The Cross & the Christian, part 2:
THE UNCHARTED CHART OF MY NEW LIFE

(Read part 1, "God's way to victory is called Christ", here.)

Mary and Michael had sailed for two weeks on the open sea when they realized they would have to save their supplies if they didn’t want to die of starvation on the way to America. They had boarded in Ireland with all their hopes packed into the small, battered backpack, and there wasn't much left of the food. It seemed like they were the only ones who were struggling with finances as well as with everything else, because all the other guests ate their meals at the ship's restaurant. As Mary plucked some mould off the dry roll and devided the rest into two pieces, she and Michael shared a look that revealed that their spirits were as low as the propellers below the dark ship. They had a ticket to the dream land of America, but it was a struggle to keep the nose above water.

This continued until an attendant found them sharing their dusty crumbs and asked them why they were not eating in the restaurant with the others.

“We could only afford the ticket, and now there's almost nothing left of the food we brought," Mary replied.

The attendant looked distrustful and astonished at them. “Do you mean to say that you have been eating your own food all this long way?”

“Yes,” Michael said.

The attendant sent them a concerned look while sitting down on the bunk bed opposite Mary. “All the food you need is included in the price of your ticket. You didn't have to bring anything at all; there are two seats reserved especially for you in the restaurant, and all meals are included in the fare that is already paid."

This story is said to be true, even though the names are changed - but it is a decided truth that a lot of Christians live in a condition in which they don't know the extent of what was paid on their behalf at Calvary, and therefore they end up eating crumbs, fighting to keep the spirits up when life's trying journeys commence.

As previously mentioned, the Cross & the Christian is a series of articles that deal with the individual elements of the victorious life in abundance as believers. In the previous article we studied the first item on the journey, which is to understand that the cross is the end of all attempts to gain righteousness and holiness, replacing self-confidence with God-confidence. The main principles in life according to the cross is this: God reveals His omnipotence through our impotence. Just like God revealed Himself through the life of Christ – not as a king, but as a servant, empowered by the Holy Spirit, God can only reveal His power and magnificence through us, when we recognize and accept the fact that we are weak in ourselves. “And [God] said unto me, My grace is sufficient for you: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me" (II Corinthians 12:9).

The second part revolves around my death with Christ, and point 3 is my new life in Christ along with its often unknown facts. Because I have previously written about our death with Christ in depth, I will here only engage in this briefly, to move on to the glorious details of our lives with Christ.

Death comes before resurrection

“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). In order to experience the resurrection life and walk in newness of life, we need to know what it means to be buried with Him by baptims into death. This baptism is into Christ (and has nothing to do with water baptism), and we were crucified and buried with Him when we were baptized into Christ. This baptism took place when He died on the cross, and we were made partakers of it when we received Him as our personal saviour. The verse above explicitly says that we were baptized into His death (by faith, not by water baptism).

Here is becomes relevant to do a quick study in the difference between God’s promises and God’s facts.

• A promise: “she shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.”
• A fact: “she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.”
• A promise: “For he shall save his people from their sins.”
• A fact: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”

Everything Christ accomplished for you on the cross, including your own death and resurrection, are facts, not promises.

Think of yourself as dead. "Likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:11). But don’t look at yourself to check if you are dead. You aren’t dead because you died physically; you are dead, because Christ died and you accepted Him as your substitute on the cross. Life’s various situations will persistently invite you to gaze at yourself and conclude that the old man is very much alive and ruling, but God has made everything to be such that it's not the intention that we are to look to (or at) ourselves. The new creation is not in ourselves, but in Christ (II Corinthians 5:17). We are to behold Christ and believe that when He died, so did we, regardless of what our thoughts and actions seem to prove.

Being dead with Christ first of all implies that we are dead from sin and from deeds as a means to satisfying God in any way. And because we are dead with Christ, we are also buried with Him and resurrected with Him unto a newness of life. Again it is vital to notice that it is all with Christ and in Christ. The same situations that will compel us look at ourselves and think that we aren’t dead, will also help us assume that our life in Christ isn’t the victorious one we thought it was going to be.

However, the new life is through His resurrection unto a new life in Him. Thereby it is a matter of fact that everything He is and has, so are and have we.

The new, abundant life

Because we are dead, buried, and resurrected with Him, we have been promoted. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3). This position of being blessed with "all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" is a spiritual position – again not necessarily something that can be felt, but is partaken of by faith – and therefore many Christians end up like Mephibosheth who lived a part of his life in a pitiful state; he was an heir to a kingdom but didn't know it, and therefore he feared the king. The fact that everything in the spiritual realm is partaken of by faith makes it both easy and difficult; difficult because we have a tendency to fix our mind on what we feel and see; and easy, because, on the other hand, we don’t need to do anything but believe – and keep believing, regardless of what circumstances tell us.

The ticket was paid by Christ on the cross, and we are now a royal travel party on the ship headed for Canaan’s land, and everything on the journey is included in the fare that's already been paid.

The content of the ticket and the covenant:

Freedom from condemnation

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:1).

As a baby Christian I thought I was free from condemnation to the extent that I was able to live virtually error-free, because this verse says it applies to those who "walk not after the flesh." I have since found out that the flesh refers to personal resources. The greatest fleshly desire is not a sexual desire, money mania, or a similar addiction; it is recognition and praise. Walking after the flesh refers to the desire to grow our own spiritual muscles, so that we harvest the glory of whatever comes out of it. This verse tells us that we are not to let the fleshly desire for honor govern us, but let the Spirit do the work and God have the glory.

