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Death and the Cross
By Lloyd Ellefson
Greetings in the name of the Lord! I would like to share some thoughts regarding the spiritual transaction that took place when Jesus was crucified. Natural man cannot conceive what happened in God's sight! All these years, humanity has only looked at the historical cross from its natural perspective, and there is a big gap between what really happened on the cross and our natural concept of it. We need to understand who died on the cross and who was responsible for the crucifixion. But before we talk about the crucifixion and the cross (the instrument of death), I want to emphasize that God did not have His Son killed as a sacrifice for our sins. We must not believe that terrible thought. God loved His Son and sent Him as an offering.
The word CROSS is derived from the Greek word STAUROS, an upright pole or stake on which criminals were nailed for execution. This was not the ecclesiastical two-beamed cross which has its origin in ancient Chaldea. The T symbol (being in the shape of the mystic Tau) stood for their god, Tammuz. By the middle of the third century, the church had departed from certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase their prestige and numbers, churches received pagans apart from regeneration by faith, and these pagans were usually permitted to retain their signs and symbols. So the Tau, or T, with the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the cross of Jesus Christ. This is where our understanding of the word CROSS comes from.
CRUCIFY comes from the Greek word STAUROO, meaning to stake or impale. It was an impalement on a pole - a method of torture used by the Romans; stoning was used by Israel. Israel did not have the authority to crucify people because they were in bondage to the Romans. Anyone Israel wanted to have crucified, had to be turned over to the Romans for them to use their method of shame and punishment. The purpose of crucifixion of course was death.
Jesus was crucified on the day before a Sabbath - not necessarily a Saturday; feast days were also called Sabbaths. Since the Jews did not want Him to be hanging there on the Sabbath, the soldiers were sent to hasten the death of the criminals. They broke the legs of the two criminals, but when they came to Jesus, they found He was already dead, so they pierced His side. The organized church generally regards His death as a substitutionary death for us. It believes that Jesus died as a substitute for us; that God sent Jesus and had Him killed as a sacrifice for us. It believes that we can now be saved and go to heaven because of that substitutionary death. This is far from the truth!
Regarding the birth of Jesus, Isaiah prophesied, "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign; Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel." (Is. 7:14) Immanuel means God with us. The Spirit came on Christ and indwelt Him. When Jesus was on earth, God was with us in Christ. After Christ's resurrection and ascension the Spirit was poured out. (Acts 2) Now God indwells us in the Spirit. He is in us, AS OUR LIFE. In Acts 17 Paul spoke to some pagans and said, "In Him we live and move and have our being." These pagans had no conception of what that meant - but Paul did. How about us? Do we know what that means?
Before we can answer that question, we have to understand that God was the initiator of our redemption. Everyone needs to be redeemed! In Adam everyone is dead in his trespasses and sins. Everyone went his own way, and none sought after God. To those who would first bury their father before following Jesus, He said, "Let the dead bury their dead." Paul said, "But she that gives herself to wanton pleasure is dead even while she lives." (1 Timothy 5:6)
This concept of death differs from our natural idea of death. We know that God is not a God of the dead but of the living, for God's rule does not operate in the dead! In his mind and realization Adam is separated from God; he walks in the realm of death. The carnal mind of death operates in the physical body, for all die in Adam! Therefore God's rule cannot be implemented in Adam. When we mind the flesh, we are living in the death realm, because we are living in separation from God, for we feel guilty before Him, not having a good conscience with God. Those who are in Adam have a god who is formed by their carnal mind, imagination and reasonings; their god is formed by the mind of death. The carnal man's god is not the true God!
When Jesus abolished death He proved that life is stronger than death! And life is truth! Since death can be abolished, it is not an eternal reality. Those who live in the death realm, live in delusion! Death is the last enemy to be destroyed.
Spiritual truth gives us true understanding! The kingdom of God is the rule of God, and it only operates in the Spirit. Life is only in Christ in God, so all who have life, live unto Him. Life is the realization of a good conscience with God. Life is difficult to understand. We don't really understand our own life. We can study how our body functions, what sustains it and what destroys it, the interrelationship of hormones, etc., but the mystery of life eludes us. We have an awareness of life and a consciousness of being. This is called the soul.
It is important to understand that Jesus Christ did not lay down His life, but His soul. He had no control over His life, because He said, "I can do nothing of Myself." Then what about John 10:17,18 where it says that Jesus laid down His life for us? The reason we get a wrong impression is because of a faulty translation. The Greek word PSUCHE, which is used here, means SOUL, and should be translated SOUL. Let's read it that way. "For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My soul that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father." Jesus also said, "As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me...unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves." (Jn. 6:57,53) His flesh and blood represent His consciousness of being the Son of God. He knew that He was not a sinner; He was innocent, He had immortality, He was a spiritual being! This is the consciousness we are to receive from Him!
