Six Great New Testament Words — Bill McLeod

Six New Testament Words for Christian Victory

There are a number of New Testament words which, taken together, spell victory in the Christian life. Some of these words are not pleasant words. The revival message has a hard edge, a rather hard leading edge, and sometimes people hear one message and, boy, that's it.

They don't want to hear any more of this. They feel threatened, afraid. As a matter of fact, you know what a fellow told me? He lived close to 3 ,000 miles from Saskatoon, and he just heard somewhere that there was a revival in Saskatoon, Canada, and he said, The minute I heard it, I became afraid, because I knew my own life was not right.

Denying Self to Follow Christ

And a year and a half or so later, he experienced renewal, but the defenses started going up it seemed right away. The first word is the word deny. The Lord Jesus said, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself.

Do we live this way? It's been called the first article of the gospel, and the word deny there means utterly repudiate, utterly repudiate self. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

Now sometimes there are some people who say, Well, you know, there's a difference between the teaching of Jesus and the teaching of Paul in the epistles. Is there really? Well, Paul said in Titus, the second chapter, For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works.

No, there's no difference between the teaching of the gospels and the epistles, because the teaching of the epistles are the teachings of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit in the apostles. It's just the ongoing teachings of Jesus Christ, that's all, nothing more, nothing less.

All right? Do we live this way that we deny self? But the Bible says we should. As a matter of fact, what the Lord Jesus Christ is saying there is, you can't really follow me unless you deny yourself.

Oftentimes, you know, in becoming Christians, all we have really done is switch toys. We're still playing, playing games with God and with other people. And we see this over and over again. We had a young man come forward in a meeting, and he was just on the verge of kicking over the faith entirely.

His father was a Christian worker, not a pastor, but the church they attended was one of those evangelical churches where the people were playing games with God. And as I counseled with that young man, he was very bitter, and he said, you know, what's Christianity all about?

He said, in our church they play games. I said, like what? He said, well, in our church the game is who has the most skidoos. And he said, one family has five skidoos, and they're top dog on the ladder now.

He said, is that what Christianity is all about? I said, no, it isn't. But I told him, I'm not really interested in what's happening in your church. I said, what's God saying to your heart about your sin?

I asked him if he'd be willing to pray the prayer, Search Me, O God. I said, you know about the sin in the church. What about sin in your own life? And he got honest, and God humbled him, and he poured out his soul, and he had plenty of things wrong in his own life.

And that night the Lord just thoroughly renewed him. And then that kid began to soul win. And he led fifty or sixty kids to Christ in the next twelve or fourteen months. He went out on the streets after the hard rocks.

He was not interested in trying to win church kids to Christ. He told his dad, Dad, I'm going to go out in the streets and get those hard rocks. So Friday night they had a little meeting for the hard rocks in the basement of his home.

They started with zero and wound up with fifty. They finally had to hive off and have two meetings on a Friday night. And then he went to the Winnipeg Bible College, and then God called him to the mission field.

I don't think he's quite there yet, but he's had three years at Winnipeg Bible College. And when I talked to him last fall, we had lunch together. He was planning to go, I think, to Indonesia was the field he felt God was calling him to.

But, you see, his church was one of those churches that had two services Sunday morning, and the finances were booming. And they were strongly evangelical, but they were not practicing the denial of self.

Crucifixion: Position and Experience

If any man will come after me, let him utterly repudiate himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. The second word is not any nicer. It's the word crucify. You know, there are two aspects to crucifixion.

One is the positional, and the other is the experiential, or the experimental side. And the positional is this, Romans 6, verse 6, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, or as one translation says, might be rendered powerless, that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin.

Now that's the positional aspect. I am, literally Paul was saying in Galatians 2 and 20, I have been, I have been crucified with Christ, but there's a vast difference between my position and my actual condition.

Illustrated by the story you may have heard about the hen that sat on the eggs for eight months. Her position was perfect, but her condition was rotten. And sometimes, you know, our position, we understand that, and people tell me, I don't know what all the fuss is about the crucified life.

I've understood this from the day I was converted, that I was crucified with Christ, but they're not living a crucified life. And it really, on the practical level, hasn't done anything for them at all.

It's just a nice doctrine, acute doctrine, that's in the Bible, that doesn't have any practical value or appeal, apparently, at all. So there. What about the experimental aspect of being crucified with Christ?

That comes out in Romans chapter 6 too, but a little later down in the chapter, in the 10th and 11th verses, it runs like this. It says, In that he, Christ, died, he died unto sin once. And the Greek word there means once and for all.

