The Bible not only speaks of
the Christian’s participation in the cross of Christ, but it also speaks of our
having been raised with Him.
“even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive
together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together,
and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,”
(Ephesians 2:5–6, NKJV)
“buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were
raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the
dead.” (Colossians 2:12, NKJV)
“Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into
death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4, NKJV)
I believe the referencee to
baptism in these verses does not speak of water baptism, but of the baptism of
the Spirit in which the Spirit of God places us into the body of Christ. Being
part of His body therefore, we have died, been buried and raised together with
Him. The passage in Ephesians even says we have been made to sit together with
Him in heavenly places. This is the way God sees it. And these truths are the
ground of victory in our lives.
We need to reckon or count these statements as true regarding ourselves. We are no longer under the death penalty because that penalty has already been applied to those who believe. We are therefore on the other side of death and into the resurrection side so that, as Paul puts it, “we should walk in newness of life.”
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