The Biblical Basis of Death-Route Holiness

Death-route holiness must have a Biblical basis. If it doesn't, ignore it and ignore me. However, if it does have a Biblical basis, and it most assuredly does, you should for the sake of your very soul pay close attention to what is written below. The Apostle Paul says much about death in the believer: being crucified, bearing your cross, bearing His reproach, and being baptized into Christ's death, just to mention a few. Read the below with an open heart and allow the Holy Ghost to speak to you.


BIBLICAL BASIS FOR THE DEATH-ROUTE

We need to examine the Word of God to see if our terms and interpretations are Scripturally sound. The following Scriptures are rich with direct references to "death-route" Christianity; thus identifying all genuine Christians with Christ Himself. Christ affirmed:

"And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:27).
The writer to the Hebrews insisted:

"Let; us go forth therefore, unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach" (Heb. 13:13). (Without the camp meant crucifixion.)

All who WILL NOT be thus identified with Christ, cannot be identified with Him at all. Remember, dear reader, "Death-route" Christianity, to the total dethronement of self-will, and the total enthronement of Christ, is the only true Christianity. This is the only Christianity Christ originated, and it is the only kind the apostles preached and practiced. Anything less than "death" to old carnal self is not the genuine article. Note the following passages from the pen of the Apostle Paul:

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20).

"For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live." (Rom. 8:13).

"Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?" (Rom. 6:3).

"Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death..." (Rom. 6:4).

"For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection" (v. 5).

"Knowing this, that OUR OLD MAN IS CRUCIFIED WITH HIM [8] that the body of sin [the carnal mind] might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin" (v. 6).

"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord " (v. 11).

"For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3).

"Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth..." (Col. 3:5).

"That I may know...the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death" (Phil. 3:10).

"But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." (Gal. 6:14).

"That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts..." (Eph. 4:22). "It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him" (2 Tim. 2:11).

DYING DAILY DISCLOSED

"Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus.... For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake" (2 Cor. 4:10-11).

"I die daily" (I Cor. 15:31).

The "dying daily" of which Paul spoke, means to live the Christian life in total surrender to Jesus Christ, with self dethroned, and Christ enthroned, with self deposed, and Christ exalted.

"Dying together with Jesus; THIS is the end of strife! Buried together with Jesus; THIS is the gate of life!"

Those who are inclined to spurn "death-route holiness" will insist that the "dying daily" merely means that those early Christians, in taking their public stand for Christ, faced physical death every day.

It is very true that those early disciples, following Pentecost, did face the possibility of physical death every time they assembled with the believers. But they had to maintain their death-to-self surrender every day in order to daily face the lethal persecutions to which they were exposed. The ones who failed to stay dead to self, on a daily basis, backed down as Demas did, and forsook the ranks of the faithful disciples (II Tim. 4:10).

In the above quotation from I Corinthians 15:31, Paul drives the "daily dying" nail in verse 31, by saying, "I die daily," and he clinches the nail in verse 34, by stating that they who do not believe what he is saying about dying daily, "...have not the knowledge of God." How very true! In Paul's day it was very much a matter of MARTYR or TRAITOR. Honestly, is it much different today? Is it not still a choice between Christ's kingdom and the devil's booby trap?