The Believer’s Assurance (pt. 4)
Romans 5:10
Did you know that according to the FBI, the fastest growing crime in the United States with over 27.3 victims in the last five years and causing over 5 billion dollars in personal losses just last year alone is “Identity Theft”?
But I know of a crime that occurs to Christians that is far worse than that.
It effects far more people and is responsible for the losses of spiritual blessings, spiritual power, peace, joy, holiness, and victory over sin, which if it was possible to put a monetary value on would far exceed any cost we could comprehend.
I call it “Spiritual Identity Ignorance” and essentially it is a self-perpetrated crime in which its victims have simply not studied their Bibles long enough, hard enough, and carefully enough to understand who they are “in Christ”.
Sometimes it is a church or even pastor-perpetrated crime in which these victims have never heard teachings on their identity in Christ because the church is so caught up in “being all they can be in and to the world”.
Well—we don’t want to be a victim or perpetrator of this crime so let’s find out what our real identity is as those who are trusting Christ for our salvation.
Turn with me to Romans 5:10.
We now begin a section in Romans 5 that introduces us to another great reason why our salvation is an eternal salvation, which we cannot lose or forfeit under any circumstances. And this reason is that we as believers are in union with Christ.
Paul first introduces this concept in Romans 5:10 where he writes, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” You see, as verse 10 teaches us—we who believe in Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior have been reconciled to and with God by virtue of the fact that Jesus Christ went to the cross in our place so as to take our sins upon Himself and pay for them by His death. And what Paul is arguing is that whereas our salvation was procured eternally through the death of Christ on our behalf—it is guaranteed eternally through the life of Christ on our behalf. In other words, what guarantees the eternal security of our salvation, which is by nature eternal and permanent, is Christ’s life, which is also eternal and thus permanent.
So—in death Christ saved the believer and in life Christ guarantees His salvation to the believer. Therefore, if our final ultimate salvation is guaranteed by the life of Christ—it is as eternal as Christ’s life and since Christ is eternal so is our salvation. But more than that, Paul is arguing in verse 10 that not only is our salvation guaranteed by the life of Christ—that is Christ living His life on our behalf as our continued substitute—Our salvation is guaranteed by the fact that we are in union with Christ as He lives His life in us and on our behalf.
Whereas, most of our English translations have translated the last phrase just as I read it—“we shall be saved by His life”, the literal rendering is that, “we shall be saved in His life”. In other words, the reason why our salvation ultimately can be secured and thus guaranteed is because we have been placed in a permanent connection with Christ in which an unbreakable, indisolvable, permanent, inseparable, unseverable, and intimate union exists between us and Christ in that we have actually been placed in the position of being “in Christ Jesus”.
Therefore, our salvation is not merely a matter of being forgiven, justified, reconciled, and thus saved from our sins—it is also a radical change in our whole position, standing, status, and identity before God in which we are “in Christ”. So that, everything that is true of Jesus Christ in His humanity is also true of us so that Christ’s righteousness is our righteousness, Christ’s merits before God are our merits before God, Christ’s position, standing, and status before God is our position, standing, and status before God, Christ’s future before God is our future before God, Christ’s past before God is our past before God—all because Christ’s identity before God is now our identity before God. Listen—as believers—we have no identity outside of Christ—He is our identity.
The spiritual ramifications of this truth that we are in union with Christ so that His identity is our identity and that everything that was and is and will be true of Christ in His humanity is true of us are really incomprehensible. If, in Christ, the merits of Christ’s life that He lived on earth are also true of me—and they have to be—or else you can’t be saved—because not only does your salvation require that your sins be paid for but according to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount—you have to live a life as perfect as God’s.
Look at Matthew 5:20 and 5:48.
Negatively, you sins had to be paid for but positively—you need to be as perfect as God is if you are to ultimately be saved. And that is only possible if as Paul writes in Romans 5:10, that we are saved “in His Life”.
Now, back to my point—if “in Christ” the merits of Christ’s perfection have been attributed to me so that I not only possess the righteousness of Christ but am seen by God as having performed the righteousness of Christ by virtue of the fact that everything that was true of Christ in His Humanity while He was on earth is also true of me—then. . . .
