Entering the New Covenant by Death to Self - David Wilkerson

Entering the New Covenant by Death to Self

It is a wonderful truth of the New Covenant that the Lord longs for His children to come closer to Him. In fact, He can never get us as close to Him as He desires. He continually unites and binds and fashions us to draw us nearer. As we lay down our vain attempts to earn salvation through our own efforts and embrace the saving work of the cross, our new life within the covenant begins.

The New Covenant, as I have noted, is a binding contract between Father and Son. God sent His Son to redeem a lost world, and Jesus fulfilled His mission through the cross. Since every believer is one with Christ through faith, we are also partners in the contract. This means that we, too, have an obligation. As God draws us closer, our response, our requirement within the contract, is obedience. The burden to obey God in all things is binding upon us.

The question then becomes, How can we ever hope to achieve a life of obedience, a life that is not dominated by sin?

You will recall that in forming the New Covenant, God promised on oath to supply all the enabling power and strength we need to fulfill every condition and demand of the New Covenant. So, when God says by oath, "I will do it," faith in us responds, "Let it be so."

Just as God made a way for our salvation through the cross of Christ, He makes a way for us to take up our crosses and walk in this new life. The New Covenant is all about our Lord's commitment to keep His children from falling, and to console, comfort and assure us that the power and dominion of sin can and will be broken by the Holy Spirit who indwells us.

The Holy Spirit will supply all the resources we need. This truth is the sole hope for those believers who have lost heart in their struggle to walk in obedience. Only by having the New Covenant unveiled to us can we learn the secret to having victory over sin.

Lessons from the Depths

I had yearned for years to understand the New Covenant, believing it could prove to be the wondrous truth that is able to deliver a sin-bound Church in these last days of unprecedented corruption. I pursued this truth diligently, reading every book on the subject I could find, but they were all too technical and mysterious. I wanted to see and experience the power of the New Covenant in my own life. If it is truly the secret of power over the dominion of sin, it had to work in a practical way in my own struggle for purity of heart. I told God that if it did not work in my own life, I could never preach it to others.

So I offered my life and ministry to the Lord as a kind of spiritual laboratory in which to test and prove the truths He was showing me. Now I can tell you, His unveiling of the New Covenant to me has been the most life-giving, sin-destroying truth I have ever known and experienced.

For years, since the day God promised to reveal to me the truth of the covenant, I had been praying, "Lord, when will You open to me its meaning?"

He answered, You must experience the cross before you can understand it. The doctrine of the New Covenant and your understanding of it will come only after you go through the process of taking up your cross and dying to all that is of self.

I do not believe we can truly understand the New Covenant until we have gone down into the depths of what it means to die with Christ. I have always known the details of the cross of Christ. Ever since I was a young minister, I preached the cross in vivid pictures. I spoke with sincerity about the sadness of Jesus when He heard of Peter's denial, the crown of thorns pressed into His skull, the mockers, the taunting cries of the mobs, the nails piercing His hands, the sword in His side. I preached passionately, taking the people from the Garden kiss of Judas to the final cry, "It is finished!" But all of that detail - including the pathos of the Calvary scene - is not the deepest meaning of the cross. Most of us know about the physical episode of Calvary - but few have experienced and understood the real spiritual meaning of the crucifixion of Christ, let alone our personal cross and what it means to die with Him.

Jesus had crowds following Him everywhere He went. On one occasion, He stopped suddenly, turned to the masses and said, "You can't be My disciples unless you take up your cross and follow Me" (see Luke 14:27). Many believers have heard this phrase all their lives: Take up your cross and follow Me. We read Jesus' words, "He who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me" (Matthew 10:38). "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (Matthew 16:24). Then Paul declared, "But God forbid that I should boast (glory, KJV) except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14).

Here is the issue: I cannot be Christ's disciple unless I take up my cross. I cannot obey Him unless it is by the way of the cross. I am not worthy to be His child except by embracing the cross. I am called to glory in the cross. Obviously, it is the key to understanding the New Covenant. But how can I take up the cross, embrace it and yield to it, if I do not know what it means?

Taking Up the Cross

How many definitions of the cross have you heard in your lifetime? I freely admit that for many years I never had the cross shown to me in a way that satisfied my deepest longings about it. I could not preach its fullness because I had not experienced it. And theologically it remained a mystery to me.

