Did you know that you were crucified on the cross? Were you aware of the fact that you have already been buried in a tomb and later resurrected to a new life?
If you are a Christian, what is true for Christ has become true for you as well. What Christ has accomplished during his mission here on earth has been applied to you – his perfectly lived life; his substitutionary sacrifice; his triumphant resurrection; and his entrance into eternal glory. Faith in Christ brings us into union with Christ. It so closely identifies us with Him, that it can be said that we have died to sin, been resurrected to newness of life, are counted righteous, and accepted into the everlasting kingdom of God.
One place we read of this kind of language is Romans 6. The context of this passage is the apostle Paul making an argument about why we ought not to sin. We ought not to sin, says Paul, not simply because sin is bad or because we should back up our Christian profession with a Christian way of life. Those things are true, but Paul wants us to go deeper and so he goes to our union with Christ.
How can we who have died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Romans 6:2-4
Do you see? A Christian who has passed through the waters of baptism has therefore been so identified with Christ that they have really and truly died with Christ on the cross and resurrected with Christ from the dead. Not physically or corporeally of course, or at least not yet. Nor in a merely philosophically or hypothetical manner. But really and truly.
If we keep this reality at the forefront of our identity, it will, indeed it must, change how we live. As Paul writes in verse 11 of the same chapter: “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” This is your new identity as a Christian and the Christian life then is the life-long reshaping of your life to conform with your new identity in Christ.
Do you see your sin in the light of this new identity? Do you not want to sin because you know that you have already died to sin and it is antithetical to who you are in Christ? Or is sin an unfortunate reality of this broken world that you more or less put up with until Jesus returns and makes everything perfect again? There is a world of difference between these two mindsets and the key to first is our union with Christ. What is true for Christ is true for us.
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