John 1: 1-5 NKJV
We've been struggling with something in our little Sunday morning discussion group. This being the truth of Christ Jesus in each one of us. Each week we dig into scripture and proceed to attempt to understand this concept which the apostle Paul called the "Mystery among the gentiles"{Colossions 1:27}. It seems understandable just why Paul would refer to this truth as such if we are having the same difficulty in understanding this concept. I can only imagine just how difficult it was for those in the church at Galatia to comprehend it as well. For if Jesus Himself had angered the Jewish authorities of His day by claiming that He was indeed the Son of God, how much more pushback would one receive today by making the outlandish claim that he lives as Christ Jesus? Sorry, but perhaps society isn't quite ready to accept this reality. However, just because the authorities of Jesus' day refused to accept His claims of His deity, that did not make them false statements by any means. And so it is with us today. In John 1 we learn that not only was Jesus there at the dawn of creation, but that without Him "Nothing was made that was made" {John 1:3}. Christ Jesus is not only our all, He is all that there is. For without Him, there would be no us. Not only was Jesus involved in our very creation, but it is through Him that we also have cast off our "Old man" that we should live as Him. Jesus is all.
Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6: 6-11 NKJV
As I get more into the evidence, the scripture, I began to see the revelation of this great mystery. I believe this is not by accident. One of the most difficult facts of this mystery is found in Romans 6:8. Here, Paul reveals one of the most important, if not THE key truth of our lives. As Paul tells it, "If we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him." So, how many of you out there feel as if you've died? I mean, wouldn't you know if you had? Such is this mystery among the Gentiles. However, as I've discovered, it is not our physical death that Paul was refering to, but the death of our old man born into sin so long ago. When Adam and Eve were deceived and disobeyed God, mankind fell into sin {Genesis 3: 6-7}. Thereafter, all mankind carried the guilt and stain of sin with them {Romans 5:12}. However, God loved us enough that He would send His Son Jesus to save His creation {John 3:16}. Yes, God loved us, bt there still needed to be the sacrafice to deal with the sin we were born into.
For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrafices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshippers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrafices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.
Hebrews 10: 1-4 NKJV
That sacrafice we had from the law, which was faithfully carried out yearly on the day of atonement, did nothing to do away with our sins. At best, the sacrafices offered by the priests covered sin yet did not do away with them. It took the blood of Jesus to erase our sin debt. However, it also took the physical death of Christ to do away with that old man which we were born into. Through Christ Jesus, we have died. Of course, as Paul tells us that "If we died with Christ, we believe that we should also live with Him." What Christ Jesus died to remove from us, He filled with Himself within us.
"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
Galations 2:20 NKJV
That old man having died and being removed from within us, we now live a new life of freedom, free of the sin which each of us was born into. We now live as Christ Jesus who is within us. Jesus is our all and THE all.
~Scott~
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