The Third Stage - The Way of the Cross or Fellowship in Christ’s Sufferings

God often uses external circumstances to lead a soul into the third stage. He places him into circumstances that force the self-life into the light. He points out the many manifestations of the self-life in detail by letting them pass before his inner eye. This is how God’s light judges the self-life by degrees. Seeing that a soul can choose freely, he can either agree to the judgment he has received through God’s light, or he can reject it. However, in this stage the soul is apprehended of Christ. His entire longing is to say, “Yes” to Him, whether it concerns judgments or commands. Even though there may be moments when we become conscious of many things, we do not fear because we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”

God’s light judges the self-life, and the sentence is always death. Our entire self-life was sentenced on the cross. By faith the soul now dies to his self-life in and through Christ.

The self-life constitutes the transgressor in man. Until now God’s grace has shielded the transgressor so that he has not seen the depth of his corrupt nature, because he could still not bear it. John says, “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” John 1:17.

At first God let us experience the abundance of His grace, but now we are told this profound truth through God’s light that our own life is utterly corrupt. If we acknowledge this truth, it will liberate us from the folly that the light reveals.

As always, we can also now choose freely. We can live with grace over our self-life, or we can agree with God in His judgments and let the transgressor die. A deeper degree of righteousness will gradually replace our self-life as it dies, and this is what the Scriptures call “pursue righteousness.”

We are free indeed from whatever we have died to; we are justified. This is how death works in us. 2 Cor. 4:12. An inner crucifixion of the self-life is in progress. What is true of the cross of Christ on Calvary (the objective truth) now becomes true in us by faith (the subjective truth). The word of the cross is the power of God to those who are being saved. 1 Cor. 1:18. We receive power to lay our life down. The Holy Spirit leads us to the cross, and the cross is the door to an increasingly deeper life in God. If we die with Christ, we shall also live with Him. On the way of the cross we acquiesce in God’s righteous judgments. We meet God on His ways of judgment, and we judge the self-life together with Him by saying “Yes” to all God’s light. By going on the way of the cross, our love for God steadily increases, as well as our hatred for our “self.”

The love of God that has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit results in an intense hatred against everything that hinders love. Everything that is a hindrance to our walk with God was condemned in Christ on Calvary. Therefore we love the cross, the place where our self-life can die. The way of the cross becomes a consuming power. Everything that hinders us in the race is cast off. We learn that we must not spare “ourselves” or “our own.” Those who spare themselves are enemies of the cross of Christ. They spare their folly to their own detriment. Satan is always behind these words: “Spare yourself.”

As our self-life is destroyed, sufferings arise in our soul. The sufferings precede death. In Philippians 3:10 we read: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” We partake of the power of His resurrection to be able to bear the fellowship of His sufferings, as the dying of Christ works an inward crucifixion. This dying works until we have been molded into the likeness of Christ in His death.

The judgment that was executed in Christ shall now, by faith, be executed in us. These inner judgments pronounced by God’s righteousness cause pain, because death is constantly working. Paul says, “Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.” 2 Cor. 4:10. “Dying,” in this passage of Scripture, is expressed by the word “nekrose” which means “a wasting away of myself.” Our goal is to be conformed into the image of Jesus in His death. The sufferings increase as God cleanses and purifies us in the oven of humiliation. God points out not only the things that are evil, humanly speaking, but also the things that seem to be good. Everything that is part of our self-life must be removed whether it seems to be good or bad. It is often hard to die to something that appears to be good. Only when we are about to lose something do we realize how much we treasure it. Yet God, in His love, takes everything from us. We must unreservedly forsake everything; we must die to it. By faith we take these spiritual leaps out from ourselves. It is as if we have to close our eyes when we in faith take these leaps out into darkness—into the darkness of death. But what happens when we take these leaps? Oh, what light, liberty, joy! What power! We meet God’s revealed glory! Beneath us are the “Everlasting Arms.” This is the marvelous, mysterious way to liberty, a way that is understood only by those who walk on it. It is the way of darkness in Jesus’ steps. We break through to new light, new joy, and new treasures. The divine life is revealed beyond death. It will be revealed to the same degree that we die. The works that have been done under the blessings of grace will cease to the same degree that we die, so that that which is divine can be manifested. These are works that flow out from the well of righteousness, which is life itself. This is the fruit of an exceeding grace. It is great grace that the pardoned transgressor is allowed to die.