He laid down His soul as an offering. "...because He poured out His soul to death..." (Is. 53:12) Natural man can't see the completeness of Christ's redemption. God gives us the mind of Christ; it buys us back, or redeems us from the mind of the flesh (the mind of death); it brings us into an understanding and awareness of life! We will never understand life completely because God is life. No name can describe God completely. He expresses Himself as the Father, the Son, the Christ, the Holy Spirit. Jesus was the exact representation of the invisible God! These are various expressions of the one God. That is why the fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in Jesus Christ - not in His physical body - but they were one - one body of truth, life, righteousness, relationship, etc., in Christ.
The following are some of the verses in which the word PSUCHE has been translated as LIFE instead of SOUL. "For whoever wishes to save his life (soul) shall lose it, but whoever loses his life (soul) for My sake, he is the one who will save it." (Luke 9:24, and similar verses in Matthew and Mark) "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life (psuche=soul) for the sheep...Even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life (psuche=soul) for the sheep." (John 10:11,15) He did not lay down His life; He laid down His soul!
He did not exercise any control over his life because He lived by the Father! His life was an extension of the Father's life! His Father-Son concept and consciousness were in the realm of spiritual understanding - the natural man does not have this understanding. He lives in the death realm - in a delusion. It was the soul of Christ that was laid down at the cross! Not only did He lay it down, but He emptied Himself of His conscious relationship to God! Because He trusted His Father, He didn't have to grasp for position. He knew that the Father had sent Him to identify with us in our humanity; He understood His Father's plan! Through participating in humanity's death, He would bring us to God by raising us out of Adam and putting us into Christ! This is resurrection!
Let's look at what happened on the cross. We have to see that there are two sides to this - God's side and man's side. We have to understand that natural man was living in the Adamic man. This includes everyone, because in Adam all die. Before the cross there was a sense of death in every single person. Jesus knew that He had to participate in that death in order to take people out of it, because it is through death that we can have redemption.
The following scripture passages reveal that people wanted to kill Jesus long before they were successful in their desire. John 5:15-16: "The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. And for this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath." John 5:18: "For this cause therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God." John 7:1: "And after these things Jesus was walking in Galilee; for He was unwilling to walk in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill Him." John 7:19-20;25: "Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you carries out the law? Why do you seek to kill Me? The multitude answered, `You have a demon! Who seeks to kill You?'...Therefore some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, `Is this not the man whom they are seeking to kill?'"
From these verses it is very evident that it was in the heart of men to kill Jesus Christ, the Son of God long before He was arrested. This desire came from the death realm in which they were living. They didn't know He was the Son of God, for they didn't even know God. The following verses should clarify this. "But the witness which I have is greater than that of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me. And the Father who sent Me, He has borne witness of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form. And you do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent. You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life. I do not receive glory from men; but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. I have come in My Father's name, and you do not receive Me; if another shall come in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another, and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote of Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?" (John 5:36-47)
Jesus knew that He was the true manifestation and expression of the invisible God; He was the true representative; He was the way, the truth and the life! He was speaking under the anointing of the Spirit, for He had received the Christ after He was baptized, at the age of 30. Before that He lived under the law. Not only had it been prophesied that He was to be the Christ, but He actually was the anointing He received! He was the Messiah, the Christos, the Anointing! These names are all translated from the same root word. So when we receive the anointing, we receive the Christ, the Messiah - and He is here now! If we belong to Christ, we are born of incorruptible seed. Since every seed has its own body, we are the body of that incorruptible seed! We are the body of the Christ in the earth.
Jesus had indicted the Jews on a number of important issues. He was saying that they didn't know their God, they didn't know the One He sent, they didn't even believe the law! They were worshiping a god produced by their own mind - a product of their own imagination! They were worshiping those who were not God, like Paul said in Gal. 4. Jesus was the true expression of God, and they were seeking to kill Him! This is human nature in contest with God's revelation of Himself. Man's desire for self-preservation contests any infringement on his so-called rights. Since man fights against the kingdom of God, the only way he can enter it is by submitting to death.
Jesus came to fulfill the law and the prophets. All the law and the prophets are fulfilled in Christ; not one tittle is left without being fulfilled. All the promises of God have their yes and Amen in Christ. There are no natural or physical promises, no time or credit card promises, no historical promises. All promises are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. By this we do not mean that they will be fulfilled by Him some day; they ARE fulfilled in Him! The progression or growth in our realization of God takes place in the Christ (the anointing, the Messiah). These various expressions of Christ come from the same root word.