In desperation I challenged the Lord, "Father, You know I'm anxious and willing to take up my cross and follow You. But where is it? And what is it? You say it is my cross. And Paul said I must be crucified, I must die. But, Lord, how can You call me to embrace a cross I don't understand? And if I don't understand it, how will I ever come into the knowledge of the New Covenant?"

Answer honestly: Do you understand the meaning of the cross, your cross, your dying, in a personal way? Can you explain to me what taking up your cross means to you, and what happened as a result of your doing it?

Here is the most prevalent explanation I have heard: The cross is some burden - some disturbing element, some kind of painful yoke - such as a chronic illness or a thorn in the flesh. But that definition does not come close. The cross Jesus is talking about is much deeper and darker than all of that. I have heard people say, "Her cross is her wicked, cursing husband." Or, "He hasn't had a day free of pain in twenty years. That's his cross." No - the cross is much more than all of these things.

I am not going to tell you what I know doctrinally about the cross, but I will share with you what I have experienced of the cross. (I am still working on the theology of it all; that will come.) What I am about to share may not make sense to many, but perhaps those who struggle for freedom in their own strength will understand it. Here is my experience of the cross.

Down into Nothingness

I experienced the "going down into nothingness." Now, I am not interested in the dictionary's definition of nothingness. All I know is that I came to the end of myself - down, down, down into a place of total helplessness.

I had struggled long and hard to be obedient to the Lord, striving earnestly to live a holy life and to be pure. I had tried diligently to beat down every passion and lust in my body and mind. I had read many books and listened to many teachers, looking for keys, insights, secrets to living the life of an overcomer. I had wept until there were no more tears. I had walked and prayed, I had knelt and prayed, I had lain on my face and prayed. I had read my Bible until my eyes were weary. I had begged the Holy Spirit to cut off my offending right arm, pluck out my offending right eye, do whatever He had to do to rid me of all besetting sins. I wanted to be a pleasure to my Lord so badly.

Then one day I could take it no more. On that day, I could not even pray. All I could do was lie on the floor, empty in spirit, with no tears left. Engulfed in a sense of failure, I could only say, "Lord, I cannot go on like this anymore. I am worn out. I have tried and failed. After all my searching through books, all my study, all my efforts to be a conqueror, I still battle with the flesh. My temptations have not let up. I have tried to be a living sacrifice. I have struggled to live by faith. I have tried diligently to live and walk in the Spirit, to allow Him to lead me and empower me. But I still don't get it. I still don't understand why it's not getting through to me."

Down into nothingness I went - where the cry is, "Lord, I can't struggle anymore. I have nothing in me to offer You - no merit, no plea. I have no more power, no more fight. I am weak, helpless. I'm clueless as to what I need to do."

Down to nothingness - where you know nobody on this earth can help you. No counselor, no loved one, no friend, no minister. It is a place where you know that unless the Lord comes to change you - to open your eyes and show you the way - it cannot be done. It is a place where you know beyond any shadow of a doubt you can do nothing on your own. It is where you once and for all face the truth that all your struggling and striving in the flesh have gotten you nowhere, and now everything depends on Him. If there is going to be revelation, He has to give it. If there is going to be deliverance from besetting sins, the Holy Spirit has to do it. If things in my life need fixing, He has to fix them. If I am to be a blessing and joy to Him, He has to make it happen. If I am to walk in the Spirit, He has to show me how. If the Holy Spirit is to empower me to defeat lust or passion, it must happen by imputed faith alone. I am now out of the picture. Out of nothingness must come His supernatural strength. My promises are worthless because I cannot keep any of them. My striving is in vain because I have nothing to work with.

Down to nothingness - where I no longer have a will of my own. On my own I am helpless, "will-less." I have given up my will because it has failed to accomplish any spirituality in me at all. At this place, I found myself on solid ground to remind Jesus that He Himself could do nothing on His own.

Then Jesus answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.... I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me."

John 5:19-20, 30

It was there in my nothingness that I told Jesus, "You were God in flesh, yet You needed the Father's direction. You could do nothing on Your own. How could You expect any more of me? If You needed help and direction with every step, how much more do I need You to guide me in everything? How much more helpless am I without the same love and guidance from the Father? Jesus, You said Your Father loved You, and, therefore, He showed You 'all things that He Himself does.'"

If I am in Christ, and His Father is my Father, then I am also loved. And He must show me all that He wants to do through me, for Him.

Then said Jesus to them, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things. And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him."

John 8:28-29

Nothingness - a place where you feel abandoned. You love Him, you desire Him, you know that He is, but you feel that for some unknown reason He is silent. His revelation is not coming to you. He is not answering your heart's cry for a clearer vision of what you are going through.

