Please turn to Philippians 3, beginning with verse 10.
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, our hearts are full of things. We thank Thee for gathering us together unto Thyself. We thank Thee for Thy presence with us.
Dear Lord, we do sense that we are standing on holy ground. We would remove our shoes. We would prostrate ourselves before Thee and say, “Lord, what hast Thou to say? For Thy servants are listening.”
We do pray that Thou wilt open the eyes of our hearts, that we may see Thee through Thy Word, that Thou mayest truly be all to us. Unto Thee be the glory. In the name of our dear Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
We do thank the Lord for gathering us together here at this time. Every time we have such a gathering, I feel that it is the mercy of God, because we are living in the end time. The Lord is coming soon, and He is preparing us for His return.
We do believe that this is a very important time, and we just look to Him that He will bless us with Himself.
Last year, when we gathered together, we spoke about God as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Our God is triune. He is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
He is the all-sufficient God. He is everything, He works everything, and everything returns to Him.
As the Bible says, to know Him, the only true God, and the One Whom He has sent—Jesus Christ—this is eternal life.
We thank God. Now this year, our theme is knowing Christ.
This verse, Philippians 3:10, says:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death.
This is the earnest desire of the Apostle Paul. There is nothing more important to him than knowing Christ. In order to know Him, he is willing to let go of everything. He considers all things but dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Thank God, Paul knew Christ. But the more he knew Christ, the more he felt that he knew very little of Him. It increased in his heart the longing to know Him more.
This is a holy passion that motivated the life and ministry of the Apostle Paul. Our prayer is that the same passion will be upon every one of us.
We do thank the Lord that He has revealed Himself to us, but that should increase our spiritual appetite. That should create within us a longing to know Him more.
There is so much in Him that He is ready to reveal to us. To those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, they shall be filled.
May the Lord, during these days, create within us a deeper longing to know Christ. Do not be satisfied with the little knowledge you have of Him. There is so much more of Him that we need to know.
We hope that during these few days it will be our constant prayer: “Lord, create within me a longing to know You, a desire for You like the Apostle Paul.”
And you will not be disappointed, because as He has filled the Apostle Paul in this way, He too will fill each one of us.
As our brother mentioned last night, we will consider this matter of knowing Christ in three different aspects:
It is my responsibility to share on knowing Christ in His death. During these three sessions, God willing, this morning we will share together on the death of Christ as a mystery.
Tomorrow morning, we will share on knowing the meaning of the death of Christ. The morning after next will be on being conformed to His death.
I do pray, and I do hope that we all pray about it.
If you turn to 1 Corinthians 15, we will read from verse 1. This is what the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth:
Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye received, wherein also ye stand,
by which also ye are saved, if ye hold fast the word which I preached unto you, except ye believed in vain.
For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
and that He was buried; and that He hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures;
and that He appeared to Cephas; then to the twelve.
Then He appeared to above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain until now, but some are fallen asleep.
Then He appeared to James; then to all the apostles;
and last of all, as unto one born out of due time, He appeared to me also.
Now, what is the gospel of Jesus Christ? What is the glad tidings that Paul announced to the church—the gospel that we have received, in which we stand, and by which we are saved?
What is the gospel that Paul had received from above and delivered to us? What are the principal facts of this gospel?
Paul said, first of all, “that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.” Here you find several principal points in the gospel.
One is that He died for our sins according to the Scriptures. In connection with that, He was buried, to show that His death was real.
Then the second point is that He was raised from the dead. After He was raised, He appeared to many. His appearing was to prove that He indeed had been resurrected.
If you follow this on, we know that after He appeared to His disciples for forty days, He ascended to His Father.
His death, His resurrection, and His ascension tell us of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In order to know the gospel of Jesus Christ, we must not merely know it mentally—not just know that these are the facts of the gospel—but know these things inwardly.
We are to know His death in an inward way, being conformed to His death. We are to know His resurrection in an intimate way: that we are raised together with Him and live a resurrection life.
We are to know His ascension in an inward way—not merely knowing that He has ascended, but knowing that we too have ascended with Him and are seated with Him at the right hand of God.
Now this is knowing Christ. Brothers and sisters, this is the burden of this conference. May the Lord fulfill that burden in each one of us.
