As we consider the work of
the cross, we inevitably run up against the myriad promises of
God—blanket promises enjoining us to believe for everything and
anything with assurance that it will be done. How do we
reconcile these promises with the work of the cross?
We have established that
the Lord crucifies our sense of what is important, good,
desirable and worthy of our becoming. If so, if all things
are—as we have said—not important, how is it
He enjoins us to believe Him for that which He Himself does not
believe in? For all that we can ever ask is based on our sense
of what is important, what matters to us, what is therefore
worth asking for.
How can He promise to
fulfil that which we ask for seeing that all we ask is based on
that which he does not identify with and wishes to destroy?
Moreover, the testimony of countless saints throughout the
centuries bears witness that anyone rarely receives what he
asked for from God the way he asked for it, or ie, the way he
first expected to receive it and first desired it.
We seem forced to conclude
that, from the perspective of original desire and expectation,
God is either a liar or else whatever the secret is to obtaining
such promises is so elusive and rarely found that it just isn’t
worth the pain and trouble to believe Him for anything. How then
do we reconcile the
work of the cross with the promises?
First, we have to
recognize that God does not work at odds with Himself. It is not
so that the work of the cross which destroys our sense of
importance is of one realm while the promises we read and
respond to in terms of our sense of importance are of another.
No, the two must be in harmony (otherwise they are not from the
same god.)
Furthermore, we have
already established that the work of the cross is central to
all. That work is God’s ultimate purpose. If so, then God’s
promises must be designed to serve that purpose, not compete
with it.
And such is the case.
God’s promises have a purpose. They serve the work of the
cross. This is something few of us comprehend. Because of our
failure to comprehend, we either ignore them or else misapply
them toward the reinforcement of that from which we are to be
delivered. In truth though, the promises are vital to the
service of the work of the cross.
The purpose of the
promises is to evoke from us the manifestation of our sense of
importance. It highlights them, stimulates them, brings them to
life, expression and exposure. The promises are to our sense of
importance what the law is to our sense of morality. As the law
evokes our striving nature, so the promises evoke our desiring
and expectational nature. That is their
purpose.
By exposure, the Lord may
destroy our sense of importance, including the power of
expectation. The work of the cross is
activated.
But what of the promises
then? Are they liars? No, ‘tis not true, though first it seems.
What we must understand is
that the promises to our desiring nature and our desiring nature
which receives the promises are of two different worlds. The
heavenly nature of the promises speaks to a fulfilment beyond
what our desiring nature is able to anticipate or desire or
expect. Our desiring nature can only present us an image of what
the promises have to offer in fulfilment.
All fulfilment from God is
unknown to us at the beginning. Yet jot for jot and tittle for
tittle the fulfilments are true to the original image when they
appear. But the process by which they finally appear involves
the slow, painful death of the original images by which we first
desired and anticipated them.
This is the work of the
cross, the work for which the promises are given—not merely the
fulfilment of our original senses of importance and desire, but
the transformation of our sense themselves to receive the
realities which our
first nature can only mirror to us in the
beginning.
For in all things the true
work of the cross is always one step ahead of
whatever we speak, we think or we deal with at any time. In all
that we deal therefore, let us allow the work of the cross to be
central.