We face perilous times. These times include harassments, distractions, risks and threats. However these perils are nothing more than statues on a lawn, pictures on a door, costumed children at our house for “trick or treat.” Though very real to those who “keep” their life, they fade away to those “losing” their lives — to those “dead” and hid with Christ in God. see Colossians 3:3.
Let’s consider 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, “For the love of Christ overmasters us, the conclusion at which we have arrived being this–that One having died for all, His death was their death, and that He died for all in order that the living may no longer live to themselves, but to Him who died for them and rose again. — Weymouth translation.
You see, ” For, with me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” was Paul’s striking testimony in Philippians 1:21. He saw himself so united to Christ through the work of the Spirit at his conversion in (Acts 9), that he was already “crucified” in Christ’ crucifixion.
Paul speaks of it again in Romans 6:3, “And do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? ” ” Well, then, we by our baptism were buried with Him in death.” Romans 6:4a, and “we have become one with Him by sharing in His death.” Romans 6:5a
Again and again Paul speaks of it:
“This we know–that our old self was nailed to the cross with Him,” Romans 6:6
Paul reiterates our co-death but in the next breath he speaks boldly of our co-life…
” …because we know that Christ, having come back to life, is no longer liable to die. Death has no longer any power over Him. For by the death which He died He became, once for all, dead in relation to sin; but by the life which He now lives He is alive in relation to God. Romans 6:9-10 Weymouth translation
Now Paul speaks to us again of resurrection, “In the same way you also must regard yourselves as dead in relation to sin, but as alive in relation to God, because you are in Christ Jesus. ” Romans 6:11 Weymouth translation.
Friends , our part is this from 2 Corinthians 5:14, “we thus judge — literally, “ J.F.B. tells us, it implies a judgment formed at conversion, and ever since regarded as a settled truth.”
“If one died for all, then we are all dead.”
To illustrate our principle I have borrowed from others:
“On the hill of Calvary, there were three crosses and three men. One man died IN sin, one man died TO sin, and one man died FOR sin.” Denis Lyle
“I used to think of being co-resurrected with Christ as an image of me on a cross next to Jesus, no different than the criminals he hung next to. That sounded about right. I was probably on the furthest cross from Jesus because I couldn’t have the honor of being on the cross next to him. I saw the Christian life as an endless season of struggles and doing what I knew was wrong but powerless to stop it… I saw myself struggling to take up my cross and carry it behind Jesus. Religion was exhausting. I couldn’t seem to keep up or fit in with those that worshipped around me in very specific ways.”
But, the writer discovered:
“The closest possible union with Jesus is what it’s all about. ‘Co’ in Greek means closest possible union. It means that I was resurrected in union with Messiah. We shared the same cross. ‘It is finished’ carries a whole new meaning now. I died in the closest possible union with Jesus so that I could be buried in the closest possible union, and be raised in the closest possible union with Him. I wasn’t on my own cross, many rows away from Jesus. I was on the same cross with him. Two hands per nail! I was there. He was there. It wasn’t only Him who died and rose again. The old me is gone and I’m free to live in wedded bliss with Jesus. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2:20).”
https://www.gcssm.org/blog/2018/10/19/what-does-co-crucified-mean
Beloved, we face the perils, but they don’t come nigh us. Our lives are hid — with Christ in God. Love ya