The death of our Lord Jesus is a great mystery. You remember John 12. Our Lord Jesus, knowing that His day had come, went to Jerusalem.
While He was in Jerusalem, you remember how He entered triumphantly. Everybody was shouting. Even some Greeks wanted to see Jesus. They came to Philip and said, “We want to see Jesus.”
Philip and Andrew went to the Lord and told Him that some Greeks wanted to see Him.
Humanly speaking, this was the most glorious time in the ministry of our Lord Jesus. It was as if the whole world was going after Him. Not only did the Jews welcome Him; even the Gentiles, the Greeks, wanted to see Him.
But listen to what our Lord Jesus said:
The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.
He spoke of His death. To Him, His death was the time of His glorification.
When you listen to what He said, it seems such a contradiction, because every circumstance seemed to show that He was so popular and that everybody was going after Him. Naturally speaking, this would be His glorification.
But in the heart of our Lord Jesus, His glorification was in His death. He is that grain of wheat. He came down from heaven into earth, and not only that, but He had to die. Otherwise, there would be only one grain of wheat in the universe.
Thank God, He came to this world and He died, and He bore much fruit.
He turned to the Father and prayed, “Father, save Me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name.”
And you remember, heaven spoke: “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” People around heard the sound, but they did not hear the words.
Our Lord said that the voice had come for their sakes. He said that if the Son of Man was lifted up, He would draw all men unto Himself. The judgment of this world had come, and the prince of this world was being cast out.
Then you remember what the Jews said in John 12:34:
We have heard out of the law that the Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest Thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of man?
Brothers and sisters, immediately you see that the death of our Lord Jesus is a mystery—a mystery that people do not understand.
How can the Christ die? He is God. How can God die? God is life. As our brother mentioned last night, He is eternal life. He lives forever. He can never die.
Yet this Son of God, our God, was to die. This is something that we simply cannot understand, because it is such a contradiction to the very concept of God.
We know that God is God. God is eternal. He is life itself. Can life die? It is a mystery.
Brothers and sisters, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
Man has fallen. Men have sinned, and the wages of sin is death. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
God is just. He is righteous, and He has to judge us. Eternal death is our portion. There is no escape. Nobody can escape this eternal death.
But God is love. Everything He does is right. He cannot compromise. Yet, on the other hand, He loves the man whom He created. He wants everyone to be saved and none to perish.
But how can this be done? Our sin has created for God a dilemma. What should He do?
On the one hand, He is just. He has to do according to what He has said:
The soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Yet, on the other hand, He is love. He loves us. What can He do? Thank God, He is God. What is impossible with men is possible with God.
You know, brothers and sisters, we gave God such trouble. Yet God is love. In order to solve this dilemma, He sent His beloved Son into this world to become a man.
Brothers and sisters, incarnation is a mystery. The infinite God should come to become a finite man. Again, we would say, “How can it be done?”
He is so infinite. He is so full. How can all His fullness be squeezed, as it were, into the small form of a man?
Philippians 2:6-8 tells us that He was equal with God.
He Who was in the form of God—and the word form means the inward character—in other words, what God is, He is. This is what the Son is. Everything that is of God the Father is of God the Son. They are one.
Yet, in order to become a man, the Bible says He had to empty Himself. He had to empty Himself of His glory, of His honor, of His position on the throne, and of all the worship, praise, and adoration that were His due.
Of course, He could not empty Himself of His deity, because that is what He is. He is God forever. Even when He came to be a man, He was still God.
But He emptied Himself of everything that surrounds God. He emptied Himself of all the rights that belong to God—the worship, the obedience, all His honor and glory—in order to take upon Himself the form of a man.
The Bible says that He Who was in the form of God took upon Himself the form of a servant.
What a distance! Who can measure this distance? In the form of God, having all the characteristics of God, and now taking upon Himself the form of a bondservant.
God has every right over everything. A slave has no right at all. When He came to be a man, He took the form of a bondservant.
Outwardly, He took the likeness of man. What does that mean? He was in every way a man. The only difference is that He was still God, and He had no sin. That is the difference.
