Dead with Christ

“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.” Rom. 6:8. “For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him.” 2 Tim. 2:11.

To live with Him does not only mean to receive eternal life but also to overcome with Him, to overcome as He overcame, and to walk in His steps. Most people think that this is impossible in this world. In these verses we see the reason why people do not come to faith for victory in their lives. They do not believe that they have died with Him, that they are crucified with Him. Only when we believe that we are dead with Him is there any foundation for believing that we are partakers of His overcoming life.

Why is that? Because the old man is impossible. He cannot submit to God’s laws. However, if we get rid of the old man by partaking of the death of Christ, then we are rid of the obstacle that makes it impossible for any person to keep God’s commands or to do His will.

Can you now see this wonderful solution to the problem—to the mystery? “If we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.” But not otherwise!! Not unless we, by faith, reckon ourselves to be dead with Him.

“Because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died.” 2 Cor. 5:14. Now by faith, we, too, should be convinced that in Christ Jesus we also have died. We must lay hold of this by faith and conduct ourselves accordingly as those who have nothing more to say and who no longer have a self-will that has to be exerted. Then there will be victory!

“But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by . . . .” Rom. 7:6. It is a well-known fact that Christ died, but that we are dead—that this death can work in us—is practically unknown. May this fact also become known and be appropriated by many.

We are dead to what we were held by. What held us? The old man, the power of sin, the flesh with its passions and desires—lying, anger, envy, disagreeableness, backbiting, murmuring, insults, anxiety, covetousness, suspicion, etc., etc.

Trying to get rid of these things in your life by just plucking them out or just polishing them up doesn’t work. Even if you could, to a degree, somehow get rid of them, they would soon reappear. However, there is this one perfect, wonderful way of escape! You can be crucified with Christ and die to all that which held you captive and to which you were in bondage. If you pluck the leaves off a tree in the summer, they will grow back again because there is life in the tree. However, when winter comes, you do not have to touch the leaves; they will fall off by themselves because in the winter, a sort of death takes place in nature. And as long as this “death” lasts, nothing will grow back.

Dear reader, may it soon be late autumn for your sinful nature, with a plentiful defoliation. Oh, may there be an everlasting winter for your flesh and an everlasting summer for your spirit! May your sun rise, as Isaiah says, nevermore to go down. Amen.