Called To Die

The apostle Paul prayed -

"That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death." (Phil. 3: 10)

Experiencing the power of Christ's resurrection follows experiencing his death. "Being made" is linear in tense and means "being continually made to conform." It also precedes "that I may know...the power of his resurrection." In other words, if you would know the power of his resurrection and to participate in his sufferings, you must be experiencing his death.

But, what does it mean, practically, to be made "conformable unto his death"? We know what it means to be conformed to Christ (to obtain his character). Paul said: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son" (Rom. 8: 28). 

To be conformed to the image and likeness of Christ is opposed to being "conformed to this world" (Rom. 12: 2). The work of "being conformed" is also called a being transformed, being a spiritual and moral metamorphosis, involving being "renewed" in "mind." (ibid)  It is a "coming to be" more and more like Christ in character so that one has "the mind of Christ" (I Cor. 2: 16), and "the spirit of Christ" (Rom. 8: 9), and "the heart of Christ." Such a person thinks like Christ, feels as Christ felt, and behaves as Christ. 

Being conformed to his death is a "being made like him in his death." So, how are we like Christ in death? Does that mean we must die by Crucifixion as he? Though many Christians have so imitated Christ by dying as a martyr, even by crucifixion, many have not. Yet, they nevertheless imitate Christ in other ways by experiencing death. Wrote Paul:

"For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more; death has no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he lives, he lives unto God. Likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Rom. 6: 5-11)

To be in union with the resurrection life of Christ one must also experience union with his death. In regeneration or new birth the believer dies in one sense and revives in another sense. Paul says that one of the things put to death (mortified or crucified) is the "self," what he calls the "old self." When the self has been put to death by apprehending the death of Christ (in conversion) the person is "alive to God." Where there has been no death of the old self (or "old man") there is no new man, no new self. When the self is alive to itself and to sin and the world, it is dead to God. When the old self rules the heart the sinner is enslaved to sin. When Christ and his resurrection life and power kill the old self, the self no longer has dominion, but Christ has the dominion. Believers are dead to self, dead to sin and the "body of sin", but they are alive to God. This is what it means to be "united with him in a death like his."

Death of Ego (self)

"For I (ego) through the law died to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I (ego) who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." (Gal. 2: 20)

Of the six times the pronoun "I" is used by Paul in the above words, only two of them are translations of the Greek word "ego." The other times the pronoun is part of the verb. 

Says Vine's NT Words

"I: is the nominative case of the first personal pronoun. The pronoun, "I," however, generally forms a part of the verb itself in Greek; thus luo itself means "I loose," the pronoun being incorporated in the verb form. Where the pronoun ego is added to the verb, it is almost invariably, if not entirely, emphatic. The emphasis may not be so apparent in some instances, as e.g., Mat 10:16, but even here it may be taken that something more of stress is present than if the pronoun were omitted. By far the greater number of instances are found in the Gospel of John, and there in the utterances of the Lord concerning Himself, e.g., Jhn 4:14, 26, 32, 38; 5:34, 36, 43, 45; 6:35, 40, 41, 48, 51 (twice), 63, 70; instances in the Epistles are Rom 7:9, 14, 17, 20 (twice), 24, 25; there are more in that chapter than in any other outside the Gospel of John."

Simply put, when a sinner turns to the Lord in faith, he both dies and is resurrected to life. He dies to self, to the world, to sin. When Paul was converted he says that his "ego," his self, died. Before that time his ego or self was sitting as king of his heart but afterward Christ took that place. In Paul's Roman epistle he wrote:

"I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I (ego) died." (Rom. 7: 9) 

The pronoun "I" is from the Greek word "ego." As previously noticed, it is rarely used because Greek verbs included the pronoun in their forms. The exceptions, as in this case, are pregnant with meaning. When a sinner is converted and made to believe the gospel and trust in Christ, his ego is dethroned in his heart and Christ takes the ruling place. Ego dies. The self becomes the "old self," and the self becomes a new self, a new man. A converted sinner becomes what he was not before. 

