s world, with its pleasures, lusts, and pastimes. But not for long. These are the last days. The widespread giving up of Christ for worldly pleasures proves it. The Judge is at the door. Do not dream that God will allow men to go on forever persecuting and hating Christ. It is blessed to suffer with Him, for they that suffer with Him shall reign with Him forever. May the Lord separate all who are His from a world doomed to speedy judgment. C. S.