“Now I saw in my dream, that the highway up which Christian was to go, was fenced on either side with a wall, and that wall was called Salvation. (Isaiah 26:1). Up this way, therefore, did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back.
“He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulcher [grave; tomb]. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.” (John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress)
John Bunyan paints a beautiful picture in The Pilgrim’s Progress of when the burden on Christian’s back fell off at the Cross. It is important to note that this happened well into Christian’s travels to the Celestial City. He had already encountered Evangelist who pointed him to the wicket-gate. He had run from his City of Destruction with his fingers in his ears, crying, “Life! Life! Eternal Life!” He had begun his journey along the King’s Highway. Yet all of this still under the load of his heavy burden on his back.
Christian writers have used various terms to describe this experience of deliverance: E.M. Bounds used the term “secret of full consecration” (Essentials of Prayer); A. W. Tozer refers to the “blessedness of possessing nothing” (The Pursuit of God). Jesus himself said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…”
But if we are really honest with ourselves, I think many (most?) of us still feel the burden on our backs. We strive and strain under our load. We live divided lives, tiptoeing across the line between sacred and secular. We say we belong to Christ, and we truly believe that in our hearts, but in truth we still live like hired hands; clocking in and clocking out – now on God’s time, now on our own. We have begun in the Spirit, but we are fighting to be perfected in the flesh.
Please do not hear words of condemnation in this. Condemning words would only bring more burden, and along with it more striving and struggling under the load to try harder and do more to find that place of peace in our hearts that seems to evade us so easily. There is a better – much better – way.
I recently read a book entitled Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret. It is a biography of Hudson Taylor written by his son and daughter-in-law, Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, which tells of his life and work as a missionary in China in the latter half of the 19th century—amazing, God-wrought, Spirit-filled work.
And yet, in 1869 – some fifteen years into this remarkable work in China – Hudson Taylor had written to his mother, “I have continually to mourn that I follow at such a distance and learn so slowly to imitate my precious Master.” The weight of the burden on his back can be felt in those words.
And then, six months later, Taylor received a letter from a fellow worker named John McCarthy:
I do wish I could have a talk with you now [he wrote], about the way of holiness. At the time you were speaking to me about it, it was the subject of all others occupying my thoughts, not from anything I had read…so much as from a consciousness of failure—a constant falling short of that which I felt should be aimed at; an unrest; a perpetual striving to find some way by which one might continually enjoy that communion, that fellowship, at times so real but more often so visionary, so far off!
Do you know, I now think that this striving, longing, hoping for better days to come is not the true way to holiness, happiness, or usefulness. It is better, no doubt, far better than being satisfied with poor attainments, but not the best way after all. I have been struck with a passage from a book…entitled Christ is All. It says, “The Lord Jesus received is holiness begun; the Lord Jesus cherished is holiness advancing; the Lord Jesus counted upon as never absent would be holiness complete…He is most holy who has most of Christ within, and joys most fully in the finished work. It is defective faith which clogs the feet and caused many to fall.”
This last sentence, I think I now fully endorse. To let my loving Savior work in me his will, my sanctification, is what I would live for by his grace. Abiding, not striving nor struggling: looking off unto him; trusting him for present power; …resting in the love of an almighty Savior, in the joy of a complete salvation. “from all sin”—this is not new, and yet ‘tis new to me. I feel as though the dawning of a glorious day had risen upon me. I hail it with trembling, yet with trust. I seem to have got to the edge only, but of a boundless sea; to have sipped only, but of that which fully satisfies. Christ literally all seems to me, now, the power, the only power for service, the only ground for unchanging joy…
How then to have our faith increased? Only by thinking of all that Jesus is and all he is for us: his life, his death, his work, he himself as revealed to us in the Word, to be the subject of our constant thoughts. Not a striving to have faith…but a looking off to the Faithful One seems all we need; a resting in the Loved One entirely, for time and for eternity.” (Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret)
“As I read, I saw it all,” Mr. Taylor wrote. “I looked to Jesus, and when I saw—oh, how the joy flowed!” (Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret)
Taylor referred to this as the exchanged life. In the truest sense, it is no longer “I who live, but Christ lives in me.” Galatians 2:20
Paul writes in Colossians 3:2-4 “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”
It is in this release, this tumbling of our burdens off of our backs into the grave never to be seen again, where our very lives are exchanged at the cross; we are no longer hired-hands but bond-servants. Our entire life is freely given to the will of our Master. Our ears are pierced, as it were, and we become lifelong servants of love to Christ (see Deuteronomy 15:12-18). The sum of our thoughts and actions are no longer for ourselves, but for the One who purchased us with His very own blood. Therein lies all joy.
“Thus far did I come laden with my sin,
Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in,
Till I came hither. What a place is this!
Must here be the beginning of my bliss?
Must here the burden fall from off my back?
Must here the strings that bound it to me crack?
Blest cross! Blest sepulchre! Blest rather be
The Man that there was put to shame for me!”
(John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress)
Holy Spirit, may You initiate the glorious release in Jesus’ words, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
Three Rivers Church 