John the Baptist heralded the coming of the Christ. He had the same spirit as Elijah who turned the hearts of the children back to God in the Old Testament - during the days of Jezebel who had pagan priests in abundance. John the Baptist, moved by the Holy Spirit, pointed to Jesus and said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." According to Old Testament law, only perfect lambs, without any blemishes were to be sacrificed to the Lord. As the people turned away from the Lord, they became mercenary and began to give crippled and sick animals to God! Malachi, the prophet, reprimanded them and in effect said, "Would you think of giving an imperfect gift to your governor? What would he think of you? What about God who is much greater than the governor? You can't get by with doing this to God!" Those lambs were symbolic of the Lamb of God who was to come, and therefore needed to be perfect!
Jesus was the perfect Lamb of God, sent to be an offering that we might receive life! He was not sent to be killed but to bring life. His sacrifice consisted of giving up His glory with the Father, being made in human form and submitting Himself to the mind of death! God gave His Son into the hands of men, so that they might understand that God was a loving God and that He was not counting their trespasses against them! He wanted them to turn from their own conception and realization of God, and from their own ideas of self-preservation! They needed to repent of their pride of life, of the lust of the flesh and of the eyes. The sins they committed were the result of living according to the lusts of the flesh! Just refraining from committing sin is not enough. God wants us to repent of living in the Adamic man, the high priest of death - the man through whom sin entered the world! God deals with sin through the death of a man, and He deals with death through the death of a man.
There is a difference between altering, beautifying, embellishing the old, and making something new! God is not altering and beautifying the old man in Adam; He is not waiting to give him a different body in order to produce a change in him. We are born of the Spirit - of incorruptible seed; we are new creations in spirit, soul and body! We may not be aware of the total change within us, but that does not change the reality of it. Our spirit is quickened or awakened, and our soul is renewed with the mind of Christ.
Unless we know that there is another man, another existence or another life to get into, we won't give up the old man. We have to trust God and believe His promises. This is faith - faith in the unseen realm of God's promises! It is the SUBSTANCE of things we don't see. God's promises have been fulfilled in Christ in both the natural and spiritual realms. He is the fulfillment of all that God is. Once we see this, something happens in us!
In getting truth, we get Christ, for He is the truth! Nothing else is the truth! Man thinks his understanding of the Bible is truth; therefore he also thinks his preaching, imaginations and conceptions of the Bible are truth. It may come as a bit of a shock for some to realize that the scriptures are a testimony of the truth, but CHRIST is the truth! When He becomes the truth to us we realize that there is no other truth!
Let's see how Christ being the truth applies to Christ being the resurrection. In John 11 Jesus said, "I am the resurrection." He is the resurrection just as He is the truth and the life! We are resurrected from Adam into Christ, because in Adam all die and in Christ all are made alive. This resurrection has nothing to do with our physical body. The scriptures say we are baptized into Christ. When we are in Christ, we are in the body of Christ and we are the body of Christ. Paul said, "Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it." (1 Cor. 12:27) When we put on Christ, we receive the anointing. This is true even when we don't have a clear understanding of what the body of Christ is.
Let's remember that the Christ is invisible. 1 Timothy 6:16 says that He lives in immortality and light that no one can approach. No one has ever seen the Christ. The Christ came on Jesus at the Jordan but no one saw it. After Jesus received the Spirit, and God identified Jesus as His beloved Son at the Jordan, Jesus always identified Himself as the Son of Man. The anointing (the Christ) comes on you and me, but no one sees it. At this present time we bear testimony of Christ out of our tabernacle of witness. We do not have to wait for God to do something dramatic on earth before we can bear witness of spiritual things, for Christ's kingdom "is not of this world".
When we are regenerated, we are born from above; we are born again of an incorruptible seed, and are birthed into another man. Now God is not a man. The Son of Man is a testimony; He is an image of God. Christ, the true representation and image of God, is producing a new man in us. This occurs in the holy place, i.e. the first part of the two-part tabernacle. The light here is the Holy Spirit; He gives us the light of the seven spirits of Christ. In Rev. 1 John turned around and saw that the seven golden lampstands illuminated one who was in the likeness of the Son of Man. The seven lampstands represent the seven churches. (v.20) Light is needed for growth; it is also needed to bring revelation. The churches are supposed to be the light that helps us to grow in the likeness of the Son of Man, but they haven't. They have never brought us into a spiritual realization, a spiritual image of God. Just as Jesus Christ was a spiritual image of God while He was in a physical body, so we are to be that spiritual image! The man in Genesis 1 was created in the image of God.
