THE RESURRECTION SERIES—Part 3
...Regarding Christ’s Identification
with Us and Our Identification with Him
Ed Corley
THERE IS AN AMAZING THREAD OF INSIGHT RUNNING through Paul’s Epistles that is almost beyond the grasp of the human mind. I should say, it is difficult for a human mind to lay hold on what Paul says unless one is willing to believe, without reservation, that his writings are inspired by God. So, I am asking you, as we continue in this part of our adventure in Christ, to give your mind over to what we confess is God’s Word to us through Paul. Most of us are willing to receive it as such. The problem with some of us, however, may lie in not knowing exactly what his Word is saying to us.
With
this in mind, we can let the Holy Spirit bring to us the understanding
we need. He is ready to release into our minds and hearts a divine truth
that will run like a river of life through the streams of our beings.
This river will run through the streams of our lives that are hurt, confused
and sealed off to any living hope.
Regarding
believing the Scriptures, we have the good company of Paul. His conviction
was very certain about this. We see it in a letter he wrote to his son
in the faith, Timothy: All Scripture is given by inspiration of God (is “God-breathed”), and is profitable for doctrine (teaching), for reproof (bringing persuasion to doubters), for correction (reforming those out of line with what is right), for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect (mature), thoroughly furnished (proficient) unto all good works—II Tim 3:16,17. At the time of Paul’s
writing this, the Scripture to which he had reference was
the Scripture of the Old Covenant. We still receive its light, life and
instruction, but there is more—oh, so much more!—ready to
fill our hearts and minds with New Covenant truth.
What
is taking our primary attention in these articles is what God revealed
to Paul about our identification with Christ. We are willing to take and
hold Paul’s writings as “God-breathed” because what we
have from him carries with it a stamp of divine inspiration that ministers
life and healing.
To
Paul was given what he called the revelation of the mystery (Rom 16:25). In another place he said, For I neither
received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of
Jesus Christ—Gal
1:12.
Revelation means
the unveiling of what was before concealed. What Paul saw was beyond what
the Prophets of old could tell in fullness. Peter said there was a salvation of which the prophets…inquired and searched diligently as they prophesied of the grace that should come... (I Pet 1:10). In their messages there
remained some mystery, particularly about Jesus Christ. They longed to see Him and know His presence but He was veiled from
their eyes.
For
a brief thirty-three years Christ was known in the flesh. He was the Word made flesh Who dwelt among us... full of grace and truth (Jn 1:14). He lived, ministered and
died as the Prophets had foretold. Then, after His death, burial, resurrection
and ascension back to the Father, Paul came to know Him. He knew Him according
to the spirit. Christ lived in him and he lived in Christ. To those outside
of Christ this was a mystery. He could not be seen or touched
by the flesh, nor would any receive ministry from Him as they had when
He walked on earth. When He was in the flesh, He healed the blind and
the deaf. Now He would live in them. Then He raised the dead. Now He would
become the life of those who were dead in sin. Christ in us and His Word
in us are nearly the same. Our yielding to His abiding presence and our
confession of His Word serve to bring us forward in knowing we are in
Him and He is in us.
PAUL LONGED FOR THE PEOPLE
TO WHOM HE WAS WRITING to gain the same knowledge that was given to him regarding Christ. See
what he said in Eph 3:3,4…By revelation
He (that is, God) made known
unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words [in Eph 1:9], whereby, when ye read, ye may understand
my knowledge [you
may grasp the same understanding given to me] in the mystery
of Christ.
Perhaps
the greatest revelation given to Paul was with regard
to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He saw that His resurrection was
our resurrection too. When the Lord came from the grave there came with
Him a new kind of life out of which we now live and move in this present
age. To see Christ in heaven is the expectation of many, but to know Him
now—His living in us and our living in Him—is a hope that we
also can embrace. This is our living hope. It is the unveiling of the mystery in us.
In I Pet 1:3 Peter gives a blessing to
God for the living hope that is ours because of the
Resurrection of the Lord Jesus. While Peter’s hope reaches in particular toward
the end of the age and the salvation that will become manifest at
that time, Paul presents us with a present hope. Both are right. In other
Scripture Paul bears witness with Peter about the end-time salvation for
which we wait. We can read what he says about our final victory in I Cor 15, beginning specifically with verse 51. Paul speaks here also of
the mystery, this time about the final day. Behold, I
show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed
…At the last trump….we shall be changed. But—we say it again—it is with Paul’s
understanding about this present life and the hope that is ours now that
we take our present concern.
WITH THIS SAID, WE’RE
GOING TO EXAMINE some of the understanding that came to Paul about to our identification
with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection and ascension to the right hand of His Father. The Lord Jesus Christ brings us with
Him all the way. We will even see that what He inherits we inherit. This
may be more than our minds can comprehend. But our spirits can receive
that it is so.
