And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins. Matt. 1:21
I RECALL the moment that verse above struck me with the truth regarding particular redemption, or “limited atonement.” It is very specific as to whom Jesus came to deliver from their sins. Connect this verse with several others, and it is quite clear Christ came upon the scene with His beloved elect in mind, with the intent to save them from their sins. The other thing that occurred to me at the time was the question, just what specifically it was that Jesus was saving or delivering “His people” from? What I have subsequently observed and learned – finding its way in studies and many marginal notations in my Bible – is what it was, and the extent to what it is – …that Jesus delivered His own from the condemnation and dominion of sin, and ultimately the very presence of sin.
WE might think of how God through Moses delivered the hapless children of Israel from Egypt, a picture of spiritual deliverance referred to often as an apt analogy to salvation. It was release from bondage and deliverance unto liberty that resulted in their ultimate – promised land – freedom. It was no simple task, and it elicited various responses and reactions along the course of the process of God getting them from where they were to where He wanted them to be. So just what did our Lord save His people from regarding “their sins”?
WELL, obviously it was the condemnation of sin that hung upon each and all. We rejoice in Romans 8:1 that says, There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. But it did not end there. He also delivers us – in time – from the love of sin, the effects of sin, the stain and power of sin, yes sin’s rule and dominion. (Rom. 6: 14)
THERE are a great many evils in the world, but the root cause to them all is sin. All was well until sin entered in. More can and needs to be said on this, which in fact is some of what the next chapter of our study addresses: Chapter 24, Identification and Growth. So, let’s get to this precious instruction.
PRAYERFULLY this intro will add to its significant message; hopefully it didn’t distract.
In the wondrous blessings of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa. 30:15 & Job 2:10
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Chapter 24—Identification and Growth
Positional truth is the basis of every sphere of our Christian life. But nowhere are we more dependent upon the principle of position than in the understanding of our identification with the Lord Jesus in His death unto sin and resurrection unto God. As in all positional steps, identification is not experiential, but is a matter of placing our faith in the facts of the Word. Whereas justification has to do with birth, identification has to do with growth, which is to continue until we see Him face to face.
Position
When we received the Lord Jesus as our Savior and thus were born into Him as our life, all that He is and all that He has became ours. Justification (His righteousness) was perhaps all that we could apprehend at the time, but that was only the beginning of an infinity of wonders into which we are to enter, now and throughout eternity. Because of our grace-given position in the Heir, we are “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:17).
All is held in trust for us in Christ, our new position, and becomes our condition as we are taken forward, step by step, in faith. When we are able to receive and appreciate the benefits of the riches of Romans chapters One through Five, then He is free to take us into the reality of the wealth of Romans chapters Six through Eight. When we are firmly established in the positional truth of Christ dying for our sins and rising again for our justification (Rom. 4:25), then we are prepared to see our position and enter into the benefits of our having died and risen with Him (Rom. 6:5).
Now, let us look at some of the positional truths concerning our identification with the Lord Jesus. “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection” (Rom. 6:5, NASB). For us to be reborn, newly created in the risen life of the Savior, God had to free us from the penalty of sin and the nature of the fallen Adam. He accomplished this by placing us in Christ on the cross, by identifying each one of us, as future believers, with Him. Thus, when Christ died unto sin (out of the realm and reign of the principle of sin), we as sinners died unto sin in Him. Why should this be so difficult to comprehend when we understand clearly that the Lord Jesus died for every one of our sins (all future at the time) on that same cross? He was identified with our sin in order that we might become identified with His righteousness. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21).
We know that the Lord Jesus rose again, once He had paid in full the wages of sin. Since we were identified with Him in His death, and thereby were freed from both the penalty and power of sin, we know that we arose with Him in His resurrection. It could not be otherwise. “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (Rom. 6:8, NASB).
“For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God” (Rom. 6:10, NASB). The Lord Jesus died unto the power and reign of sin, and He rose again in the “power of an endless life” (Heb. 7:16). Identified with Him on the cross, we too died unto sin’s tyrannical dominion and “have been buried with Him through [spiritual] baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4, NASB).
God provides the facts before He calls for faith. …….. to be continued