Jesus never died twice. He died once and for all unto sin. But in that he lives, he lives unto God. And the first word of the next verse is the word likewise, and that in the Greek, you know that same word there is sometimes translated by the phrase, after this manner, or in this fashion, likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed, uncrucified, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now there's the experimental application, and it begins with reckoning self to be nailed to the cross, once and for all, that I am crucified with Jesus Christ, so that this strikes me where I live. And then I can deny self, and I'm happy to do it, because in doing this I then experience the power of God.

Galatians 5 .24 says,. And they that are Christ have crucified the flesh. Have you done that? You see, otherwise it's just a cozy little doctrine, that's all it is. But at some point, if I ever expect to be used of God and to be the kind of Christian that Jesus Christ can shine out through, then I have to know Galatians 5 .24 in an experimental way.

And they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the passions, the affections, and the lusts. Have they ever done that? Many people have been helped in this way, by praying a prayer such as, O God, nail me to the cross, or O God, put me on the cross, or O God, identify me completely with Jesus Christ in his death and burial and resurrection.

Because after all, the New Testament says of the Christian believer, that we're crucified with Christ, we're dead with Christ, we're buried with Christ, we're risen with Christ, we're ascended with Christ, and some day we're returning with Christ, because them also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

And there will be, please remember this, there will be more people coming with Christ than will be caught up to meet Christ in the air. Do you ever think of that? There are more Christians in heaven than there are on earth, they've been going over for hundreds of years, and Paul talked about the whole family of God, in heaven and earth.

And there are far more believers on that side than there are on this side, so when Jesus Christ returns, there will be more people with Christ than will be caught up to meet him in the air. Something we rarely think about.

Experiencing Crucifixion with Christ

Well, the word is crucify. I think of a man who was a deacon in one of my churches, a beautiful soloist, a very accomplished speaker, taught a Bible class, but you could turn him loose in a crowd of 2 ,000, he'd do as credible a job as any preacher could do, very much in demand because of these gifts that God had given him, but on his own confession, not living a victorious life and certainly not walking in the Spirit.

He was a high school teacher, he became a high school assistant principal, eventually became a professor in a university, but he said, Bailey said, in all those years, I never once, although I was known as a Christian, I never once had a student come to me for counseling.

And I was holding meetings somewhere and he heard about it and came to the meetings and his wife came forward Sunday morning, they were just there for the weekend, he came to talk to me afterwards and said, well, Pastor Bill, it's either a case of I get it straightened out now or else I go home and have to come back another 400 miles, I don't want to do that.

He said, can you counsel with me? And so we counseled together and he said, you know, my wife and I have been searching our hearts, we've been praying for God to search our hearts for weeks on end and as far as I know, there is no sin in my life that is grieving the Holy Spirit, I'm keeping short accounts with God, but he said my problem is the self problem, I don't know what to do about that.

He said, I'm full of pride, monstrous pride in my life and so on. He described it to me, how he was, how he felt. And so finally we went to prayer and I said, well, just ask God to nail you to the cross.

Well he began to pray, it's one of those prayers I like to have on tape, but since I don't have it on tape, I guess God didn't want it on tape, was just like he was praying as if he had both hands on the throne of God and he was literally thundering to God and you would not think that his prayer was too theological perhaps, but his prayer was, oh God kill it, God kill it.

He told me after, he said, I don't believe that this means that I'm totally dead to sin and cannot sin anymore, I don't believe that, but he said, oh I know that God has nailed me to the cross. Because you know halfway through this intense prayer of his, his whole soul was wrapped up in it, he suddenly said, oh what peace, what peace.

And you know the Lord just touched his life at that moment. I tried to talk to him about being filled with the Spirit, I really didn't need to, because God had filled his life. Well he went home and the very next Sunday he preached in a church and a revival broke halfway through his sermon and a lady called out for help, she said, I need to be counseled and prayed with right now, I can't wait, and so he stopped the meeting and gave an altar call and some deacons and other people came forward and this revival broke and more happened in one meeting than he had seen happen in all his Christian experience.

And he phoned me that night 400 miles away and talked for 40 minutes. And in the next, I don't know, would it be a year or 14 months or whatever, he had, he had counseled with no less than 400 students.

Some of these he led to Christ and others he was able to lead into the deeper walk with God. Now what happened? Had he learned some new trick, some new gimmick? Not at all. He had learned what it meant on the experimental level to be crucified with Christ.

He'd always known that positionally he was crucified with Christ, but it wasn't working out on the practical or the human level at all, and he knew that. And he asked God to make a change. So there is this difference between then the positional and the experimental.

Is there that difference, that gap in your own walk with God? Oh people, we need to face the cross. What all this implies, it's death. Colossians 3 and 3, the Lord said, you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God.

How dead is dead if God says it? Now then, to go back for a moment to that word reckon in Romans chapter 6. The Greek word here has many English equivalents in the New Testament. That is, there are many different English words translated from that same Greek word from which the word reckon is translated.

And looking at these words I think will help us to get an overall picture of the meaning of the word reckon. For example, the word count, the word account, the word think, the word believe, the word esteem, the word impute, they are all translated from exactly the same Greek word.

So I am to reckon, count, account, esteem, think, believe, that I am crucified with Jesus Christ. Old John Trapp was a Puritan commentator, born 1601, and they're reprinting many of his works today, they're excellent, and I could hardly wait to get a hold of his book on Romans and see what he thought about the crucified life way back then.

Is it something new? And here's what he said on Romans 6 .11. He said, By faith, reason and reckon yourselves to be holy dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord, who died as a common person.

So by faith I am to reason and reckon myself, I am to count myself, I am to account myself, I am to esteem myself, I am to believe myself crucified with Jesus Christ. But obviously you can only reckon by faith, by faith, and so by faith you have to put yourself on that cross in a once and for all context and way.

That verse in 1 Corinthians 15 that says, I die daily, has been for years wrongly applied to the crucified life. If you leave it in context there, all that Paul is saying is, due to the nature of my work, I find myself facing death every day.

It has got nothing to do with the crucified life, not at all. Now I'm glad to notice that some modern, deeper life writers have recognized this and are saying so. So it's not a matter of being crucified every day.

There's a once and for all aspect to this crucifixion with Christ. I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. Don't you think Jesus Christ can live the Christian life better than you can?

My counselor Howard Gardner, often when he had people at the front after a meeting, he would ask them this question. He would say, now if you people find the Christian life hard to live, they'd all go like this, oh yes, oh yes.

No, no, no, he'd say, it's not hard, it is impossible. And he would let that sink in. Then he would explain that the Christian life, only Jesus Christ can live it. And he wants to live it out through you and out through me.

It's not your love made stronger, it's the love of God in our hearts by the Holy Spirit's power. Jesus Christ loving through me, Jesus Christ witnessing through me. I mean, this is taught in the Bible, because you'll notice in Galatians 2 .20, right after Paul says, I am crucified with Christ, the next thing he says is, Christ lives in me.

Christ Living Through the Believer

Oh, yes he does. But I remember hearing a preacher one time years ago, and he's describing a certain church where they had a statue of Jesus Christ, and his hands were outstretched like this, and the caption was, come unto me.

But this statue was in a corner of the church. Well, then the church caught fire, and the only thing they rescued from the church was this statue of Jesus Christ, and it had him standing out on the sidewalk, with the arms upraised, saying, go all the pastors by, come unto me.

Dear people, it's like that with the average Christian. We've got Jesus Christ stuck away in a corner inside, and he's not beseeching anybody, and we need to get him outside. Let Jesus Christ take over in the heart and life.

If I'm willing to die to deny self and be crucified with Jesus Christ, then there will be no difficulty here. Jesus Christ will live his wonderful, his beautiful life out through me. I don't know if I shared this here or not, I don't think I did, but this particular lady who came for counseling, she said, I'd like to experience renewal, because my life I know is not really right with God as the way it ought to be.

But she said, if this means I have to love my mother-in-law, forget about it. She said, just thinking about her now, and the heckles rise up in my head. And she said, I'm so glad I live in Minneapolis and my mother-in-law lives in New York.

So we talked about this, and finally I asked her this question, I said, do you think Jesus Christ loves your mother-in-law? She said, yes. So I said, tell me now, how much would he love her? Well, she said, I guess Jesus Christ would love her with all his heart, and I said, that's exactly right.

Now, I said, don't you think Jesus Christ could love your mother-in-law with all his heart, through you, if you were willing to die to yourself? And she thought, oh, wait a minute, she said, you mean that it's not my love?

I said, not really, it's Jesus Christ loving through you. And she got on her knees and experienced a renewal, and she phoned her mother-in-law, and they talked for 30 or 40 minutes. She told us in her testimony, she said, you know, we laughed and we cried and we prayed over the telephone, we fell in love with each other, and she had to go and follow the next day and talk another half hour.

Mortifying the Deeds of the Body

I don't know what the bill was, but anyway, it was Christ lives in me, deny, crucify, and what's another awful word, mortify. Romans 8 says, Romans 8, 13, if you live after the flesh, you shall die. If you through the Spirit do mortify, that means put to death, the deeds of the body, you shall live.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Now he's saying there exactly what we've been considering already, and you know, in Colossians chapter 3, there are two very important verses here, closely related, verse 3 and verse 5.

You see, verse 3 says, you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. And verse 5 says, die therefore, mortify therefore. One translation says, so once and for all put to death, once and for all put to death, mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth.

So what the Lord is saying is this, positionally you are dead, now experimentally once and for all die. There's a little book called The Corn of Wheat, by Gladys Nash from England, and there's one statement in the book that's worth the entire book, the price of the book, it's this.

She said, it is not doing, but dying that produces fruit in the Christian life. Do we understand this? Except the kernel of wheat fall into the ground, and what? And doth, it abides alone. But if it doth, it brings forth much fruit.

And there are two laws here, I want you to notice them. And they are as immutable and as eternal as God himself. The first law is this, if you don't die, you'll be forced to live a fruitless Christian life.

And the other law is this, if you do die, your life will become fruitful. So the secret is dying, not doing, but dying to self. And when we doth, then there's a resurrection, and Jesus Christ then, he takes over the throne of our heart, and he begins in the power of the Holy Spirit to live his life out through me.

And then there's blessing, which could not be there before. Sometimes people take that verse, John 12, 24, that we just quoted, about the kernel of wheat, and say, well, Jesus was talking about himself, wasn't he?

In the long-range context, yes, but in the immediate context, no. Because the very next verse, he says, if you try and save your life, you'll lose it, and if you lose it, you'll find it. And he was talking to disciples, and about disciples, if we're willing to die, then we'll have fruit, and otherwise we will not have.

And it's not really a case of having a better program. It's a case of dying. Have you ever asked the Lord to read out your obituary notice in the courts of heaven? Ever told God, God, I'm willing to die to myself to become absolutely nothing, so Jesus Christ can become everything?

Now, if you pray that kind of prayer, God will take you up on it. And it'll be costly, maybe, too, because, I mean, dying is not a nice process, but oh, it's a secret of victory and fruitfulness, mortified therefore your members which are upon the earth.

And how, if you, through the Spirit, I can't do it myself, I can't nail myself to that cross, I can't do that, but through the Holy Spirit, I certainly can. And of all those tens of thousands of animals that were offered on Jewish offers in Old Testament days, not one, not one took its own life.

In every last case, other hands have to do the slaying. And yet somehow when it comes to being crucified with Christ, we think we've got to do it. I have to be willing, but other hands will have to do it.

God has to do it. If you, through the Spirit, and certainly the Holy Spirit, you know, in Galatians chapter 5, it says the flesh lusts against the Spirit, against the Spirit of God, and the Spirit lusts against the flesh.

Did you ever think of that? That the Spirit of God is warring against the flesh in your life and in mine? Now then, if I'm willing to agree with the Holy Spirit, he's going to make a job, a work, of the flesh.

Sanctification Through the Word

That's why often more happens in a few minutes sometimes than has happened in years, as we were saying earlier, when the Holy Spirit's in it, then there's another word, it's the word sanctify. It's a good Bible word, Old Testament, New Testament, but there's God's side and my side.

God's side and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray, God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calls you who also will do it.

Billy Sunday, the famous Presbyterian American evangelist, used to say, I wish the church of God was as afraid of imperfection as it is afraid of perfection. And Mr. Maxwell, the principal of the Prairie Bible Institute, one time a fellow came and he said, Mr. Maxwell, isn't it terrible, isn't it an awful doctrine, this doctrine of perfection that some people think you can get so holy you can't sin?

Mr. Maxwell looked him in the eyes and said, what's the matter, have you got a dirty heart? You know, Mr. Maxwell, he didn't believe in sinless perfection, but he knew that when people get talking this way, it's often because they have problems in their life, and actually they're unconsciously reacting because of the problems they have in their own heart.

The word sanctify is a good Bible word. Jesus Christ prayed, sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. So we read in Ephesians chapter 5, Jesus Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

So God is trying to sanctify you and I. The word basically means to set apart, to set us apart for his honor and his glory, and God is trying to do this through his precious word, sanctify and cleanse us with the washing of water, with the word, by the word.

Every time I read the Bible, something ought to happen in my heart. Every time I listen, something ought to happen in my heart, and it will, because the word of God has that power, thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me, but if I store up the word of God in my heart, the word of God will keep me then from sin.

Now that's God's side, all right? The very God of peace, sanctify you wholly. What about man's side? Second Timothy 2 .21 says, If a man therefore purge himself from these, he's talking about, you know, a house where there's two kinds of vessels, those that are used for menial tasks and those that are used for other things, better things.

For example, you've got slop pails and water pails, and you don't carry fresh drinking water in a slop pail, and you don't put slops in a water pail. And so he says, If a man therefore purge himself from these, from the slop pails, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, set apart, and fit itself for the master's use.