With
our faith in the Word of God, our understanding can follow. Our minds
can become storehouses where truth can remain, available at any time for
the use of the Holy Spirit when He would move in us and through us. God’s
truth, stored in our minds, remains available for meditation, thinking,
acting in stressful situations, and is useful for keeping us equipped
for every encounter with the enemy. His attacks come often and unexpectedly.
Thus, we need minds that feed daily on God’s Word. Keeping His Word
in our minds will keep us mindful that Christ is living in us. When we
learn to place the revelation and understanding of Scripture above the
beliefs and ideas of the world, we are on our way to knowing who we are
in Christ and Who He is in us.
As
we allow the light of divine truth to overshadow our pain and confusion,
we find the unveiling of the Word becomes the unveiling of Christ. Then
the challenges of impossible situations become His challenges. This is
our hope of glory (Col 1:27). This is when His light begins
coming on like the dawning of a new day.
Paul
was ever praising the Lord for what is ours in Christ. See this: Now thanks be unto God, Who always causes us to triumph
in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge by us in every
place, II Cor 2:14.
Another translation has it thus: “Now thanks be to God Who leads
us from triumph to triumph in the train of Christ’s triumph.”
Another: “He makes our life a constant pageant of triumph in Christ.”
Having
spoken of tribulation, ...distress, ...persecution, …famine, ...nakedness, …peril, and sword, Paul was able to say, ...In
all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us (Rom 8:35,37).
IN YEARS GONE BY WE TOOK NOTE
OF A SET OF WORDS pertaining to what we are now seeing. We will look at them again. I am
writing now with the inspiration of this present time, having come through
my own darkness with the long descent of my dear wife through death’s
door over into the glory of eternity. Months of grief and adjustment on
my part have followed, sometimes with the doubt that I might ever minister
again.
In
this painful time I discovered new dimensions of my own weakness. But,
now I see all of the pain has been preparing me for a new day in my walk
with the Lord. My commitment to Him and my faith in His Word has been
strengthened. As areas of weakness have surfaced in me, they have opened
me to meet new dimensions of His strength. Thus, I have come into closer
communion with the Lord. Whatever I say now can come with deeper and stronger
conviction than ever. I am finding everyday He does indeed abide faithful (II Tim 2:13). And, He was true when He
said, . . .Lo, I am with you always, even
unto the end of the world (Mt 28:20).
Literally, always means through “all the days.” There is never
a day but that we can know the presence of Christ. The wonder of Paul’s
revelation is that He is in us and we are in Him, here and now.
And
let’s remember what Jesus said not long before He went to the cross.
As He was teaching His disciples about the Holy Spirit Who would come,
He said, At (“in”) that day ye shall know
that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you (Jn 14:20). Jesus was simply teaching
that when the Holy Spirit had come His disciples would know a communion
with the Father and Him. What a glorious communion this is! It is more
than a trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. If we could
come up with a word meaning the joining of four, we would use it. Yes,
it is that we are brought into communion with the holy trinity. For those
who oppose a designation of the trinity, preferring rather to speak of
the oneness of the Godhead, this is all right. If we take the Word of
Jesus, it means straightforward and simple that we become one with the
Father, with Him and with the Holy Spirit. This is not for our minds to
fathom. It’s for our hearts to know.
I WAS STUDYING ROMANS, AND
THEN EPHESIANS,
in the Greek New Testament when I first became aware of the words I before
mentioned. I called them Paul’s “together words". I took
note of the words he used that had the Greek preposition sun attached to them as a prefix. Sun means “together with.” It describes a togetherness
that is very distinct. It is like that of one line drawn upon another
so that you cannot tell two lines are in the same place—unless you
were there when they were drawn. One is with the other in the very same
place. Seeing these distinct words as they flow through Romans and then into Ephesians describing how we are with Christ may baffle our understanding. In them we see ourselves together with Christ, in the same place. If this is hard for our minds to grasp, we
recall how we have committed ourselves to receive and believe the Word
of God whether we understand it or not. We are ready to believe what it
says about us and Christ. We are with Him and He is with us. The “together
words" show us clearly how, and when, and where we are together with
Him.
We
find the beginning of these words in Rom 6 where Paul lays it out plainly
that we have been crucified together with Christ. He begins his statement
with knowing this. With little instruction leading
to this statement, he simply expects us to start knowing. This is where our commitment
to Scripture begins. We are willing to “know” it because we
see it written there.
We
find the first word of our identification with Christ in Rom 6:6. See this: Knowing this, that our old
man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed (rendered powerless), that henceforth we should not serve sin (be in bondage to The Sin).
I must say that before I grasped the importance of this in the Scriptures,
I was influenced by two classic books: Born Crucified by L. B.