Brothers and sisters, what love is behind this! You simply cannot imagine it. You cannot compare anything with this.
What love is greater than this? He gave Himself, not for the righteous, not for the good, but for the rebellious sinners. He was willing to give up everything to become a man.
Brothers and sisters, why must God become man? Because, as God, He cannot die. He cannot die for our sins. Only a sinless man can die for the sinful world.
That is the reason why He was born. He was born to die.
Even from the foundation of the world, He is the Lamb that was slain. He came as the Lamb of God to be sacrificed for you and for me.
After He was born, He was under the sentence of death. You remember that when He was not yet two years old, Herod the king wanted to kill Him. He had to flee to Egypt.
When He returned, He was hidden, known only to God.
When He was thirty years old, He came to be baptized by John the Baptist. What is the baptism of John? It is the baptism of repentance.
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Those who had every reason to repent thought that they needed no repentance—the scribes and the Pharisees. They thought they were too good to repent.
But here was a Man Who knew no sin. Not only had He never committed sin; He did not even know what sin was. Yet He came to the baptism of John.
John sensed this in his spirit. John said, “No, no. I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?”
Our Lord said, “Suffer it now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.”
Brothers and sisters, why? Because He went down into the water as our Substitute. He took our place, and He was baptized.
Baptism means death. When you go into the water, you are dead. When you are under the water, you are buried. When you come up from the water, you are raised into new life.
Even at the beginning of the ministry of our Lord Jesus, He began His ministry with baptism. He took the place of our death.
Throughout His three and a half years of ministry, He walked the way of the cross. You find how He constantly denied Himself and how He was obedient to the Father.
There is a word that He often used: “My hour has not yet come.” What was this hour? Then He said, “My hour is now come.” It was the hour of His death.
When He knew that the days were fulfilled, He set His face toward Jerusalem, because no prophet should die outside Jerusalem. He went to Jerusalem to die.
No man could take His life. He laid down His life voluntarily.
Even when Judas led the people to arrest Him in the garden of Gethsemane, our Lord came forward and said, “Whom seek ye?”
They said, “Jesus of Nazareth,” and they all fell backward. He voluntarily gave Himself to be arrested.
When He was judged by the high priest, they could not find any fault in Him. All the accusations were false.
Until finally the high priest asked Him whether He was the Christ, and He openly confessed:
Ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.
By His own testimony, He sealed His death sentence.
In Acts 2, Peter said that Christ was delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.
In other words, His death was according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Even though it was lawless men who crucified Him, from the foundation of the world He was already the Lamb slain.
Our Lord Jesus came to die. His death was voluntary. He willingly offered Himself through the eternal Spirit to God, that He might be the sin offering for the whole world.
The Bible says that He died for our sins according to the Scriptures. The Scriptures had already foretold that one day the seed of the woman would come, and this seed of the woman would be the Lamb sacrificed.
Brothers and sisters, even the way in which He was to die was already foretold in the Scriptures.
You remember the Psalm of David. David lived about a thousand years before Christ, and yet he was moved by the Spirit of God and wrote Psalm 22.
When you read the whole psalm, it is a description of the death of Christ. Only death on the cross could fulfill such a description.
The Jews did not have this kind of punishment. For a man to be hanged on a tree was considered to be cursed, but they killed the person first before they put him up.
It was the Romans who had this kind of punishment. They used the cross to crucify the vilest sinners—a traitor, a murderer. Even if you were a Roman, you would never be crucified, because it was so degrading, so shameful, so painful. It was a lingering death.
According to the Scriptures, that was the way that Christ would die.
Again, you read Isaiah 53, and you see the whole scene: that He died for our iniquity. Not only was He cursed by men; He was even crushed.
Brothers and sisters, the death of our Lord Jesus is unique in history. The cross is a symbol of shame, but now to us it is a sign of glory.
Never has the sinfulness of the world exhibited itself so blatantly as on the cross. The One Who loved so much was hated without a cause.
Never has the love of God been so richly demonstrated as you see on the cross. Oh, brothers and sisters, the love of God—it is for you, and it is for me.
On the cross, our Lord Jesus was there for six hours. During the first three hours, from nine o’clock to twelve o’clock, it was man who crucified Him.
