CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST
“My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Much is said in theological circles about the necessity of trying to be like Christ. But that does not get anywhere near the truth of the matter. The Christian life is not really one of the “imitation of Christ,” but rather one of life in Christ himself. Believers are dead in Jesus—dead to self and dead to sin—and that is the way it should be.
“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. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin” (Rom. 6:4-6). Notice that “the old man was crucified with him,” and this is something that we “know.” How do we know? The same way we know anything in the spiritual realm—by revelation. God has told us. That is all there is to it.
God says you are dead with Christ—and it is a matter of faith from then on. Things are not true because we have faith in them—we have faith in them because they are true. That act of accepting something as true is what faith is. We should never make the mistake of confusing faith with facts. Facts generate faith. Faith can never cause something to be true.
The question is, “Where do you get your facts?” The world tells you one thing—God tells you something else entirely. Whom will you believe? If you accept the testimony of God, then you are a believer and the Bible says you have faith. But your faith does not make true whatever God has promised you. No, you accept the promise because God said it, and this is the essence of faith.
To be a believer, in the Bible sense of the word, here is where it starts: I must accept that things are true because God says they are true. If that is the philosophy from which I live my life, then I am a believer. So, when God tells me I have been crucified with Christ, I put it down “on the books” of my mind as an accomplished fact. It is true to me, because it is true—period. Therefore, I can begin to fight the enemy from the victory that is given me at the Cross rather than from my own power.
You have been crucified with Christ. Rest, dear believer, in your “deadness.” You don’t have to claw and fight against the enemy, if you believe that you are dead with Christ. You owe nothing to the old self nature, for it has been defeated and its power can no longer dominate you. Paul says, “Sin shall not have dominion over you” (Rom. 6:14). And the reason is because you are dead with Christ and am free from Satan’s tyranny. Your life will look much different from what it has looked in times past if you really believe this is so.
Dewayne Dunaway
