The Believer Becomes Dead to the World

Christ, as our sanctification, brings out a very radical reversal in the believer’s relationship to the world and in its relationship to the believer. The apostle Paul uses a very strong expression in stating it.

Galatians 6:14

“But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”

He says it is a twofold crucifixion. A double death occurs at Christ’s cross when the sinner becomes a saint. The absolute necessity for this is clearly seen when we remember that the sinner is part of the system called the world, which is Satan’s channel of manifestation and his instrument for service. The world and the Church are wholly antagonistic in their whole manner of living and working: their pleasures, pursuits, plans, and programs are as different from each other as Christ is different from Satan. So, when Christ sanctifies the believer as His own possession and for His own use, He takes him so altogether out of this world system and separates him so wholly unto Himself that he is thereafter “dead to the world.”

As soon as the believer takes this attitude toward the world and maintains his position in Christ as a consistent member of His Body, the world hates him and disclaims any relationship or affiliation with him. As long as the believer compromises and maintains a friendly attitude toward the world, the latter will be friendly, hoping to win the Christian back into its fold. But the world only loves its own and hates all that is not of it so that when the believer comes out into an open, decisive separateness, the world thereafter is crucified unto him.

John 15:19

 “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”

1 John 3:1

 “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.”

The real secret governing our abandonment of the world is our love for the Lord Jesus Himself. He loved us so much that He gave Himself for us. We are captivated by that love, and we open our hearts to receive Him, then He gives Himself to us. He in His loveliness becomes much more attractive than anything the world can offer; He in His tender sympathy, loving understanding, and exquisite love bestows upon us much more than the world can give; He in His own wondrous divine-human Person satisfies our hearts as all that the world has to give could never satisfy.

It was so in the life of a university student who was enamored of the world. She fed on worldliness; she walked and lived in it. Her clothes, companionships, pleasures, conversations, tastes, choices, in fact everything about her bore the mark of the world. She had been indulging in the gaieties of university life to an excess that troubled even her worldly-minded friends. But one night, at the beginning of the spring term of her senior year, she found Christ to be her Savior and Master. Only a few days later, she was to have attended the biggest dance of the season. She did not go but spent the entire evening in communion with her newfound Lord over His Word and in prayer. Throughout the remaining weeks of her senior year, she refused scores of invitations to similar parties. Something had come into her life that made some who had known and prayed for her very happy and made others who had accompanied her in the past very contemptuous. She would have told you that something was Someone; it was the Lord Jesus. Love for Him had made her dead to the world, which, when she no longer belonged to it, had become dead to her.

This radical reversal of our relationship to sin, the Law, self, and the world is brought about through our identification with Christ in His death and resurrection. In Christ crucified and risen, we are made a separate people for His possession and use.

Christ, our sanctification, not only made a clean-cut reversal in our relationship with Satan and everything pertaining to his sphere, but He made an equally revolutionary change in our relationship with God and everything that belongs to His Kingdom.

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Gracious Lord. This change could only be brought about by God Himself. We could never set ourselves free from the world. Thank You for dealing with it through our being crucified to it.