"Now if all were included in his death they were equally included in his resurrection. The unveiling of his love defines human life! Whatever reference we could have of ourselves outside of our association with Christ is no longer relevant."
"This is our radical and defining moment! No label that could possibly previously identify someone carries any further significance! Even our pet doctrines of Christ are redefined. Whatever we knew about him historically or sentimentally is challenged by this conclusion."
"Now, in the light of your co inclusion in his death and resurrection, whoever you thought you were before, in Christ you are a brand new person! The old ways of seeing yourself and everyone else are over. Acquaint yourself with the new!"
2 Corinthians 5:15-17, Mirror Translation
As believers, we are called to no longer allow the world to shape our perception of our identities, but rather to find our identities in Jesus Christ and in His finished work. As we see in the above Scripture, God absolutely redefined humanity through the cross of Christ, and through faith we partake in the cross and in the power of Christ's resurrection and experience it as reality in our own lives.
However, a problem arises when we start to view identity in Christ as a goal that we pursue. We can easily fall into a form of humanism when we look at identity as something that we build, or see it as something that is in any way contingent on our performance. This warps our perspective, and causes us to see Christian life as something that we strive to live, instead of an exchanged life where Christ is living his life through us.
This usually occurs when we come to see Jesus only "historically or sentimentally," and view him merely as an example for us to emulate.
Jesus is not just our example.
Jesus is our life.
Our pursuit of Christ results only from his pursuit of us.
Our identity was never anything we could earn, maintain, or build; instead, it is a gift that we have already been given in Christ. This is because of his work, plus nothing.
Our identity is not even contingent on our own belief. We don't have our identity in Christ because of our belief; rather, our belief is the recognition and acknowledgement of the identity we were already born again into in Christ.
Real faith, "abiding," recognizes the reality of what Jesus accomplished, and lives life from the revelation of that truth through the work of the Holy Spirit. For example: we are not born knowing about gravity - but it is still real. Through training and experience we perceive the reality of gravity, and literally learn to walk because of it. In the same way, before we can walk as sons of God the way Jesus did, we need to recognize the reality and the implications of the cross, and of our death and resurrection with Christ. We need to see how the cross reversed our identity and our nature as sinners, and brought us into a new nature as sons with the heart and mind of Christ.
Jesus died for us, to pay the debt for our sins. He also died as us. In Christ, the old self, the flesh, has passed away, and the new has come. A reason we often don't experience or walk in this newness of life is because we fail to recognize this as a reality; we will fail to walk in the new if we believe that we are still our old, sinful, incapable selves. If you view yourself more as a "forgiven sinner" than you do as a "new creation," you are effectively placing more confidence in your ability to displease God than you do in Jesus' ability to produce righteousness in your life. Confidence in the flesh's ability to displease God is still confidence in the flesh! Thank God, the flesh is dead!
It is critical that we understand our new identity. Misunderstanding or misinterpreting this will result in us specializing in "flesh management" - creating rules and regulations to "die to self" and to "mortify the flesh."
Paul speaks to this in Colossians 2:23: "These (regulations) indeed have an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh." While accountability and healthy boundaries can be helpful in growth, we need to recognize their insufficiency in producing righteousness. Only the understanding of our own death, burial, and resurrection of Christ gives us the power to walk righteously. When we understand how dead the flesh is, we can leave it behind and walk as sons.
During a cell meeting, I was praying and saw a picture of myself dragging around a decaying corpse as I went through my day. People would stop and ask me what it was that I was carrying, and I would reply, "Can't you see? It's me!" When we see our death with Christ, we are absolutely set free from our sinful, anxious, depressed selves! Now that I know that the corpse is not me, I am free to leave that dead man behind.
"The terms co-crucified and co-alive define me now. Christ in me and I in him! His sacrificial love is evidence of his persuasion of my righteousness!"
Galatians 2:20, Mirror Translation
"See yourself co-raised with Christ! Now ponder with persuasion the consequence of your co-inclusion in him. Relocate yourselves mentally! Engage your thoughts with throne room realities where you are co-seated with Christ in the executive authority of God's right hand.
Colossians 3:1, Mirror Translation
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