CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY DR. E. C. BRAGG - Trinity College

D. The Cure
This immediately leads us into the cure. "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
How many times have you tried within your own resolutions and strivings, sought the
victory, only to find ignominious defeat? The New Testament has several ways of
presenting the same identical truth of victory, according to which standpoint it is viewed,
but it's sum total is found in two sees to the truth. There is a cessation, a crucifixion, a death
of self, and a positive enthronement, a sharing of the life of Christ. This is all because of
our identification with Him. I wish we had time to enter into all the various ways this truth
is presented. It starts way back with a statement by Christ, "If any man come after me (be
my disciple), let him deny himself and take up his cross daily, and follow me." There is
much more He could have said here, but He said, "Ye cannot bear them now," and left
them to Paul. He gives it in John 15 as "Abiding in me" as the branch in the vine. This Paul
gives in Romans 5:10, as “Much more shall we be saved by sharing His life.” The whole of
it is given in Galatians 2:20. I won't emphasize here the Holy Spirit as the agent. He does
for me what I am powerless to accomplish. We enlarge on His part in Pauline Theology.
Here we want the psychology, not the theology of God's cure. Let us note Galatians 2:20 in
the R.V., "I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth
in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son
of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." This wonderful verse has all the
Christian life in epitome in it. It is my life's verse, and I confess it is still as unfathomable
now as when I started taking it for my life's pattern 45 years ago. It changes the focal point
of one's life from self to Christ. Here is the denying of self that Christ demanded, and
further the taking up of his cross, not Christ's cross, but our own, for death. Here is not only
self-denial but self-crucifixion. The utter cessation of self is here, "I live, yet not I." A
different personality now lives in me and realizes Himself out through me. Sanctification is
not the transformation of my personality, but the complete abnegation of my personality
and the complete expression through me of another personality, that of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Paul illustrates this in Romans 6:5, "For if we have been planted together in the
likeness of His death (Lit. ‘if we have become partakers of a vital union with Christ.' like
the graft of a plant's union with the tree, 'in the presentation of His death, so that when He
died I died'), then we shall also share His resurrection," His resurrection life as we share
His death because I have a vital union with Him, so I live, yet it isn't I that live, but Christ
liveth in me. What an important truth to realize here. Real Christian victory is not I, or I
doing the very best that I can, or negatively refraining from sins (While many times still
wanting to do them). It is not I at all, refraining from doing something, or doing something,
but it is Christ which liveth in me. The Holy Spirit, who indwells the believer, makes real
the crucifixion and then the filling with the life of Christ. Now, psychologically, "The life
which I now live in the flesh (since it is not my own life, but His wonderful life), I live in
faith, the faith which is in the Son of God." This is not the elementary faith for salvation as
many try to affirm. He isn't speaking of that, but the new life which is not his life, but
Christ's own life; that Christ's life brings with it His faith within. It means all of the
disposition which was and is in Him is ours, His faith, His service, His love, His obedience,
His daily life, His worship of the Father, and His sweetness of mind and soul. This is
Christian victory: not self, but Christ.