Being Conformed to His Death

“That I may know Him . . . and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” Phil. 3:10. “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection.” Rom. 6:5.

The sufferings though which we are made like Him in His death are the sufferings mentioned in the section entitled “Denying Yourself” under #2: “Those are the sufferings we experience when we deny ourselves and when our self-will suffers death on the cross.”

In the resurrection of the dead, the glory of each person will vary greatly. 1 Cor. 15:41-42. It will correspond exactly to the degree to which we have been united with Him in the likeness of His death during our time of grace. Paul had obtained a great deal of the life of Christ. What he had not obtained was that full and entire union with Christ in His death. This is what he pursued in order to lay hold of it, and this is what we should do as well.

If day after day and year after year, we faithfully reckon ourselves to be crucified with Christ and remain on the cross, then, little by little, sin will in fact die. On the cross we become conformed to His image. And in the same measure that we become conformed to His image, the spirit in our inner being is conformed to His glorious life.

In the resurrection we will receive a glorified body that corresponds exactly to the inner glory of our spirit that we have gained in the days of our flesh; and the measure of that inner glory depends on how much we have become like Him in His death.

Conformity to His death becomes conformity to His life. If such a death does not become reality in our lives, it is because we do not believe in it.