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We cannot get
into His life by admiring Him, or by saying what a beautiful life
His was, so pure and holy. To dwell only on His life would drive
us to despair.
We enter into His life by means of His death. Until the Holy
Spirit has had His way with us spiritually, the death of Jesus
Christ is an insignificant thing, and we are amazed that the New
Testament should make so much of it.
The death of Jesus Christ is always a puzzle to unsaved human
nature.
Why should the Apostle Paul say, 'For I determined not to know any
thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified'?
Because unless the death of Jesus has the meaning the Apostle Paul
gave to it, viz., that it is the entrance into His life, the
Resurrection has no meaning for us either. The life of Jesus is a
wonderful example of a perfect human life, but what is the good of
that to us?
We walk about imitating Jesus, but isn't it highly absurd!
Before we have taken three steps, we come across lust, pride,
envy, jealousy, hatred, malice, anger - things that never were in
him, and we get disheartened and say there is nothing in it. If
Jesus Christ came to teach the human race only, He had better have
stayed away.
But if we know Him first as Savior by being born again, we know
that He did not come to teach merely: He came to make us what He
teaches we should be; He came to make us sons of God. He came to
give us the right disposition, not to tell us that we ought not to
have the wrong one; and the way into all these benedictions is by
means of His death.
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