During this dying process, the sufferings can often be so intense that we might ask whether God has forgotten us. Yet in the midst of the sufferings love grows each day for the hand that wounds. We become lovesick. Our love increases precisely because of this process so that we are apt to cry out: “Sustain me with cakes of raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am lovesick.” Song of Sol. 2:5. What an amazing life of love and hate, joy and pain.

At this point God delivers us from everything that is evil as well as from what we would call good. The last is the most difficult to let go of, yet God delivers us from all bonds that might still bind us so that He can bind us to Himself. It is as if we were robbed of everything and nothing was left behind. We have become truly poor. Surrendered to God we have nothing else to do but to cast ourselves into His arms—into the arms of Him who is the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. 2 Cor. 1:3-4. Everything outside of God fails; it is so fleeting, so restless. This is how God prunes us of everything that is of ourselves so that He can fill our entire existence.

Under these conditions God draws us through all hindrances. This drawing of the Spirit affects us as a deep longing. This longing is essentially an inner prayer, often without words, that penetrates the innermost recesses of the heart. Prayer in the third stage is different from prayer in the second stage since it is a pure prayer of the heart, whereas prayer in the second stage is more of an all-encompassing prayer for the things that lie within our sphere of interest under God’s blessing. There we can often pray for hours under God’s blessing, but in the third stage our entire existence is a prayer.

Under these conditions we lose more and more of that personal feeling of abundance that we had in the second stage when we felt that we were rich and strong; we pass into poverty of spirit. This poverty of spirit gradually increases as God removes all faith supports. Faith supports are gifts and blessings from God that transport us into a state of pleasant well-being. Many believers continue with these faith supports for their entire life, either because they want them for the sake of enjoying pleasant feelings, or because they cannot bear to lose them, and so they do not dare to step out in blind faith. When these faith supports fall away, poverty of spirit increases. Now we become poorer and poorer in ourselves. We think that all goodness from God is undeserved and gladly take sides with God against ourselves; that is how great our hatred is against our self-life. During this whole process we feel so poor and unworthy that even the goodness of others can have the effect of a cross. We think that instead of goodness, punishment would be more fitting. In the end we are so surrendered to God that we feel at home in our pain; we even feel a deep love for the pain. If one day the pain lessens we wish it back again even though it comes as a consuming fire in the depths of our being.

Now we learn to love God’s consuming fire over our self-life just as much as we previously loved Him when He, like a glorious breeze from heaven, enveloped us with His gentle grace. Now we learn to know God’s righteousness. In the midst of God’s righteous death sentences over our self-life, our love for God increases; for throughout the sufferings and trials fellowship with God becomes purer and more beautiful. Now we see in truth that God, in the midst of His righteousness, is pure love.

During this entire process, we learn a valuable lesson: we enter more and more into a state of holy indifference. We are content with God’s will regardless of how He deals with us. Yes, we find that we are content with His will even if He casts us out into outer darkness. We have learned to know God as a righteous God.

At this stage we are very subjective. In God’s light we have become accustomed to judging ourselves. We have become introspective; therefore we will detect the slightest inner expressions and motions. We have become like a photographic plate. We have become accustomed to looking for God’s light that it might reveal the self-life. We have learned not only to rejoice in God’s gentle caresses, but also in His judgments—even under protest from the flesh. It has been a joy to deny the flesh the least amount of breathing space, the least consolation.

As God lets our self-life pass before our inner eye to get our approval for its death, we learn and become increasingly exercised in discerning between good and evil. Heb. 5:14. Because we have now been tried in many things, we can help others in their sufferings with the comfort with which we ourselves have been comforted by God. 2 Cor. 1:4.

In this state, our whole desire is to please God, and we are willing to be in all kinds of circumstances in order to be as close to God as possible.

Besides the sufferings we endure by dying to ourselves, we also have to go through the objective (external) trial of purification. This is when we are tried by others. We die to our self-life by faith, and now this faith is to be tested in our daily circumstances, for the just shall live by faith. We are being set free, or justified, from our self-life by faith, and we shall live in this liberty by faith. Now our faith is being tested in life’s battles, which are always battles of faith, and if we are grounded in our faith we will overcome. If our faith fails, we must go through the purifying fire again for the same thing. If we overcome by faith, then we can suffer, the just for the unjust, as Jesus did. This is very fruitful, for thus we can lead others to God. 1 Pet. 3:18. For if we suffer as a just person, we receive power to forgive.