As Bryan Chapel states so well in his book—“Holiness By Grace”—which I highly recommend to you—
This spiritual reality of my new identity permits me . . . to look through the eyes of Jesus at the events of Scripture [so that what Jesus does and is in His humanity is considered to be what I have done and who I am in my humanity as one who is in union with Christ.]
So that when Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, the wisdom of His sermon has been attributed to me.
So that when Jesus overcome the devil in the wilderness and thwarted his every attempt to tempt Him to sin—Jesus’ victory is our victory in that it is attributed to us because we are in Him.
So that when Christ had compassion upon the blind, the poor, and the guilty and worked on their behalf to relieve their burdens—Jesus’ compassion and mercy and works of mercy have been attributed to me.
Listen—as hard as it is to understand, comprehend, believe, and accept as true—all that Christ did in His humanity that pleased God and everything that He did pleased God has been attributed, imputed, and reckoned to you—if you are “in Christ”.
And while this may be new for some of you and you’re wondering what new fangled theology is Mark pushing on us today—let me take you back to 1563 and the Heidelberg Catechism, which was produced to teach Protestant Christian children and families their theology. In Question #60, the question is asked: How are thou righteous before God? And here is the answer:
“Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ; so that, though my conscience accuse me, that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God, and kept none of them, and am still inclined to all evil; notwithstanding, God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I never had had, nor committed any sin: yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me; inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart.”
Most believers have never plumbed the depths of what Paul meant when he said, speaking for all true believers, in Galatians 2:20 that: “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. . .” This statement is not merely Paul saying that “Jesus lives in his heart” and often that is about as deep as our theology goes. He is not saying that Jesus is the energizing power in our lives either.
If you look at the verse’s context from verse 16-19, verse 20 is in the context of Paul’s argument that a person cannot be justified by his works and religious performance before God. Thus, what he is saying is that my prior identity before God, which was based upon my inability to satisfy God and be accepted by God even with my best works has been extinguished—it was crucified with Christ—and thus no longer exists. This means that my status, standing, and position before God based upon my performance in regard to His Law—whether good or bad—no longer exists—it has no bearing upon me because I have been crucified with Christ and am now dead to the Law according to Galatians 2:19 and other passages such as: Romans 7:4.
Thus, my old identity that was based upon my religious performance and obedience or lack of obedience to God’s law no longer exists and I have been given a new identity before God, which is based upon Christ’s performance of obedience in every aspect to the Law of God.
Thus, in my new identity “in Christ”, which is based solely upon His performance and obedience to the Father—I am credited with all of Christ’s obedience, all of Christ’s righteousness, and all of Christ’s human perfections so that by virtue of being “in union with Christ” I am as accepted by God the Father as Jesus is—because He is my identity.
So, what Paul is essentially saying is that since my old identity based upon my disobedience to God’s Law no longer exists and since my new identity as a believer is bound up in Christ—I now enjoy the privilege of Christ’s own status and standing before the Father because I possess Christ’s identity as my very own by virtue of my union with Christ. And even now and on through eternity—Christ continually supplies the believer with His identity because God has made Christ our life.
Consider 1 Corinthians 1:30 and 2 Corinthians 5:21.
What we are talking about is often referred to as “positional sanctification”. In essence, it is the truth that God has imputed or placed upon the believer’s account the obedience and righteousness that Jesus fulfilled. So that, without earning it or possessing it ourselves, God declares us holy by virtue of our union with Christ. And even though the believer’s life is far from perfect, God has taken away all of the pollution of his sin and replaced it with all of the righteousness of Christ so that God relates to the believer in the same way that He relates to His Son—Jesus Christ. As believers in Christ, we are treasured as God’s holy children because we have Christ’s identity and Christ’s status before God. Now that is our positional or definitive sanctification.
In our progressive or experiential sanctification—we are growing in Christ so as to become in our experience who God already sees us to be. And just as our positional sanctification is bound up in our union with Christ so is our progressive and experiential sanctification because it is only through our union with Christ and His life that we receive all of God’s blessings including the power and ability to live the Christian Life and grow in holiness.