If I am dirty, Jesus Christ can't put his hand to my life and use me the way that he wants. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and fit for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work.

Prepared, the best preparation on earth is to be sanctified, to be set apart, purged from those that are walking in sin. You know, even in Bible school, I said to a young man one time, he was going to Bible school, and I said, Now listen, when you get to Bible school, you maybe have an idealistic attitude about Bible school, and you may feel when you get to Bible school, all these kids are on fire for God.

I said, Don't you believe it? You know, some kids go to Bible school hoping they're going to find a life partner there. Other kids go to Bible school because their parents are mad at them, and they make them go.

People have all kinds of reasons for going, and I said, You're going to find in a Bible school exactly as you'll find in any church, you'll find some kids that mean business for God, and you'll find other kids who are just hangers-on.

So I say, Be very careful of the company you keep, or you can waste three good years. When he got back, he said, Pastor, boy, was that ever true? Was that ever true? If others want to travel at a snail's pace, well, don't walk with them.

Love them, yes, but you're going to have to probably leave them behind if you're going to walk with God. If a man, therefore, purged himself from these, he should be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and fit for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work, the best preparation in the world.

Magnifying Christ Without Shame

Sanctified? Then there's the word magnifying. Philippians chapter 1, Paul said, According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death.

By life or by death, that Jesus Christ might be magnified in his body, and the opposite of this is being ashamed, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also, Christ shall be magnified in my body.

Like he said, whether it be by life or by death, it doesn't really matter. You remember that text we took one night, 2 Timothy 1, 6, be not all there for a while. That's the seventh verse. But the sixth verse, where he talks about rekindling the fire, and the next verse says, Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.

So there are afflictions that go along with the gospel. The Bible says, Let us go forth, therefore, unto him, unto Christ, outside the camp, bearing his reproach. There is a reproach connected with the name of Jesus.

And Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.

Remember, all that will live godly in Jesus Christ shall suffer persecution. They will talk about you, they will lie about you, and all the rest, and the demon spirit will put pressure on you, it says in Ephesians chapter 6, that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in high places.

All right. And the battle sometimes will be intense, but the victory is assured, because Jesus Christ is the captain of our salvation. If two or three Christians magnify Christ, many of us are ashamed of the gospel.

Why is it? If two or three Christians are talking in normal tones about Jesus Christ and the work of God, and a sinner happens by, their voice goes down, until the sinner has gone by, then they are talking in normal tones again.

Why do we do this? I know a man in Winnipeg when he was three years old, his parents taught him to tap dance, he took dancing lessons, and later on when the army in Winnipeg, for example, or the military were going to have some kind of a duel, they'd send a car out and pick him up and bring him in and give him a shot of rye or whiskey or something to warm him up and stick him on a table, and he could dance for hours.

And all over the years, you know, he had a mink ranch, and he had a dance hall in his mink ranch, and he used to have big bang-up booze parties and dances there on Saturday nights. And he said, you know, Sunday morning, I never went to church, I used to load a wheelbarrow with empty bottles and dump them over the cliff.

But all those years he was concerned about what he had to do to be a Christian. He said, if I ever heard people talking about God, I used to get up as close as I could and just listen, hoping I'd get some light in my soul.

And he never did. There were Christians living within a mile of where he lived. No Christian ever went to that man and talked to him about Jesus. But one day, he heard a young druggist whom God had called to Africa as a missionary say, Jesus Christ means everything in the world to me.

What does he mean to you? And that got him. And he was converted, and he turned his dance hall into a church. And I was pastor there. We started to work in the area and used that dance hall. Oh, some people in the area were really furious over this, you know.

Their dance hall was now a church. They couldn't believe it. But this particular man, when I think back, oh, how he loved the Lord. He's now in his seventies. He was fifty-eight when he was converted, I think, or fifty-six or something.

Now I may be exaggerating, forgive me if I am, but I really honestly doubt that he has ever met anyone since he became a Christian to whom he did not talk about Jesus Christ. Every last soul he met, he talked about Jesus.

And sometimes he'd phone me up and say, Preacher, I've been out bird hunting, and I got a wounded bird flopping around in the marsh, but I can't get him in the boat. Do you think you could come out and help me?

You know what he meant. He had a sinner there, and he just about had him saved, but couldn't quite get him saved, so he wanted a little help, see. And when I had a son, you know, I had all these girls, and it didn't look like we were ever going to have a boy, and finally I had a boy, and he heard about it, and he phoned me up and said, Pastor, come right up to Mink Ranch, I've got to see you right away.