Message of the Cross: Sword & Fire

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God”   1 Cor.1:18

When you envision those things that you consider to be representative of the gospel message, what do you think of?  Do you think of a dove as a sign of peace, a butterfly as the symbol of new life, or maybe a heart as a token of God’s great love for us as defined in John 3:16?   Since we as believers are called to live according to the mind of Christ, the importance of those things we envision as symbolizing the gospel message cannot be overstated. Our understanding of the nature and method of how this gospel came into this world must align with how Jesus Himself presented that message. As it did during the days of His incarnation, the message of the gospel can be expected to be in conflict with what Paul called the mind of the natural man. 

Jesus explained to His followers His method of bringing souls into an eternal relationship with He and the Father. That method can be seen in a number of verses where Jesus says such things as “if any man would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” and “he who would save his life must be willing to lose it”. Both of these verses, and many more, reveal a way to eternal life not found in the passive and people pleasing ways many associate with religious life. Rather, they speak of a way that not only accepts, but embraces the conflicts that choosing Christ will bring to the natural life. 

The "message of the cross" is that way that conflicts with and seems foolish to the mind of natural man. When sending His twelve disciples out to preach His gospel to the cities of Israel, Jesus described the way to salvation as involving a “sword” and “fire”. “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Mt.10:34). “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Lk.12:49). Sword and fire portray the separation Jesus came to establish between those who believe, and those who do not. between the way of natural man and the way of the Spirit. Jesus came to separate the lives of men from the ways of this natural world so that they might inherit eternal life. Paul described this separation as being “sanctified” writing “to the church of God...those sanctified in Christ Jesus” (1 Co.1:2).

It is not peace with this world that brings this “sanctification”, but a purposeful and often overt separation from the world. He came to stir things up so that man’s present status quo of bondage to sin could be defeated and supplanted by the promise of the new way of spiritual life.  This is why the salvation experience begins with repentance. Repentance means to reject the path of life you currently are on, which is the natural path, and to take a new path that travels in the very opposite direction of spiritual life.  Without this separation there is no new life.  

The extremity of the conflict this separation brings can be found in the verses quoted above and here again. “If any man would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me”. And “he who would save his life must be willing to lose it”. These verses use self-denial and death as the measuring stick for the conflict we must be willing to embrace. Both of these verses align with Jesus’ analogy of a “sword” and “fire” as being the way to eternal life. Both portray a life of conflict with the natural world          

If we are not separate from the world in our attitudes and activities, a separating that Jesus established by His own life of consecration to the will of the Father, then we will not be counted worthy to inherit the kingdom of God (Gal. 5:19-21). Paul wrote “come out from among them and be separate” (2 Co. 6:17).  This separation is an act of faith that results in what Jesus described as “violence” towards the natural world (Mt. 11:12).  

Only when we allow the “sword” of His Word and the “fire” of His Spirit to separate us from this fallen world and its “Kosmos”, a separation that will leave us in conflict with the natural world, can we be sure that we have become the new creation Jesus called us to be.  A faith that begins in repentance must continue on that path, opposing the ways of the natural life if it expects to inherit the eternal life that Jesus made possible for those who choose eternal life over the temporal comforts of this present natural world.