Consider Galatians 2:20 again.
Paul says: “. . . and the life that I now live in the flesh—I live by faith in the Son of God Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” In other words, whereas before Paul’s salvation, he lived his life believing in himself and in his own abilities to please God and in his own supposed merits before God—in his own identity’s ability, if you will, to please God—Now, as a believer and as one who has been placed in union with Christ—he isn’t trying to please God by believing in himself and his own abilities to do so but rather he lives his new lie in Christ by continually believing in and entrusting himself to Christ and Christ’s ability to remain acceptable to God for all of eternity.
Our continued acceptance before God therefore, is never based upon our performance whether good or bad—it is continually based upon Christ and His life. And it is only as we are living our lives by faith in Christ and experiencing and enjoying our union with Him that we will have the power to say “No” to sin.
Richard Loveless, writes in his book entitled, “Dynamics of Spiritual Life”,
“Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. . . .drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance or the relative infrequency of their conscious, willful disobedience. Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon [Martin] Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude.” [p. 101]
According to Chapell, the reason why our spiritual growth is inseparably connected to our union with Christ and must be grounded in our justification rather than our performance as Christians is because it provides us with the two confidences necessary for any spiritual growth and advancement whatsoever.
1) When we appropriate the fact that we are in union with Christ as justified believers whose identity is Christ Himself—we have the confidence that our status and standing and thus our acceptance will never change regardless of what our performance before God.
2) When we appropriate the fact that we are in union with Christ as justified believers whose identity is Christ Himself—we have the confidence that our ability does change because Christ’s life substitutes for ours in supplying the ability to please God as well as supplying the righteousness God requires.
So, with this understanding of our union with Christ, I think we can see why Paul makes the point in Romans 5:10, that we shall be saved “in Christ’s Life”.
You see, we really and genuinely new creations in Christ Jesus as 2 Corinthians 5:17 teaches us. It is important to note that the verb used for “passed away” in terms of the old things that characterized our life is an aorist indicative thus it is indicating that these old things about us and that characterized us have passed away—once and for all—so that we are no longer that person that we were before and now have a new identity—an identity “in Christ Jesus”. The verb used in the next phrase “behold new things have come” is a perfect indicative and is referring to an action that occurred in the past once and for all but still bears present and future consequences and ramifications.
In other words, not only did we die at the cross when we were in Christ so as to have our old existence and our old identity pass completely away but we also were resurrected “in Christ” so as to have a new life and a new identity, which right now and on into the future is bearing fruit in our lives and on our behalf.
So that if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ—you are not the same person you were before you were saved. Oh you look like the same person. You enjoy the same foods. You have the same job, and you still sin—but inside—the real you who you are now is not the you who existed before your salvation as a person whose identity was that of a deviant rebellious lost and condemned sinner who as the enemy of God had no interest in God and in fact hated God. That is not who you are anymore even though you do still sin.
Listen, we are genuinely new creations in Christ Jesus but we are not “totally” new yet. What I mean by that is that our battle with the world, the devil, and our fleshly lusts often defeat us and cause us to resist the Holy Spirit’s influence in our lives. And these battles are life-long and will continue until glory. So, there is still a fight to be fought and battles to be won but the guarantee is that as they are fought and won and sometimes lost—our status with God and thus our acceptance with God remains the same—it is not affected by our victories or our defeats. So that we can keep on fighting and growing until the day when we truly are in our experience who God says we are right now “in Christ”.
A young soldier was once brought before Alexander the Great to be sentenced to death for desertion during an especially hard-fought battle. After hearing the charges and just before he was to condemn the young man—Alexander asked him his name and he was quite surprised to hear that his name was Alexander as well. The emperor thought for a minute and then looking at the boy told him that he would give him another chance to prove himself and that he needed to either change his behavior or change his name.
Now, we too bear the Name of a Greater King and we too often fail as traitors but our King will never tell us to change our name—but rather to never give up trying to live up to the name we have by faith in Him Who loved us and gave Himself for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment