Sermon 1604 - Difference Between Crucifixion and Mortification - 1st Message.....(Sun am 8/4/1991)

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CRUCIFIXION AND MORTIFICATION — 1ST MESSAGE....(SUN AM 8/4/1991)
There is a difference between crucifixion and mortification. But if we do not understand the difference, then we cannot obey God’s Word that tells us that our old man is to be crucified (Romans 6:6) and that we are to mortify the deeds of the body (Romans 8:13). The Cross represents crucifixion. And when Jesus Christ died on Calvary’s Cross, two thieves and two malefactors were being crucified on four crosses surrounding His Cross. So there is one kind of crucifixion for the LORD, and there is another kind for us.

We do not get crucified on His Cross; we get crucified on our own cross. God presents us with different crosses in our lifetime. But a cross is always for crucifixion, for suffering. Whatever our cross is, we should go to Calvary and dig a hole by faith and say, “LORD, nail me to this cross.” Then say, “Help me to be like Jesus.”

We need to ask Jesus to let all the Blood from His Cross flow down on us, and let us stop blaming people for our cross. We must acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Head of our life, including the suffering and the crucifixion.

So Jesus had Life up here on the Cross, a Begotten Life, a Suffering Life, a Forgiving Life that will separate us from things in us that are unChrist-like.There are some things that we lose while we are there alive on the Cross, as it were, and we willingly give them over to the LORD.

Jesus was alive when He was hanging on His Cross, suffering. But as soon as He gave up the Ghost, they put His Body in the Tomb, the Grave. And the Grave is the place where mortification occurs. Jesus Christ’s Body did not mortify because it was a holy Body. Psalm 16:10 says, “[T]hou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” Jesus’ Body could not corrupt because there was nothing in it to corrupt. But we are not like that; we have a body of sin. So we must take on His obedient Death, by faith.

Mortification is a picture of the death to our spiritual flesh, that force and that power and that nature in us that is unChrist-like, and mortification does not happen overnight.