Through the Holy Spirit God has brought us the spiritual realization that the Son of Man is the spiritual image of the invisible God. Receiving this revelation, makes us a new image through the Son of Man. We have been regenerated in the spirit. Our spirit has been awakened by the quickening Spirit of Christ. Paul said, "Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Christ, the Son of Man, awakens us out of the death, darkness and ignorance of our human nature. By faith we get into the divine nature, and live in the realization that we are the sons of God. Since we have been put into the Son of Man, we are mediating between God and men.
"And while they were gathering together in Galilee, Jesus said to them, `The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.'" (Matt. 17:22) Do you see that a distinction is made between the Son of Man and the men who would kill Him? Jesus was delivered into the hands of men, and these men killed Him. God did not kill His Son; He did not kill anything! Crucifying Jesus was the work of men! But their work would be overthrown by God's work, for God would raise Him up on the third day!
The question now arises as to whether human beings could kill the spiritual Son of Man? No, they couldn't, but they could kill the physical body - the fleshly form of the Emmanuel (God with us). But they could not kill the Father-Son relationship in Christ, the Son of Man - the God in Him. However, they thought that by killing the body of Jesus, they had killed the Son of Man. As long as we are in the physical body, we are identified as people. After we have been quickened and made alive spiritually, we know that we are the sons of God and have the mind of Christ! We are learning about spiritual things and living in that dimension, realizing that the fulfillment of everything is in the Christ in us.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. He never changes. Circumstances, time or place, do not cause God to change His mind. When Jesus came into our realm, He did not change; His relationship with God did not change; His life did not change. This was a demonstration of the contrast between God and human nature, between the natural and the spiritual realization.
Natural man has been striving against God throughout the history of the human race. This came into focus when men crucified Jesus, the Word of God made flesh. The Jews had it in their hearts to kill Him long before He went to the cross. This evil intention came out of their ignorance of the true God and their worship of a god born and nurtured in their imagination. (John 5)
At the trial of Jesus the high priest demanded to know from Jesus whether He really was the Son of God. Jesus replied, "You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven." (Matt. 26:64) After His resurrection, Christ showed Himself in a body that could be seen. This was not a spiritual body, because a spiritual body cannot not be seen! He had to show Himself in a body that could be seen because human nature can only understand natural things. He had to come to them to prove that He was still around - that He was still alive. After 40 days the disciples saw Jesus disappear in the clouds.
Before He left, He instructed the disciples not to leave Jerusalem but to "wait for what the Father had promised...and you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you..." (Acts 1:4,8) Everyone wants power, but not necessarily God's power. Jesus demonstrated God's power! Jesus of Nazareth was anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power, and He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. (Acts 10:38) The power He received enabled Him to submit Himself to the Father and to do His work. It enabled Him to refrain from receiving glory from men. It did not enable Him to do works which had their source in Himself. Jesus said, "It is the Father in Me who does the works...if I bear witness of Myself My witness is not true." The power that comes at Pentecost is the power of subjection; it is the power to eliminate the resentment and the rebellion against God! It is not the power to do things in our own ability! Once we have reached the place of complete subjection, God can work through us as He did through Christ!
The glory of Christ lay in His subjection to the Father so that the Father could do His work through Him. He would not receive glory from men; He only received glory from the Father! It was God who was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, and He has committed to us this word of reconciliation! The sovereignty of God is expressed by the Christ in us. It is not expressed by taking us out of this world or out of this physical realm.
In Christ there is a new creation. The creation in Gen. 1 was made by the incorruptible Word of God of which God said, "It is very good." No one has changed that creation. The changes that have occurred in man (Genesis 3) are due to man's carnal reasoning and rebellion against God. Instead of saving the old carnal creation, He makes everything new!
Jesus said, "I lay down My soul. I can lay it down, and I can take it up." He could lay down His SOUL and take it up again, but He did not exercise any control over His LIFE! Since Christ is our life, He also has jurisdiction over it! However, He gives us a realization of life which does away with the death realm we were in!
Let's turn to Romans 6:3. "Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?" (v.3) Jesus died to sin and lived to God! (v.10) Living in death is living in separation from God. Those who live in the death realm are living in delusion and ignorance. The Red Sea was called the water of separation; it separated the Israelites from the rule of the Egyptians. Jesus did not live in death; He was separate from sinners; He was undefiled; He was the Lamb of God; He had a pure conscience! Living to God does away with living in the death realm!
"For if we have become united (planted) with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection." (v.5) What did the death of Jesus consist of? "Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin...For the death that He died, He died to sin..." (v.6-7,10) Those who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death to sin!