In such an hour, Jesus cried to the Father, "'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?' which is translated, 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?'" (Mark 15:34). I made the same cry: "Father, all I want is to do Your will and please You. Why must I bear this sense that I'm on my own? Why do You not respond in my desperate time? Why is my soul so cast down with feelings of rejection and confusion?"

Breaking Through the Clouds

When Jesus said to His followers, "Take up your cross and follow Me," He meant, "You will go down the same path to death." A cross experience is when you think God has turned a deaf ear to your cry for righteousness and holiness. For a season your prayers go unanswered, and your heart rises up and begins to reason: "All I wanted was to be like Jesus - to walk in victory, to be a joy to Him, to enjoy sweet communion. But this? Why is there no clear way, no reassurance? Why is this darkness in my soul - this feeling of speaking into God's ear, yet He appears not to hear? Why does it have to be so complicated?"

It is at this point in His crucifixion that Jesus broke through the devil's cloud and cried aloud in faith. "When Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, 'Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.' Having said this, He breathed His last" (Luke 23:46).

Breaking Through the Clouds. It happens when in my nothingness, I surrender my will - I quit struggling and striving. I now become wholly dependent on Him. The matter is now out of my hands completely; God has to take over. His Spirit must take me into death and raise me up as a new man. I give up the ghost, the independent life of flesh. Death to all ambition. Death to boasting and trying to impress others. Death to doing anything on my own. Death to my plans, desires, will. Death to all my striving to please Him. And, most of all, death to my past flesh-faith.

How many times have I struggled to muster up faith and tried to pump it up with promises? I repeated over and over, "Lord, I believe, I do believe, I really believe. I really, truly, honestly believe." But it did not work. (You can always tell a request that is of the flesh, because it comes with a deadline. We give God what we consider long enough to act - but when He does not perform on schedule, our so-called faith turns into ugly unbelief.)

I, a licensed, ordained Baptist minister, was also addicted - a slave to my own efforts of salvation.

I have spent the better part of my life working to help people get free from life-controlling addictions, including every type of drug imaginable. Running a Christian recovery home, I have had to deal with heroin and cocaine addicts, alcoholics and the latest scourge of addiction, methamphetamine. As a professional social worker I have seen the damage that addiction wreaks on families. Everyone around an addict ends up strangling, dying slowly, one broken promise at a time.

After more than 25 years I thought I had seen all the tricks and traps of addiction and witnessed all the death she had to deal until one day through Brother Dave's teaching on the New Covenant, I discovered that I, an ordained minister, was also addicted - a slave to my own efforts of salvation.

Understanding this teaching was like putting a mirror before my own religious masks. I had been tricked into trying on different masks that left me "powerless over my addiction." I had tried all that my addiction had to offer: rules, rituals, religious fervor and stoicism. Ultimately, like any true addict, I failed them all and hid my failure and rejection in even more religion.

I had read all of Brother Dave's books and heard him preach a hundred sermons, and they had been medicine to my selfish, sickly heart. But ultimately no book or sermon could undo the bonds of a religion based on self. I was trapped in a web of my own spinning, and the face on the spider was mine.

Comprehending the New Covenant was at once an arrow through my heart and the transplant of a new one. Yes, I was saved. I had been saved since I was a boy, but like most other preachers I know, I would be up, then down, then tossed to and fro. It took a lot of effort and time just to stay afloat. The epiphany for me came when I learned that I didn't have to struggle or swim - but, safe in Christ, led by the Holy Spirit, I could float.

My life changed when I learned that. My preaching changed. And the greatest thing about it was I really didn't have a thing to do with it, nor did I need to do anything to keep it going. When Christ said, "It is finished" on the cross, it was!

Rick

Death - it is the only way out of the Old Covenant and into the New. "Flesh-faith" has to die. No more striving to believe. If I am to have faith - true faith, the faith of Christ - He has to give it to me. We have been given a measure of faith - yet if it is true that I can do nothing of myself, then this includes having His faith. That is why Scripture calls it "the faith of Christ."

Paul wrote:

I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.

Romans 7:9-13

Are you sin-sick? Are you truly yearning to live a holy life, free from the habituating lusts of the flesh? Then get ready to die. Get ready to embrace the cross. The Old Covenant will bring you to your wits' end - to nothingness. When you have given up all hope of overcoming sin by your own human power and will, then you are ready to enter the glorious realm of freedom through the New Covenant.

