02.10. The Daily Death
Chapter 10 THE DAILY DEATH. In one of his epistles Paul declared that "he kept his body under." A number who strive to find scripture to bolster them in their teaching of the suppression of the sin principle or carnal mind, have endeavored to make this verse serve their purpose.
Unfortunately for them the Apostle does not say he "kept the body of sin under," but his own body. There is a great difference between the "body of sin" created by the devil, and the human body made by the Almighty. The former is to be crucified and destroyed, and the latter is to be kept under. In another place Paul declared that he underwent a daily death. His words were, "I die daily."
Again we hear the defenders and apologists of resident sin in the heart, crying out that we make a grave mistake in saying the body of sin or the old man is put to death, for here the great Apostle to the Gentiles plainly states that his experience was a daily death. A careful reader of the Bible could never, it seems to us, so mix and confound such widely different scripture passages as the verses referred to. Paul did not say that "the old man" died daily, but "I (Paul) die daily." The devil made the old man, and God made Paul. The apostle in perfect understanding of what he is writing about, declares a single, final, finishing death for the Old Man, while for himself he says, "I die daily."
Moreover in this expression, not the slightest reference is made to any kind of sin, but to a martyrdom which he expected might befall him any day at the hand of the Caesars. As with Paul the sanctified people of today can bear witness to the unmistakable, instantaneous and complete death of inbred sin or the old man, and also to an experience which follows in this earthly life which can be most properly described in the words, "I die daily." This is not "the deeper death" taught by some evangelists, who feeling still the remains of the carnal mind, are naturally driven to such a teaching. How can there be a deeper death? A death is a death. If the old man is dead, he is dead. What death can there be for the dead, but that which is called the second death in hell--and which of itself never dies!
No, there can be a complete death of the body of sin in the soul the heart entering at once upon a life of cleanness and restfulness; and yet as individuals we make acquaintance with what may be called a daily death. The old man dies once for all, but we in a sense die daily. And as with the Apostle it is not sin that is the trouble, but something very widely and radically different from sin.
Paul moved in an atmosphere of martyrdom. Perhaps many holy people who read these lines are doing the same. Many of them have found out what is meant by the white blood of the nerve. They have been tied on the rack, and broken repeatedly on the wheel which was set going in domestic, social and ecclesiastical chambers. They feel in a deep mystic sense they have fought with gladiators and have been thrown to wild beasts of Ephesus. Truly they know another death than that of the old man.
First, there is the dying to the constant slights shown them and discount set upon their words and deeds by their own church brethren. A holy people expect as much from the world, but it comes with quite a shock to find that a great part of the family of God despise and condemn them. No matter what is done in the way of zeal, activity, liberality and magnanimity on the part of the truly sanctified, it is all met with a chilling indifference not to say condemnation by the churches of today. As a boy we once displeased the acknowledged king of the school play ground. We made some swift and capital runs in the game we were playing after that, but he ignored them all, froze us with his cold stare, and ingloriously put us aside. Very nobly and liberally and faithfully are some of God’s holy people doing today in the pew and pulpit. But unless they give up preaching and testifying to sanctification they meet the stony gaze, the icy silence, and the careful avoidance of all words of praise and commendation of what has been done for God, the church and humanity. This is a kind of martyrdom, and here we have to die.
Second, there is the constant dying to the deliberate and repeated misrepresentation of motives, performances, character and life. This assailing comes not from one quarter; but just as Christ had the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, Essenes and every other following and organization against him, so the man baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire, and who testifies to it, and urges it upon others, will get to know what the words isolation and loneliness mean, and find out all that is embraced in the term general opposition. He will discover as he plumbs the straight line of holiness that the hand of every man seems to be lifted against him. John Wesley not only had the world and the church opposed to him, but numbers on his own side, in the very societies he had founded. The cost of obtaining and retaining the genuine blessing, and of staying on the main line of holiness, is to have Pharisee, Sadducee, Essene, Herodian, Long Hair, Short Hair, Wild Eye, Ranter, Skinner, Blisterer, and a multitude of other characters solidly arrayed against one. To all of this we must die, and die daily.
