The Need To Die
The two opening verses seem to be the most crucial ones… if only to point out that part of our salvation is that we died.
For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.Romans 6:6-7
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.Galatians 2:20
(Philips, Craig & Dean – Crucified With Christ comes to mind.)
Dr. Farley writes: “In all our talk about behavior, spiritual disciplines, and self-improvement within Christianity, I’m afraid we neglect the core message of the Christian faith—death and new life. At its root, Christianity is really about dying and waking up a brand-new person. A fundamental exchange occurs within us at the moment we place our faith in Jesus Christ for salvation.”
We’re scheduled to sing ‘I Know Who I Am’ by Israel Houghton and Chris Tomlin this coming Sunday, and I love the bridge just as much as the next guy. You know, where it says that we are forgiven, we are His friend, we are accepted; we’re secure, confident that we are loved by God; We are alive, we are set free, and we belong to Him, and He belongs to us. But see, we couldn’t have all this through Christ, had it not been for our old self dying – Or, I imagine, the opposite of what we sing today.
This old self that has been doomed to die by way of sin? It’s been punished and rejected, declared our enemy. It’s not secure but anxious, it’s not confident but afraid and insecure, doubting or downright knowing that it isn’t loved by God. It’s dead, it’s bound, and separate from God.
When we see it this way, we’re also given a picture of just how much was implied when Christ died for us.
“…There’s a whole lot more to the new covenant than simply escaping law and being under grace. Grace won’t work for just anybody. It’s only intended for those who’ve been made new at the core. It’s our newness in Christ working with the freedom of grace that unleashes expressions of God’s Spirit.”
So the point we’re saying here is that we aren’t merely saying that we are not under the Law. We’re saying that we died, and we were raised into a new life – And the more we understand the severity of our death, the more we appreciate the new life that we now have.
“The New Testament tells us that we died with Christ for good reasons. First, we died to the law so we could live in a new way (Gal. 2:19; Col. 2:20).”
For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.Galatians 2:19
“Second, we died to the power of sin so we would have a free choice (Rom. 6:2, 7, 12).”
Romans 6:12 reads: Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Before Christ, it was our nature to sin. Or, sin was so ingrained and saturated in us that it was our nature – or it was natural for us to sin. All we did was sin.
Third, we died to receive a new heart, a new mind, and a new spirit—to become a new creation (Ezek. 36:26; 1 Cor. 2:16; 2 Cor. 5:17).”
“For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.1 Corinthians 2:16
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. (NOTE:) The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.2 Corinthians 5:17
Life After Death
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:6) Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. (NOTE:) For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:1–3)
Look at that. Yes, not only have we been made alive with new life in Christ, but now our lives are also ‘hidden with Christ in God’. Not merely WITH God, but HIDDEN, as Christ is hidden or IN God.
Anyway. Dr. Farley continues: “Did God mean for us to read about truths like these but only experience them when we hit heaven? Apparently, we’ve already hit heaven. Did you catch that? We’re already there spiritually, raised and seated with the King. So heaven is a place we’re going, but heaven is a place we’re already seated.”
(Colossians 3:1-2?) We died. We’ve been raised and seated. And we’re clean and close to God. What more can we ask for?
But here’s how we find ourselves praying: “Lord, I want to be closer to you.” Yes, we’re growing in our knowledge of God and his love, but here’s an important truth: we are already as close to God as we’ll ever get. Yes, that’s right. If you’re in Christ, then you’re spiritually united with Jesus (Rom. 6:5) and seated right next to the Father (Eph. 2:6). But there’s more—your human spirit is literally and actually fused with God’s Spirit:
But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. (1 Cor. 6:17 NASB)
One spirit with him? Now, that’s close… as we begin to grasp the beauty of our union in Christ, every motive we have will begin to change.
Our Death Is Finished!
As new creations, we’re not dragging around the corpse of our old self.
Realizing our death with Christ as a finished work is very different from the idea of trying to “take up our cross” and somehow “die to self.”… Another popular way to put it is that we keep putting our old self on the altar to be sacrificed, but it keeps crawling off! While these analogies are creative, they send the wrong message. They don’t teach the truth of who we are as new creations in Christ. We weren’t put on an altar. We were crucified on a cross. Interestingly, crucifixion is a type of death that you cannot bring upon yourself.
Imagine trying to crucify yourself! You nail one hand up—then what? We didn’t play a role in our crucifixion, and we cannot add to what God has already accomplished on our behalf. Whether it’s Romans telling us “our old self was crucified” (Rom. 6:6) and that it was “once for all” (Rom. 6:10–11), or whether it’s Galatians communicating that we were “crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20), or whether it’s Colossians telling us that we “have taken off [our] old self” (Col. 3:9), the message is the same: It is finished!
But what about ‘dying daily’?
And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? I die every day—I mean that, brothers—just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord. If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? (1 Cor. 15:30–32)
This is Paul defending his apostleship. He reminds his readers that he and the other apostles endanger themselves every hour, even fighting wild beasts in Ephesus. The apostles were doing whatever was needed to spread the message. When it came to Paul’s commitment, he literally faced physical death daily.
But what about ‘taking up your cross’?
But doesn’t Jesus say that we should take up our cross and follow him? And doesn’t taking up our cross imply that we need to die to self or at least die further to sin? It’s true that Jesus tells his audience to “take up your cross.” And that’s part of the salvation message:
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:34–36)
The context of Jesus’s statement about taking up our cross is so that we can save our life and not forfeit our soul. Clearly, Jesus’s comments relate to salvation.
So the question is: When do we get put on a cross? When are we crucified by following Jesus to his cross? The answer from Scripture is clear—at salvation. At salvation, we die with Christ (Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20), and this act needs no repeating.
The Truth of ‘Dying to Self’
There’s no New Testament passage that implies we need to die to sin further (after salvation) or that we need to die to self at all.
In fact, we actually see the opposite—our once for all death to sin is emphasized: The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 6:10–11)
Our job is to recognize our one-time death to sin as being real. That way, it can have tangible effects in our thinking right here and now. If we fail to see this miraculous exchange as having already taken place, we’ll live under the delusion that we’re no different from a lost person.
We’ll end up thinking of ourselves as “sinners saved by grace” rather than grasping the radical truth that we’re now saints by nature.
What needed to die, died. We died when Christ died on the cross, and we live, knowing that our old self has died.
I was supposed to continue with Dr. Farley’s follow-up question, ‘Why do we still sin?’; But I’ve decided to cut the writing here, and do that in another article.
Playing catch-up. So much happening, so much written, so much to organize and post. God bless you!
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