Men surrounded Him and mocked Him: “You saved others. Why do You not save Yourself? Come down from the cross, and we will believe You.”
Even the two robbers crucified with Him mocked Him. All the evil forces in the world were against Him, and yet God the Father was still with Him.
But at twelve o’clock, the sun hid itself. During the last three hours, it was no longer man, Satan, or the evil forces that were dealing with Him. It was the Father crushing Him.
The Father’s heart was broken. For the sin offering, He hid His face. He could not look at His Son.
The seven words He spoke on the cross reveal to us the meaning of the cross. These are the utterances of the cross—what the gospel really is.
The first three words were spoken during the first three hours. They tell us what He has done for us on the cross.
The last four words were spoken during the second three hours. They tell us the story behind the suffering. They tell us the secret of the gospel.
When they crucified Him, when He was surrounded by those who scolded and mocked Him, when all the powers of darkness attacked Him, He said:
Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
How could God, the righteous One, forgive such sinners? Because Christ offered Himself as a sin offering.
On the basis of the shedding of His blood, He asked the Father to justly forgive us, because the righteous demand was fulfilled.
Brothers and sisters, thank God for this work. We are forgiven by the Father because of the shed blood of our Lord Jesus. He satisfied all the righteous demands of God.
God can freely forgive us. Thank God, we are forgiven. But we who have been forgiven much—why is it that we do not love much? We are so ungrateful.
The second word was spoken as He looked at His mother. Mary was at the foot of the cross. A sword had pierced her heart.
The Lord looked at His mother, and then He looked at His beloved disciple, John. He told His mother, “Behold, thy son.”
I personally believe that He did not ask His mother to behold Him. Then He told John, “Behold, thy mother.”
Humanly speaking, even in His death and agony, He still fulfilled His responsibility as a son to provide for His mother. But certainly this is more than that.
On the basis of His redemption, He created a family of God. The Lord said, “Who is My mother? Who are My brother and My sister?” Those who do the will of God are His family.
Brothers and sisters, on the cross He created a family. We are now brothers and sisters. We love one another. We belong to the family of God.
Then came the third word. One of the robbers repented and turned to the Lord: “Remember me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom.”
The Lord said, “Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise.”
Salvation comes even to the worst of sinners. There is no one whose sin is so great that He cannot save. Thank God for that.
This is what the gospel has done for us.
Then it was no longer a matter between man and Christ. God had accepted His sin offering. God crushed Him.
He was able to bear all the sufferings that came from men and from darkness, but when the Father turned away from Him, it was unbearable.
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
It was no longer the relationship between the Son and the Father. It was the relationship of God and sinful man. He Who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God.
God is righteous. He even crushed Him because He accepted His Son as the sin offering. This is the cross.
For three hours, our Lord Jesus, as it were, tasted the very wine of eternal death.
Then He said, “I thirst.” Of course, when you lose so much blood, you are very thirsty. But I believe that is not the main point.
I believe our Lord was saying, “I thirst for God. Even though You crush Me, even though You forsake Me, I still long for You. I thirst after You.”
Oh, brothers and sisters, our Lord was faithful even to the very end. He was not offended by His Father. Under the crushing hand of the Father, He told God, “I thirst after You. I love You.”
Before He died, He gathered all His strength and shouted:
It is finished.
Oh, thank God! It is finished. The work of redemption is finished.
Because the work was done, He committed His spirit to the Father. His relationship with the Father was restored.
Oh, thank God, the work is done. Brothers and sisters, this is His death.
His death is so unique. There is no death that can be compared with His death. We glory in His death.
Dear Heavenly Father, we do praise and thank Thee for Thy amazing love. We cannot imagine how it hurt Thee to give Thy beloved Son.
Dear Lord Jesus, why do You love us so much? We who are so unworthy, undeserving, and ungrateful—and yet You love us to such an extent.
Oh, the cross of our Lord Jesus. Lord, we glory. We glory in Thy death. We worship Thee.
Because Thy love first loved us, keep us in Thy love. Enable us to be constrained by Thy love, that we may no longer live for ourselves, but for Thee. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
We thank the Lord that He has spoken to us. May we not only be hearers of the Word, but also those who see.