Taking Up The Cross

"And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9: 23)

"For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it." (Mark 8: 35)

Involved in taking up the cross is the idea of dying to self, of losing one's life, of denying self. This death is a prerequisite for coming to new life. You lose life in order to find life. In this you may then refer to your "old life" and of your "new life." Where there has been no real dying to self, real denial of self, there is no new self or new life. To take up the cross daily is to "die daily." (I Cor. 15: 31) But, as we die daily we are invigorated in our new life.

Things to Crucify

"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who 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 for me." (Gal. 2: 20)

"And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." (Gal. 5: 24)

What I wrote earlier about the word "ego" (I) applies to the former verse. Ego has been crucified with Christ when the sinner believes in Christ. Ego no longer lives, no longer has sway and dominion, but Christ rules.

Not only is the self, the ego, continuously being put to death (mortified and crucified), but so too "the flesh," especially "with the affections and lusts" of it. Thus, "being conformed to his death" involves such death to the flesh, to the carnal nature.

Christ died to sin. The believer also has died to sin. (Rom. 6: 10) Not in exactly the same sense, however, for Christ dying to sin does not imply any sin of his own (he took on the sins of others). Recall that Paul said:

"Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more; death has no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once..." (Rom. 6: 10)

Christ did not die to self, to ego, for he had no need in that regard. But, he did die to sin, meaning that the sins he bore were taken away and cast into the sea of forgetfulness. Notice these words of the apostle Peter:

"Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God." (I Peter 4: 1-2)

Notice how Peter shows how believers are being made conformable to Christ's death. He also wrote, in the same context, these words:

"Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy." (12-13)

In these words we see how persecution for Christ is a way in which believers partake of the sufferings of Christ. Recall too that Paul said - "Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." (II Tim. 3: 12)

Always Dying Yet Always Living

"Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you." (II Cor. 4: 9-12)

Expositor's Greek Testament gives this excellent commentary on these words (emphasis mine).

"The climax of the preceding antithesis is now reached: “Dying, yet living” (cf. 2 Corinthians 6:9). πάντοτε τὴν νέκρωσιν κ.τ.λ.: always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the Life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body; for we which live are ever being delivered over to death (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:23 below) for Jesus’ sake, that the Life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. The key to the interpretation of 2 Corinthians 4:10 is to observe that 2 Corinthians 4:11 is the explanation of it (ἀεὶ γὰρ κ.τ.λ.); the two verses are strictly parallel: “our mortal flesh” of 2 Corinthians 4:11 is only a more emphatic and literal way of describing “our body” of 2 Corinthians 4:10. Hence the bearing about of the νέκρωσις (nekrosis - SG) of Jesus must be identical with the continual deliverance to death for His sake. Now the form νέκρωσις (see reff.) is descriptive of the process of “mortification”; and the νέκρωσις τοῦ Ἰησοῦ must mean the νέκρωσις to which He was subject while on earth (gen. subjecti). The phrase περιφέρειν τὴν νέκρωσιν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ conveys, then, an idea comparable to that involved in other Pauline phrases, e.g., “to die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31), “to be killed all the day long” (Romans 8:36, a quotation from Ps. 43:22), “to know the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death” (Php 3:10), “to fill up that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh” (Colossians 1:24), the conception of the intimate union in suffering between Christ and the Christian having been already touched on in 2 Corinthians 1:5. And such union in suffering involves a present manifestation in us of the Life of Christ, as well as ultimate union with Him in glory (Romans 8:17, cf. John 14:19). The phrases “if we have become united with Him by the likeness of His death, we shall be also by the likeness of His resurrection,” and “if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (Romans 6:5; Romans 6:8), though verbally similar, are not really parallel to the verse before us, for they speak of a death to sin in baptism, while this has reference to actual bodily suffering in the flesh. And the inspiring thought of 2 Corinthians 4:10-11 of the present chapter is that Union with Christ, unto death, in life, has as its joyful consequence Union with Christ, unto life, in death. It is the paradox of the Gospel over again, ὁ ἀπολέσας τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ εὑρήσει αὐτήν (Matthew 10:39)."