The old life is dead. You are dead to it. You will not be consumed by it; you cannot be controlled by it. You have a newer and higher life. Let it have full scope… You profess to be dead to the world; is that profession false? You have observed that Scriptural ordinance in which you profess to be buried with Christ; was that observance only an empty form? ~C.H. Spurgeon
Oh beloved, it is true. We have been annihilated.
What?
Yeah, you believer, have been trans-temporally crucified with Christ.
Romans 6…
Colossians 2 and 3…
Galatians 2, 5 and 6…
2 Corinthians 5…
2 Timothy 2…
1 Peter 2… this writer could go on…
Romans 6…
Colossians 2 and 3…
Galatians 2, 5 and 6…
2 Corinthians 5…
2 Timothy 2…
1 Peter 2… this writer could go on…
You are dead.
And this is very good news.
And this is very good news.
What are you talking about? I became a christian because I knew I was a sinner and needed Jesus to get to heaven. Otherwise, I would go to hell… His death on the cross paid for my sins. I could not pay for them myself. No way.
Yes beloved. It just gets even better than that. The above is ABSOLUTELY WONDERFULLY TRUE. But G_d had even more in mind (kinda like G_d, isn’t it?)…
Beloved, Jesus did not only just save us from our sins… He saved us from ourselves.
He didn’t die to fix our old self, He died to replace it with a new creation that would grow into a being that will give Him glory and enjoy Him fully and forever. He is growing beings that are being made like Him. He is forming creations that will reign with Him in His kingdom of His Righteousness, Joy and Peace out into and beyond deepest eternity.
He is making us into His friends. The G_d who is the very well-spring of existence is making us into His friends. This is an incomprehensible mystery, but it is more true than the tidal pull of the moon on our planet’s oceans.
This work required radical action on His part. He had to die to bring it about. And to make us one with Him, He took us through the whole process with Him. We could not have done this on our own. Not even close.
However, as this writer said earlier, this is really good news. This new creature that God has wrought (see 2 Cor 5:14-21) through our death is totally free from the past bondage to sin and death. We have only to reckon it true, and let His Spirit grace us with the power to live as such. And in Christ’s power, we will do outlandish things for His glory. The gates of hell will not prevail against these new creations. We have become a problem FOR evil. Additionally, evil is no longer the main problem for us.
But, here’s the rub. The world around us, and our old flesh cue us that we should hedge our bets here. Beloved, one piece of advice: whatever you have to bet, lay it all down on this wager. There is no way it will go bad. i have it on Highest Authority that Jesus will be ALL the Jesus we allow Him to be in our lives.
Let me yield to an expert here. Oswald Chambers, from My Utmost for His Highest (2/29) frames the issue well:
Watch how we limit the Lord by remembering what we have allowed Him to do for us in the past: I always failed there, and I always shall; consequently we do not ask for what we want. “It is ridiculous to ask God to do this.” If it is an impossibility, it is the thing we have to ask. If it is not an impossible thing, it is not a real disturbance. God will do the absolutely impossible… The most impossible thing to you is that you should be so identified with the Lord that there is nothing of the old life left. He will do it if you ask Him. But you have to come to the place where you believe Him to be Almighty. Faith is not in what Jesus says but in Himself; if we only look at what He says we shall never believe. When once we see Jesus, He does the impossible thing as naturally as breathing. Our agony comes through the wilful stupidity of our own heart. We won’t believe, we won’t cut the shore line, we prefer to worry on.
Beloved, in Christ there is simply NOTHING that is impossible. There is no place for fear… no place for doubt… no place for worry… no place for anxiety… no place for sin… no place for settling for a defeated life.
Let us not be deceived here. We will either reckon Jesus as well able to handle everything, or we just won’t. And in reckoning G_d’s promises false our lives will continue to resemble the fetid messes they were before Jesus saved us from our sins.
Would that we would live a G_d-sized gospel. One that reckons our old self is totally gone, and holds no authority in our lives any more; a gospel that says Jesus has made all things new, and by His grace, we are just going to fling ourselves into the work He has set before us.
Sounds like a very good time!
The ways of God and the ways of the world are not compatible. The idea, promoted by some who claim to be evangelicals, that a Christian does not have to give up anything or change anything when he becomes a Christian is nothing less than diabolical. That notion, under the pretense of elevating God’s grace and of protecting the gospel from works righteousness, will do nothing but send many people confidently down the broad way that Jesus said leads to destruction.
~John MacArthur