Death - it is the only way out of the Old Covenant and into the New. "Flesh-faith" has to die. No more striving to believe. If I am to have faith - true faith, the faith of Christ - He has to give it to me. We have been given a measure of faith - yet if it is true that I can do nothing of myself, then this includes having His faith. That is why Scripture calls it "the faith of Christ."

I agree that Unbelief is not a passive sin resulting from not having received the faith only CHRIST can give. Unbelief is an active refusal of the grace that is offered through the hearing of the word.

The best example is when they refused to enter the Promised land. They heard the word of God but they did not respond in faith.

Yes we do have the responsibility to believe and the Gospel message contains and gives us the ability to respond.

Lets not forget that Jesus Christ is our ONLY true source of faith that exists.

Heb 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Heb 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Gal 2:19 For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.
Gal 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: neverthless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Gal 2:21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

This is HIS faith!!

Great explanation, mak.

Jesus Christ comes into those who are actively receptive to Him (requires faith).

"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:" (John 1:12)

It requires faith to receive Him. Prior to receiving Christ, man exercises faith all of the time to receive or reject individuals, beliefs, ideas, etc., in his life. Faith is nothing new to man.

And continuiing in our new walk with Jesus, He continues to spiritually indwell those who are receptive to Him by faith.

"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I LIVE BY FAITH in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal.2:20).

Initially in regeneration, as we received Christ by being receptive to the activity of His Holy Spirit, we must continue to walk by this same active receptivity of Him. He continues to be active in our lives after regeneration and we must be receptive in faith to the Lord's moving in our lives, everyday.

Ongoing faith is the responsibility of each Christian, for it is not Christ’s faith, but our faith in continuing to receive His activity in our life.

"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord (by faith), so walk ye in him (by faith):" (Col 2:6) ("by faith" added by me. Just adding the obvious). We receive the regenerating work of Christ and during our walk we actively receive the sanctifying work of Christ by faith.

It must be our faith to receive and we only receive (John 1:12), meaning we do not generate our own salvation. Salvation is a Person and we are RECEIVING a PERSON. The Giver does not do the receiving. Just because we receive does not make us anything special. The Giver is still the treasure. We exercised faith to receive the Treasure.

"For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?" (1Co 4:7)

Again, unregenerated man exercises faith to receive and reject, everyday. The faith that he exercises to reject a slick used car dealer and receive someone else who he does trust is the same faith he will use when he is given revelation by the Holy Spirit concerning Jesus Christ, and the Truth of the Gospel.

"This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" (Gal_3:2)

And what did we hear? The Truth of the Gospel.

"But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Rom 10:16-17)

The Spirit of Christ is freely available to any person willing to receive Him by faith.

"Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness”
(Gen. 15:6).

In Gen 15:6, Abraham was reckoned righteous because of his faith, not God's faith. Abraham, willingly put His trust in God in sacrificing his son, Isaac. Abraham responded to God's direction (activity in his life). "When he was called, he obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going" (Heb 11:8). Abraham, by faith made himself available to God. He did not just say, through mental ascent, "I believe". He responded with action.

When a person is regenerated, they must in faith respond with action to receive Christ.

All through the Bible, man must engage by faith to receive the Lord's activity in his life.

In the very beginning God encouraged man to "eat freely” (Gen. 2:16) from any tree in the garden of Eden including, and particularly, the "tree of life” (Gen. 2:9). But, He created man to be receptive to His voice (direction) which is all received by faith.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ does not promote nor teach passivity in receiving the blessings of the Lord, the chief blessing being the Lord, Himself.

This is true. I DO NOT TEACH PASSIVITY but an Active and real union with God that produces fruit.

There is a great difference between "works of the Law" and "the work of faith". Obedience is simply faith in motion. Faith is not complete in a static mental state, rather it only finds its completion in the action that flows out of the heart.

The relationship between this faith and works is a dynamic synergy of the grace of Christ influencing our hearts to respond with the actions that actually "perfect" the faith Jesus is inspiring. They are interdependent, not in any way mutually exclusive. It is not one or the other, but a marriage of the two.

We are very active in the entire process, but not even the minutest part of that action can take place apart from the grace of Christ. So apart from Him, we can do nothing, but He works in us to will and "to do". Our doing is the active part of the perfecting of the faith He is finishing in us. As we obey - we abide - as we abide - we obey.

AMEN

It was written by David Wilkerson.