Thereby this truth emerges: If we are in Christ, and we don’t trust ourselves, we are not under condemnation.

If you have a hard time believing this in all of life’s circumstances, you have misunderstood what condemnation is (or you have yet to see God's grace). People often speak of feeling comdenmed and a feeling of guilt, but none of these are feelings. Condemnation is the state of being separated from God; guilt is the state of being in debt to God – and you are neither. By the blood of Jesus you have been made near to God (Ephesians 2:13), and Christ paid everything you owed God. As long as you remain humble, you remain in the streams of grace (James 4:6).

Holiness

“He has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love” (Ephesians 1:4).

I previously read this verse as if it said: "He has chosen us in Him ... to strive with all my willpower to be holy and without blame..." This, thank God, is not the truth, but it is sadly what most Christians live by, and there is only way this could lead: the highway of despair. Here, however, the Holy Spirit says that God has chosen us to be holy and exempt from blame on the simple basis of our position in Christ. When we are in Christ, God will find no more fault with us than He did with Christ.

Boldness and access to the Father

“In [Christ Jesus] we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him” (Ephesians 3:12). The only reason we can have boldness and access with confidence in the presence of a thrice-holy God is by the blood of the cross of Christ, in the humble understanding that God’s way is His power, effective through our weakness. When Christ died, God Himself tore the veil to the Holy of Holies and thereby stated that all who wanted could come into God’s presence for fellowship with Him and find “grace for help in the time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

Freedom from law

We have “liberty ... in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 2:4), “for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new [creation]" (II Corinthians 5:17).

We have the liberty in Christ that we are not expected to strive at keeping laws in order to be declared righteous (actually, the attempts will counterwork what we are really trying to accomplish), and the only thing that satisfies God is Christ and our faith in Him as the conclusive sacrifice, by which He provided everything that pertains to righteousness and holiness. “I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God” (Galatians 2:19).

Imagine a courtroom. A man is on trial – his wife sits among the audience, his children are home. On the outside the man’s life is the ideal image, but he has been battling an addiction which has now driven him into crime, and he has finally ended up in a courthouse for an action so terrible, he knows he's going to have to pay with his life. The judge states the man's death sentence, and the man is hauled off back to prison and then to his place of execution.

Through the functions of the law (execution of judgment because of transgression), the man is now dead.

A few days later, a prison guard has the shock of his life. He sees the executed man walking around the streets with his wife and children, seemingly without a care in the world. The guard runs off to the judge, saying: "that man is a criminal! Shouldn’t we execute him again?" The judge perplexed looks up in his law book, and says: "he has already paid his penalty, so he's no longer accountable to the law." The judge also comes to the conclusion that the law doesn't punish for the same offense twice. As far as the law is concerned, the man simply doesn’t exist anymore.

This is the liberty of being dead to the law through the law. Christ paid the penalty of sin when He died, and I died with Him, so therefore – as far as the law is concerned – I simply don't exist anymore. When I partook of my death with Christ by faith, I died to law, and therefore I live in total freedom for having to serve any kind of law (remember that this includes abiding by rules, whether written or unwritten, as full or partial means of satisfying God). Although I still live, which I do because I am resurrected to a newness of life, the law has no influence on me and can’t punish me. Ever. I’m already dead. The law has already executed my sentence because God placed me in Christ when He died.

Freedom from sin

"Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin" (Romans 6:6-7).

Freedom from sin has two sides: Our sinful actions and the power of sin. I will be dealing with this subject in a separate article, so I will only here remind that the ugly stains of our acts of sin were washed in the blood when we were made partakers of our death by faith in Him. This includes both the sins you committed until then and all the sins you will ever commit in the future.

A lot of Christians find this hard to believe. How can it be that even our future sins have already been forgiven, forgotten, and erased?

Yet, this is the truth. Think of this: When did Christ take away all of your sins by nailing it to the cross? About 2000 years ago, right? How many of your sins were future at that time?

I pray that God in His awesome grace may reach you with this glorious message of total freedom from sin (I’ll be returning with the subject of the power of sin). But if you, in the meanwhile, are thinking something along the lines of, "if I have all of this, why don't I actually have it?" it's because every element in your spiritual life concerns either your:

Position or condition

Your position is your spiritual position in Christ, which we have studied in this article, and which is effective based on the simple fact that you are saved by faith. You condition is your practical state or constitution, which changes as you grow spiritually. The following will be very important for you to remember:

Your condition is practical.
Your position is fundamental.

Your condition depends partly on you (willingness to hear the spirit).
Your position depends on Christ (and Christ is infallible).

Therefore:
Your condition changes throughout your life – but
Your position never changes.

You have been placed in a position that your condition can never take away. Everything we have studied in this article is already yours based on the finished work of the cross. They are facts. But you life as a Christian is a process in which your condition by the work of the Spirit is continuously rendered closer to what you already are and have in your position. In the meantime, we need to be aware that God does not intend to make us superhumans – this will only result in flesh that is able to boast of itself – and it is not God's intention that we focus on raising the level of our condition, because this will only create children of God who constantly focus on themselves. While the Spirit is working, we should simply focus on Christ, who has already become our victory, our sanctification and our redemption from sin. Always remember the following: Your position is Christ, and Christ never changes; therefore your position never changes. No matter what happens in your condition while you mature as a Christian – regardless of how many times you fail – it does not affect Christ, therefore does not affect your position, therefore does not affect how God sees you.

In God’s amazing grace,