The New
Testament repeatedly informs its readers about the momentous event at Calvary. Galatians
2:20 and Romans 6 declares that Christ embraced me (and you) when He was
crucified. He died! We did too, in Him! But my problem was first written up by
Paul. Romans 7:15-24. We know how he felt when he wrote ‘I do what I don’t want
to do and don’t do what I should, and what I hate, I do!’
Why is it so?
The
doctrinal implications about my death must be understood first of all from
God’s vantage point. Following on from grasping the wonder that talks about we
are faced with the moral expression of it in our life and living. As if that
was all there was to it we then discover a ‘monster’ in our human nature.
How God
views me – you - after a faith commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
We, who were unclean, dead in sin and enemies are now alive to Him, cleansed,
forgiven, justified. We are no longer in
the kingdom of Darkness but in the Kingdom of His Son1! We are
seated with Him in the Heavenly places2. That which prevented us
from having a relationship with God and barred us from Heaven eternally has
been crucified, removed, buried! Romans 6:6 defined it as ‘the old man.’ God sees me and you as His - now. Trouble for
me hovers around the fact that I have to work out in daily life what God has
wrought in me. Easy, if we were in Heaven. Difficult as we who are ‘dead’ are
still operating in World dominated by the Kingdom of darkness. We are
confronted by doubts about our death, how to please God and controlling our
very active memories and the twisted tastes of our soul.
What then
am I, or you, to do when people claim to have a better way to be dead?
There has
always been some who claimed to really be alive to Christ was to become a Jew
first. That meant keeping the Mosaic Law as well as believing on Jesus. This
was actually refuted by the man who claimed he had kept the law rigorously. Then
he discovered the Mosaic couldn’t save him. That was Paul. Read Philippians 3
for his testimony.
This
brilliant man didn’t say Jesus had killed the Law. No! It was still operating
with its curse on failure and powerless to forgive after condemnation. In
Romans 7:4 this upholder of salvation as supremely and solely by faith in
Christ wrote believers are dead to the Law. We live in a new realm. The mandate
for our life and living is to set our affections on Christ and to unleash His
righteousness through our obedience to Him and His will. The Church council in
Acts 15 did not require Gentile believers to place themselves under the yoke of
the Law of Moses. Why? Because it could only tell us the wages of sin is death
but it couldn’t give us life. In our commitment to Christ we have paid the
penalty of sin which came when Adam transgressed God’s word. The Law of Moses
defined some of the specific areas in which all ‘crash and burn’.
I, being
a Gentile, was never under the Law. However, I was bound by my pagan and
philosophical traditions with their avenues of escaping judgement. I still am
surrounded by them but being redeemed from them I am dead to their influence.
As I read the New Testament letters I gain an understanding of those traditions
that no longer should dictate to me my views about God and my relationship with
Him. I must realise that I’m dead to old and profane wives fables and pseudo-science3.
There is
a majestic passage in 1 Corinthians 15:54-57. It speaks of our victory over the
most dreaded time to come. Faith in Christ makes us share in His death and
resurrection. We have new life and new dwelling arrangements. Unfortunately,
for those who reject the grace of Christ Jesus and shun joining Him in His
cross and resurrection they experience a death to which we have died. In
Revelation 2:11 and 20:6 the promise is given to believers that we have no part
in what is called ‘The second death.’ In Revelation 20:14 the destiny of those
not dead to sin and their ‘old man’ and therefore alive in Christ are delivered
into that realm. The ‘Second Death’ is no fun park but a place of gnashing
teeth and tears of regret.
References.
1Colossians 1:13. 2Ephesians
1:3. 31 Timothy 6:20.
Next
week: Poem of the month.
©Ray
Hawkins 28th January 2018.
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