Crucified and Resurrected
One day He went to the cross. He was crucified, and He died there. However, because He is the very God, the source of life, after He died, He resurrected. It may seem rather difficult to believe in the resurrection of Christ. In the Bible, however, we have a very good illustration, that of a grain of wheat. When someone sows a seed, he buries the seed in the soil, and the seed dies. It truly dies, but after death something grows up. In 1936 I went to the old capital of China, Beijing, and I was invited to the home of a professor at one of the biggest universities in China to help some young students to believe in the Lord Jesus. After my preaching, an intelligent young student came to me and said, “Mr. Lee, there is one thing that I cannot get through. If you can help me to get through it, then I will believe what you are preaching here. I cannot believe that a person can die and then be resurrected.” On that campus there were some fields of wheat growing in the wintertime in North China. I pointed through the window and said, “Look at the wheat. Do you see resurrection there? Just two months ago people sowed the seeds into the earth. The seeds died there, but after death something grew up. The seeds resurrected because within the seeds there is a powerful, dynamic life. You can bury a seed, but you cannot bury the life in it. If you bury a piece of rock, it is really buried, and that is the end. Nothing will grow up, because there is no life. If you bury a seed, however, after a certain amount of time it grows up. Christ is the very God who is the source of life. To put Him into death was not to put Him to an end; that simply helped Him to grow up. Within Him there is life, and this life is a very dynamic power. Christ died on the cross, and then He resurrected.
“A seed has a certain kind of form, but after it dies and grows up, the form changes. After His resurrection, Christ changed in form; He was transformed. This is something too wonderful and too mysterious, beyond our understanding. Can you explain how a small round seed after death and resurrection becomes tall and green? Only God understands the law, the principle, which governs a seed. One little round seed grows up to be a tree, another grows up to be a flower, and another grows up to be wheat. Moreover, all wheat is of the same form. There must be a law governing that, which only God knows.” Through this illustration, that young man in the university was saved that day. After he believed, he started to love the Lord, and he was very much used by the Lord. Today he is a leading one in the church in his locality.
I wish to impress you that Christ is the most wonderful One in this universe. He is God, and He is the very Creator. One day He became a man; then He died on the cross, He resurrected, and He has been transformed into a wonderful form. Today He is first called the Savior and then the Lord. Moreover, He is also the Spirit. If I had the time, I would refer you to all the verses that tell us these things. When Christ was crucified on the cross, He was the Redeemer. Now today, after His resurrection, He is the Spirit as the living Savior. He is the mighty Savior, the Lord, and the Spirit. He is the Spirit; this means that He is just like the air, so available to us. Wherever we are, there He is, and wherever we go, there He goes, just like the air. We cannot separate ourselves from the air. Today we have the word pneumatic. This is what the Spirit is. Christ is the very Spirit today. I repeat: He is God, the Creator; one day He became a man, and He died on the cross as the Redeemer to redeem us; then He resurrected and was transformed into the Spirit. Today He is the Spirit as the living Savior, and He is our Lord. As the Spirit, He is everywhere; He is so available. When we receive Him, we receive Him as an all-inclusive One. In Him is God. In Him is the Creator. In Him is man, the Redeemer, and the Savior. In Him we have the Lord, and He is the very Spirit. This is the first item we have to know. I am presenting these items to you in a very brief and simple way.
THE WORK OF CHRIST IN HIS DEATH
We must also know the purpose for Christ’s death on the cross. First Peter 2:24 says, “Who Himself bore up our sins in His body on the tree, in order that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness; by whose bruise you were healed.” The tree refers to the cross. For what purpose did Christ die on the cross? It says here clearly that Christ died on the cross to bear our sins. In the Old Testament, Isaiah 53:6 says, “We all like sheep have gone astray; / Each of us has turned to his own way, / And Jehovah has caused the iniquity of us all / To fall on Him.” When Christ died on the cross, God laid all our sins, all our iniquities, on Him. Here, therefore, is the forgiveness of sins and the remission of sins for us. We all have to realize that Christ died on the cross to bear our sins. This is what we call the work of Christ. We do have the problem of our sins, but praise Him, He died on the cross and took away all our sins! Our problem of sins was solved on the cross.
(Preaching the Gospel in the Way of Life, Chapter 6, by Witness Lee)
