addressing the false teaching of “daily dying to self,” part 3
You can read Part 1 here. You can read Part 2 here.
The Christian life is not about trying to continually die, but is about being fully alive
Neither the Lord Jesus nor any of His followers who wrote the rest of the New Testament told Christians that they are to keep on perpetually dying. Instead, they clearly show that in the crucifixion of Christ the dying has already been done, and now we are called to life. Jesus said,
The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. ~John 12:22-23
This He spoke after hearing about the Gentiles who wanted to speak to Him, in anticipation of His death and resurrection that would gloriously join both Jew and Gentile in the new family called the church. At that time He only hinted (through the following verse, John 12:25) that His followers were going to be invited to enter into that one-time death and resurrection with Him.
One time. A seed falls into the ground and dies (once) as a seed, in order to bring forth far more life, not in order to continue dying. As my husband Tim has said, “Who would want to go out to his garden and say, ‘Looks like it’s doing some great dying today’?”
But maybe Galatians 2:20 says it most succinctly:
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This article has now been truncated because it has been editing and incorporated into the book . You can find that book here.
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Loving your blog posts, Rebecca! Posting this on GHW. xo
When I read Part One, I was expecting to partly disagree with you, or at least think you were out of balance on it. I thought you were going to argue against what I’ve always thought it meant to die to self, which is the ongoing living out of our unity with Christ in his death and resurrection. I’m glad to find you to be orthodox on this, but sad to learn than many people are being taught that dying to self ironically means focusing on yourself. Worse yet, that some are using it to keep others in bondage. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for reading. But in all honesty it surprises me to learn that anyone has thought of “dying to self” as actually living (instead of dying) out of our unity with Christ in his death and resurrection. They way I’ve always heard it taught is basically as asceticism. The article I originally cited, “your marriage is designed to kill you,” mentions nothing about living out of our unity with Christ in his death and resurrection, nor have any of the many, many sermons I’ve heard about it. From what I’ve heard and read it has always been about putting yourself under, self-sacrifice, trying not to think about yourself (interesting how many times you hear the word “yourself” in a typical sermon about dying to self), trying to have no desires or preferences or feelings. I’ve never ever heard it to be about living in unity with Christ in his death and resurrection.
Well, it’s certainly true that God embedded the life-from-death motif in both general and written revelation. The path to glory is always through suffering. I suppose that legitimate idea gets twisted when put through the holiness/higher-life/revivalist lens (is that what you mean by asceticism?) that formed the evangelicalism of our time. Anyway, I agree with you that Chalmers and Lloyd-Jones got it about right. They were both pretty much paraphrasing Owen’s famous work on mortification. I’ve always had the feeling that there was a chink in the Puritan armor that led somehow to the decline of American Christianity as we see it around us today. But there’s a lot there that’s helpful, too.
Actually, Lloyd-Jones, earlier in the same chapter of the book I quoted from specifically said that he disagreed with Owen. And actually again, it has been my experience that “exchanged life” teachers (rather than “higher life” teachers, whatever that term may describe) have given the clearest presentation of our resurrection in Christ. And as a side note, Hudson Taylor was the man with whom the term “exchanged life” originated–to be more specific, his daughter-in-law, who wrote his biography.
What I meant by asceticism (and I hope I didn’t use the term incorrectly) was teaching suffering as a way of becoming more holy, or being purified (whereas I would say the way we become more holy and are purified is through faith in Jesus Christ). That teaching is quite common in Reformed circles today, such as the blogger Darrell Harrison whose blog post got me started–he’s Reformed, and quoted Reformed teachers.
I don’t follow any “higher life” teachers, really–I mostly read blog posts that other people want to alert me to or ask me to comment on, and those are mostly Reformed, since Reformed thinking at this point in our time and place occupies the majority of thought in the online presence of conservative evangelical Christianity.
“…we too might walk in newness of life.” ~Romans 6:4
I never noticed the beauty and power of that scripture passage, until today.
It makes my heart feel light.
This series is wonderful. Living the Christian life shouldn’t “kill” us. The points you are making in these posts remind me of what Jesus says:
Matthew 11:29-30 (NKJV)
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me,
for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Thank you! Yes, these verses are excellent reminders. There’s also one in Acts 5 in which the apostles, I think, are admonished to tell others “all the words of THIS LIFE.”
Thank you for posting this. It is to me like a refreshing glass of cold water.
I am so encouraged to write on the subject also. Happy regards.
Thank you, Simon, and the same to you.