Third, there must be a dying to a number of personally disagreeable and offensive people who are coming up the road along with the holiness movement. Who has not encountered the individual who deliberately tried to overhear confidential conversations? Who has not met the person, male or female, who pries into one’s personal and family history, and propounds questions that no one with any true refinement or proper regard for the proprieties could or would ever dream of asking? Who has not been interviewed, examined and cross-questioned, so to speak, by the veriest strangers and briefest of acquaintances as to one’s age, size of family, spiritual condition of each, etc., etc., etc.
One lady asked a certain evangelist if his teeth were false, and if she might feel them with her finger so as to be able to settle a dispute then going on among five others of her sex in regard to that interesting fact. The aforesaid brother could have convinced the skeptical sister in a most impressive and incisive way concerning the genuineness and steadfastness of the molars in controversy, but it would not have been in harmony with the teachings of Perfect Love, and so he refrained, though doubtless he was tempted.
It is very likely that many in the land today would be only too glad to have an addition to the Litany reading after this manner, "From all such social plagues and pestilences may a kind Providence deliver us." But as it seems we cannot escape from the affliction of such people, then the next best thing is to die to them. A fourth dying is seen in the patient endurance of slanderous attack and coarse personal abuse.
There are numbers of individuals in the church and in the holiness ranks who have been made the recipients of the most abusive and insulting letters, and have seen repeatedly printed in different publications the gravest of charges and slanders. The writer, printer, publisher and even deliverer of these attacks perhaps did not know that they were violating one of the Postal Laws of the United States, and had subjected themselves to a fine of thousands of dollars, and an imprisonment of years in the penitentiary. It is nothing to the United States whether the charges are true or false. That is not the point. The Government does not propose that its mail system should be prostituted to the use of originators and disseminators of slander. If any one doubts what the writer says about this, let him procure a copy of the postal laws of the United States and read the section relative to scurrilous and slanderous letters and printed matter sent by the mails. The fact that a number of evangelists and preachers, wit h the law in their hands against these vilifiers, refuse to use their power, but go on patiently and silently, shows how thoroughly the soul can die to the abuser and slanderer. A fifth dying must take place in regard to our hold upon persons we once spiritually helped, and to our influence in places where in other days we preached and labored and had great success and triumph.
It is deeply impressive and thought provoking to see how a preacher sent to a new pastoral charge tries to retain his ascendency and rulership in the old appointment left behind. Also the smile is made to deepen in noticing how some evangelists unconsciously fall into the role of playing the Cardinal, the Pope, or the Diocesan Bishop, in towns and communities where they have held in former days a successful meeting.
They do not know how to stand aside for other men as much sent of God as themselves.
They would keep the whole community under their wing. They would rule and reign without a rival, over conscience and life, general and cosmopolitan as it may be. The fact that their own particular work is ended; that other men gifted and used of the Spirit may be needed, does not seem to occur to them. The additional truth that the people they once taught to walk, can ever walk without them is too painful a thought to be admitted to the mind. So though far distant these kind of brethren still wish to fill the milk bottle, and prepare the food, and are exceedingly distressed to discover that their own spiritual children have actually taken catnip tea from another hand, and have even gone to broiling their own steaks.
We find that we are called upon to die out completely here, in the acceptance of the fact that the persons we once were made a blessing to, can get along without us; that they even forget us; and that other laborers coming in, crowd us out from the heart, mind, plan and life of the people even where there is no unkindness or hatred toward us who were peculiarly near and dear in earlier days.
We could say much more on this line of thought, but enough has been written to plainly show that after the funeral of the Old Man, there are still repeated visits of the hearse to the door of one’s life. There is and should be no more death to "the body of sin." And Scripture and Reason alike are against the idea of a deeper death of the carnal mind or inbred sin. But there are frequent deaths to persons, conditions and all the changing circumstances of this life, where sin is not, and should not be involved a single particle. The black crepe has fluttered on the door knob a number of times since the burial of the "Old Man," but it was not for him. He had not been granted a resurrection, to be followed with a deeper death, and therefore treated to bigger bunches of crepe and longer streamers of woe.
No, after obtaining the great blessing some of us thought that certain things must be or must not be, or we did not see how we could well live, get along, etc., etc., etc. Well, these same trying, painful melancholy things came to pass just as we preferred they should not. And as they would not die to us, we concluded to die to them. Hence the frequent flutter of the black crepe on the door knob, though the old man lies cold and dead in the graveyard.
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