Maxwell and The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee. Through
their pages my attention was drawn to the word knowing. It is from the Greek ginósko. This is not an instinctive kind of knowing, but rather
a knowing that comes through instruction, or learning. Our instruction
comes from the Scriptures. Thus, we are willing to know the revelation of the above
verse says simply on the basis that we see it written in Scripture.
What
is the revelation of this verse that we are to know? It is that our old man is crucified with Him. In the Greek text, is crucified with is one word. It’s the
first of our “together words.” The Greek prefix sun is attached to the word stauróo which means “to crucify.” The two words joined
mean “to crucify with.” It becomes one word defining one act.
Who
understood what was happening when the Lord Jesus was hanging on the cross?
Only
our Father knew.
No
one else could see or know what was happening when He Who knew no sin
was made to be sin for us. What did God see when Jesus was crucified?
Did He see only His beloved Son? Or, did He see you and me there with Him?
THROUGH EYES OF LOVE GOD SAW
BOTH JESUS AND ME—and you—on that cross. God’s Beloved took our sickness, our pain, our transgressions,
our iniquities, our sin. If we wonder how far the love of God reached
when His only begotten Son died, we find out in John’s
first Epistle. He said, And He (the Lord Jesus in His death) is the propitiation (the full satisfaction of the
ransom paid) for our sins: and not for ours
only, but also for the sins of the whole world—I Jn 2:2.
But
let us go on from here and see each of the “together” words.
They show us how far the atonement does indeed reach. We list them in
the order in which we find them in Romans and Ephesians. Paul was not laying out a
technical discourse for us by making a skillful display of these words.
It is we who have found them and placed them in order so we can soak in
the light and life to which each one is pointing. I am taking the liberty
of slightly rearranging them so we can gain some logical help.
Before
we begin our list, let us see again this foundational statement describing
Jesus Christ’s identification with us in our sin. For He made
Him Who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness
of God in Him (II Cor 5:21). Let us know this: before our
identification with Christ Jesus in His crucifixion, He identified with
us in our sin. Fix your heart and your mind on the above verse. See clearly
what it says. Soak in it till your spirit knows it, till your heart knows
it, till your mind is ready to receive it and say it is so. It was on
the foundation of love and grace, as this verse lays it out, that Jesus
went to the cross and died there with us.
Our Togetherness
With Christ Jesus
1—Rom 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. When we are willing to know that our old nature was crucified together with Christ Jesus, we are on our way to freedom from The Sin that ruled us when we were once separate from Him. That the body of sin might be destroyed means that the sin which once ruled us is losing its power. We have the living hope that we need no longer live under its bondage. It is sad, but many continue under sin’s rule even after they have come to know Christ as their Savior. This is because they have not come to know that our old man is crucified with Him.
The
specific step we can now take to experience our freedom from sin is laid
out in Rom 6:10,11. It becomes clear in the word reckon. We took note of this in the last article, but we do
well to see it again. For in that He (Christ Jesus) died, He died unto (the) sin once: but in that He liveth,
He liveth (continually) unto God. Likewise reckon
ye (put
it down to your account without ceasing) also yourselves
to be dead indeed unto (the) sin, but alive unto God
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Take careful note of the word likewise. He
died once, but He lives on and on and on in a relationship with God. Likewise we are to put it down to our account—never ceasing
to do so—that we also died once when He died, but we live on and
on and on in a relationship with God—and the Lord Jesus Christ and
the Holy Spirit. In our next article we intend to see how this becomes
reality with us.
2—Rom 6:4 Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Our baptism is our confession that we have accepted the death of Christ Jesus as our death. Just going through the motions of a baptism is not enough. We must have had a change of heart also. This involves each of us confessing that we are a sinner and that Christ Jesus died for our sin.
David
made a piercing statement touching upon this in Ps 32:5. Take note of the words sin, iniquity and transgressions in this verse. These are the
Old Covenant equivalents of what we saw in the last issue as sins, sin and The Sin. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the
LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Paul adds to this with his
statement about a confession in Rom 10:9. .. .If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine
heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. The words acknowledged and confess in these two verses are keys for us to use. They mean we
are to say it is so. Confessing our sin means that we are to withhold
nothing of our personal darkness.
An
evangelist of generations gone by declared that no person knows how great
a sinner he or she is on first coming to the Lord. I personally have found
this to be so. Having known the Lord as my Savior over 57 years,
I still see the unfolding of my inner man to reveal the effects of my
connection with Adam and his sin. Thus I can see the necessity of the
continual reckoning of Rom 6:11. But, with this, I praise the Lord the reckoning goes beyond my reckoning
upon sin. I am also called to reckon that I am alive to God through Jesus
Christ my Lord. What power comes into play when I put these two powerful
confessions down to my account! From the time I first knew Paul’s
revelation as my own personal truth till this day, I have not ceased to
wonder at its amazement and reality.
—Of course, we must continue.
© Berean Ministries
Listening to Jesus in His
Reach for Sinners
Continue to PART 4: A Light that Remains
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