In this state we have to contend with severe temptations from Satan who always attempts to dishearten such a soul, which is the same as murmuring against God and being dissatisfied with His ways. A person in this state often thinks that another way could be easier. Feeling abandoned by God, he will seek consolation from others in his own agonized sighing.

In the midst of these battles and sufferings, poverty of spirit, meekness, humility, mercy, etc., will grow up. These are virtues with which we are being blessed. They grow quite naturally out of the soil of suffering without us even knowing about it. The sufferings brought us before God’s face, and in His presence we were ever so beautifully enriched. These virtues are expressions of our inner walk with God. As the heart is, so is the outward appearance. Therefore such a soul has a wonderful effect wherever he is. Because his self-life is being crucified, he has the effect of a cross on others. His beauty is a judgment over all the carnality of the people he meets on his way. However, since this judgment is paired with meekness and humility in his God-fearing mind, it has a humbling effect on the others. We can truly say that he has received a meek and quiet spirit that is very precious in God’s eyes. Since he is lowly in his own eyes, he harbors no thought of exalting himself in the eyes of others. He is what he is, for he looks up to God and forgets himself. God’s virtues radiate gloriously from his life. What a marvelous life; the sufferings have made him oblivious to himself, which is why he is so gloriously open.

How amazing is Your love, O God! You nurture our love for You in a thousand different ways by means of gifts and blessings, and You take them back again only so that, by means of a deep longing, we should fall deeper into Your arms who has given us all this. You give and You take back only so that the souls might become poor, and that You can satisfy them again even more deeply than ever before. You bind them to poverty so that in their need they will cling to Your riches, enriching them in the midst of their poverty. Poverty produces a consuming longing for God’s riches. When God’s Spirit sheds light over these things in God, or the profound, spiritual states we can enter into, then this produces in us these deep longings that force their way to the surface from the depths of our heart. When our eyes are opened to these riches in God it is as if we fell back precisely into the opposite of what we have seen. At such moments we almost don’t know whether we should dissolve in despair or be consumed by longing. This longing is an even deeper prayer for these things. God will fill all our need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Phil. 4:19. The entire person is permeated by this longing for suffering, paired with the wonderful joy of hope. We become an object of God’s power that draws us toward these glories. We allow ourselves to be drawn, but the nearer we come the poorer we feel.

It draws and draws, deep down inside,
Your power divine, to make me chaste—
My longing heart e’er seeks to hide
Deep in my dear Lord’s strong embrace.

E’en though these drawings suff’ring cause
Yet sweet the joy deep down in me.
Weeping and yearning fill my soul.
To be, my God, just lost in Thee.

The entire Divine Life seems like a surging tidal movement. The low tide carries away all our deep longings and takes them in mighty currents into God’s immense ocean, and yet the water level remains low; it seems even as if we are being emptied. This is abject poverty of spirit, and this poverty is an irresistible prayer, an intense crying out for God’s infinite grace, for God Himself, for Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit in His fullness. The low tide is like the unveiling of a yearning and grieving woman who would rather remain veiled so that none might see her blushing countenance, or her tears full of longing.

Oh, the cries that proceed from the depths of the heart! Only God knows their depths. Words would only diminish the cries, causing them to die away just as the wind loses itself in the distance. This is a yearning of the heart, nurtured by eternal powers paired with the deepest peace. This cry reaches the depths of God’s heart.

Once the tide has swept away everything, absolutely everything, leaving the impression that only an infinite emptiness is left behind which only infinity can fill—an incomprehensible poverty which only incomprehensible riches can fill—there is silence as if before a storm. Mighty powers are released in God’s depths; the sea begins to roll like a mighty wave that seems to sweep away everything that is found out there. It seems as if emptiness draws fullness to itself, as if poverty is more powerful than riches, as if nothingness is stronger than omnipotence; for it seems as if it would draw everything to itself—even to God in His eternal fullness, who now floods us with an abundance of love, which brings with it the object of our infinite yearning.

It is as if the hidden forces of eternity were moved just to fill the yearning of one soul and to satisfy his heart’s desire! Even heavenly words can hardly express the contents of such a spiritual tidal wave. Even angels cannot comprehend it, but the Eternal Word in the depths of the heart conveys in a glorious way the depths of God to the rejoicing soul.

This is poverty of spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven! Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Matt. 5:3-6. It is as if these beatitudes applied to just such souls.

Everything we receive from God is hidden treasures in our spirit. They must not be viewed with a carnal eye, for that will produce a human sense of well-being over the spiritual state in which we are. Therefore we need to be poor in our spirit. This will have the effect of making us feel lowly, as if we possessed nothing even though we possess much—as if we knew nothing even though we know much. This goes against all human reasoning. This is where we meet divine anti-logic (against all human reasoning). This biblical anti-logic is part of the depths of God’s wisdom, which includes infinitely great grace. This grace bestows God’s riches on us, yet we do not become great because of it.

“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” Rom. 11:33.

God continues to lead us further; He wants us to go through an even deeper cleansing. We have to go into the fire over and over again. God’s words are pure words just like silver that is purified seven times in an earthen furnace. Ps. 12:6. Someone who is to be molded according to God’s Word must be cleansed and purified many times in the crucible.

God has given us poverty of spirit as a means whereby we can lay hold of His riches. God provokes us to love by means of blessings and tests us through sufferings.

We get a glimpse of our poverty of spirit, our meekness, and our humility. We get to see the condition of our receptivity for God’s riches. This condition is revealed in our poverty of spirit, meekness, and humility. Now we begin to appreciate these things. Consequently we speak about them and invite others to seek them. God is jealous; He wants to possess us only in purity, and therefore He deals with us in marvelous ways. As soon as we get to see our virtues, we begin to cherish them. However, God is zealous for this soul. When we begin to regard our virtues, such as: poverty of spirit, meekness, humility, and inward prayer, they will vanish. We cherished these virtues and did not consider the fact that it was actually God’s riches that produced them. When we contemplated our virtues, our gaze was diverted from the riches in God. When these riches vanished from before our eyes, the virtues vanished as well.

Oh, what poverty! We loved our poverty and forgot God’s riches.

Previously we had lost our sense of spiritual riches; now the time has come for us to lose our spiritual poverty.

Now our eyes are really being opened. We are apprehensive and astonished. We begin to seek semi-consciously what we have lost. We are filled with the pain of self-accusation and despair. Now God leads us into situations in which unexpected depths of our self-life appear, and God purifies us to an increasingly deeper degree. We feel so shallow in our Christian life during this entire process. We lack that depth of content, therefore we seek everywhere for these lost treasures. We call out to God to regain these lost virtues, that profound spiritual state, that inward prayer. If we seek for joy, we meet pain; when we seek pain, we find none. We find nothing to lean on. We feel utterly forsaken. The hope of regaining what we have lost fades into the distance; we have to die to what we esteemed so highly. However, now we experience what we experienced previously each time we died to something: we awaken to a richer life in God.

Again we are translated into the clarity of the Spirit. The wine has become clarified. Now we can say together with David when his son died: “Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” 2 Sam. 12:23. God did not answer this prayer.

We did not regain the virtues that we lost. Therefore we say together with David: “I shall go to Him.” His son had gone to God. Death had come in between. In God David found again what he had lost, and in God we will find again what we have lost. It is found in Him by dying to it.

Oh, love of God! You took these things only to lead us deeper into Yourself. What was lost is found again in You where it is never lost. We lose a part in order to find it again in the whole. We lose the virtues in order to find them again in their source. Now God Himself fills that which was lost.

The truths that we have received must also be sacrificed. We were inclined to go back and enjoy them repeatedly instead of letting them work as a link to lead us further. We are inclined to stop at a part instead of pressing into the whole.

Our recollection of these things grows dimmer and dimmer. God does not want us to revert in our thoughts to enjoy His truths set up like a library in our memory. He would rather that we have communion with Himself in spirit, with Him who is the source of all thoughts, both great and small, with Him who is the One Great Fundamental Truth, the solution to all of life’s innumerable thoughts. He leads us into the core of life where diversity is gathered into unity, where everything is life.

God desires everything as an offering; even the fruits we bear have to be offered up to Him. Whatever we offer up we will regain as an eternal possession. We learn that we must not love that which is only a part, but we must rather love Him who is everything, who fills all in all. Furthermore we learn that everything we have received through sacrifice becomes like a step that leads us further.

Everyone is inclined to go back to the last blessings he has received. However, these blessings dissolve in life so that they cannot be found anymore. Therefore we must again and again seek the source of all blessings so that the content of our life is increased.

God always cleanses a soul more thoroughly before He leads him further. Each blessing is preceded by a new cleansing. Each descending phase is a preparation for the next stage.