In his final section of
The Cross of Christ, Stott examines the benefits available to those who are "Living Under the Cross."
Chapter 10 looked at the believer's entry into "The Community of Celebration." Chapter 11 looks at the change that takes place in the believer's "Self-understanding and Self-Giving." Stott writes, "The cross revolutionizes our attitude to ourselves as well as to God."
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"Self-Understanding and Self-Giving"
By union with Christ, we have shared in his death and resurrection, and so have ourselves died to sin and risen to God; we must therefore constantly remember this fact and live a life consistent with it. (Rom.6:4, 11-14) William Tyndale expressed it in characteristically vivid terms at the end of his prologue to his work on Romans:
Remember that Christ made not this atonement that thou shouldest anger God again; neither died he for thy sins, that thou shouldest live still in them; neither cleansed he thee, that thou shouldest return, as a swine, unto thine old puddle again; but that thou shouldest be a new creature, and live a new life after the will of God, and not of the flesh. (2Cor.5:17)
Granted this fundamental fact about all who are in Christ, namely that we have died and risen with him, so that our old life of sin, guilt and shame has been terminated and an entirely new life of holiness, forgiveness and freedom has begun, what is to be our attitude to our new self? Because our new self, though redeemed, is still fallen, a double attitude will be necessary, namely self-denial and self-affirmation, both illumined by the cross.
Self-denial
The invitation of Jesus is plain: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follw me' (Mk.8:34) ...'daily' (Lk.9:23). If anybody does not take his cross and follow him, he is not worthy of him and cannot be his disciple (Lk.9:25-26).
Every rebel condemned to crucifixion was compelled to carry his cross, or at least the patibulum (the cross beam), to the scene of his execution. ...To take up our cross, therefore, and follow Jesus, is 'to put oneself into the position of a condemned man on his way to execution. ...Our cross, then, is not an irritable husband or a cantankerous wife. It is instead the symbol of death to the self.
To deny ourselves is to behave towards ourselves as Peter did towards Jesus when he denied him three times. The verb is the same (aparneomai). He disowned him, repudiated him, turned his back on him. Self-denial is not denying to ourselves luxuries such as chocolates, cakes, cigarettes and cocktails (though it may include this); it is actually denying or disowning ourselves, renouncing our supposed right to go our own way. 'To deny oneself is ... to turn away from the idolatry of self-centeredness.'
Paul must have been referring to the same thing when he wrote that those who belong to Christ 'have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires' (Gal.5:24). No picture could be more graphic than that: an actual taking of hammer and nails to fasten our slippery fallen nature to the cross and thus do it to death. The traditional word for this is 'mortification'; it is the sustained determination by the power of the Holy Spirit to 'put to death the misdeeds of the body', so that through this death we may live in fellowship with God.
Self-affirmation
The self we are to deny, disown and crucify is our fallen self, everything within us that is incompatible with Jesus Christ (hence his commands 'let him deny himself' and the 'let him follow me'). (Luke 9:23) True self-denial (the denial of our false, fallen self) is not the road to self-destruction but the road to self-discovery.
So then, whatever we are by creation we must affirm: our rationality, our sense of moral obligation, our sexuality, our family life, our gifts of aesthetic appreciation and artistic creativity, our stewardship of the fruitful earth, our hunger for love and experience of community, our awareness of the transcendent majesty of God, and our inbuilt urge to fall down and worship him.
Whatever we are by the Fall, however, we must deny or repudiate: our irrationality, our moral perversity, our blurring of sexual distinctives and lack of sexual self-control, the selfishness which spoils our family life, our fascination with the ugly, our lazy refusal to develop God's gifts,our pollution and spoliation of the environment, the anti-social tendencies with inhibit true community, our proud autonomy, and our idolatrous refusal to worship the living and true God. ...Christ came not to redeem this but to destroy it. So we must strenuously deny or repudiate it. ...Christians can no longer think of themselves only as 'created and fallen', but rather as 'created, fallen and redeemed'.
Self-sacrificial love
Neither self-denial (a repudiation of our sins) nor self-affirmation (an appreciation of God's gifts) is a dead end of self-absorption. On the contrary, both are means to self-sacrifice. Self-understanding should lead to self-giving. The community of the cross is essentially a community of self-giving love, expressed in the worship of God and in the service of others. ...With the love of God both revealed to us and indwelling us, we have a double, inescapable incentive to give ourselves in love to others.
...the choice between selfish ambition and sacrifice. Jesus' affirmation that 'the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve' was startlingly original. ...He calls us to follow. ...His new community is to be organized on a different principle and according to a different model - humble service.
...the choice between comfort and suffering. We...regard security as our birthright and 'safety first' as a prudent motto. ...Where are the Christians who are prepared to put service before security, compassion before comfort, hardship before ease? ...Insistence on security is incompatible with the way of the cross. What daring adventures the incarnation and the atonement were! What a breach of convention and decorum that Almighty God should renounce his privileges in order to take human flesh and bear human sin! Jesus had no security except in his Father. So to follow Jesus is always to accept at least a measure of uncertainty, danger and rejection for his sake.