The rule of God in humanity was disrupted in the beginning when Adam sinned. The word FOUNDATION in Ephesians 1:4 and in 1 Peter 1:20 is translated from the Greek word KATABOLE which means a laying or casting down. So it should really be translated DISRUPTION. This also holds true for Revelation 13:8 which should read, "the Lamb slain from the disruption of the world". This word has nothing to do with foundation. The Greek word for FOUNDATION is THEMELIOS. Disobedience disrupted the rule of God in humanity, and evil came into the world. Christ came to restore the rule of God in us!
"For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection." (Romans 6:5) Christ was raised from the dead so that we can walk in newness of life! The meaning of the "likeness of His death" has been distorted because men thought they could kill Jesus and His testimony and identification, i.e., that He was the Son of God and one with the Father. When Jesus asked the Jews why they wanted to kill Him, they replied that it wasn't because of anything He had done, but because He called God His Father! That indicated that He was the Father's Son, and that was blasphemy in their eyes! They had a completely wrong understanding of who Jesus Christ was, so they killed Him! They really didn't know what they were doing! On the cross Jesus asked the Father to forgive them for their ignorance.
The Adamic man through whom sin entered the world, and death through sin, is man's big problem. The good news is that the old man was crucified together with Jesus Christ! How could this come about when Jesus remained completely in the will of God. He came to do His will! He said, "Not My will but Thine be done." He gave up His will! He identified with the faith of the Word of God in Him, but He also identified with humanity. So when He died, He died to sin, and He died to the men who were the slaves of sin - to those who were putting Him to death and didn't want anything to do with Him.
The death in Christ is the death to sin. When Paul said, "I die daily," he said he was always dying to sin - not to self, nor to Christ. Dying to sin is the death that is in Christ! When a man dies to sin, he dies to the vehicle through which sin enters the world. When sin entered the world through one man, Adam, he became the priesthood of sin. The flow of the river of sin comes through that humanity. God deals with this problem through the death of our old man. "Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with."
In their ignorance people thought they were destroying Jesus and His testimony by putting Him on the cross! Yet in His crucifixion, Jesus was actually destroying this wrong image of God - this delusion and ignorance that was putting Him on the cross. Men thought they were destroying Christ's testimony of God, while on God's side, God was destroying that old humanity. So in Christ there is actually a destruction, a putting to death or impaling, a denying or disowning of the old human nature. We have to receive life before we can get rid of death. We first have to repent and submit ourselves to God's order; then Christ comes to make us new, and to usher out the old! When life comes, death cannot hold us! This involves a continuous process; we are not instantly put into perfection. Life casts out death; it replaces ignorance with revelation knowledge; it changes our realization of God and Christ, and changes our whole sense of being of who we are. These things come into an entirely different focus in our life, and we are new creatures in Christ Jesus! Behold all things have become new!
If people confess that they are sinners after they have been born again, they do not identify with being sons of God. Paul declared a wonderful truth in Romans 7. He showed us that we are all turned around in our thinking. He said, "It is no longer I who sin." Our identification is important! We need to identify with being sons of God!
"Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus...And do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God." (Rom. 6:11,13) People today are not considering themselves alive to God. They are hoping to be made alive some day in the future. That hope does not change them. The old Adamic man has been consigned to death; his life is in death and he will be separated from God forever. He is not to be redeemed! God is not redeeming the person we used to be; that person is dying because we have been crucified with Christ. That is not who we are now. We are now alive in Christ, and we need to identify with who we are in Christ, for He is our redemption! We are to consider ourselves alive unto God! This is a wonderful truth!
Grace has nothing to do with our attainments. The law majors on attainment; humanity stresses attainment! Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ! We are not worthy of God's grace; grace is not handed out to us because we merit it in any way! We will never receive grace because of having arrived at a certain degree of perfection. If we could earn it, it would cease to be grace! It will be grace today, tomorrow, and forever!
Our identification with Christ brings us into the reality of participating in everything He did! Jesus, the Son of Man, did not die alone, He wasn't buried alone, He wasn't raised alone, and He is not coming again alone! He is a corporate man; everything He did, He did together with us. Even as Adam was a corporate man (in him all die), so Christ is corporate (in Him all are made alive)! His death and resurrection are corporate; so is His coming again!
Jesus Christ was not crucified at the beginning of His physical life, but at the end of it! Our crucifixion takes place through the law of repentance and the receiving of the Holy Spirit. It ends our life in the death realm and gives us spiritual life! We are put on the cross because of our testimony of God that has come to us in spiritual realization. That brings persecution and misunderstanding! And this is identifying with Christ. As He is so are we in this world. May God bless you and give you understanding by the Spirit. Amen.