The Reign of the Old Man # 4

The Creation of the New Man - Co-resurrection with Christ

Co-crucifixion opens the door into co-resurrection. Death is the gate to life. Identification with Christ in His death and burial is but the beginning of the believer's union with Him in endless life. Death is both an ending and a beginning, an exit and an entrance.

Romans 6:5, "For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness  of his resurrection.

Romans 6:8, But if we died with Christ we believe that we shall also live with him."

Identification with Christ in His quickening, resurrection and ascension, takes the believer into the new sphere of the "Spirit" and begins the life of "the new man."

Ephesians 2:4-6, "But God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved), and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."

Ephesians 4:24, "And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."

"Together with Christ" on the Cross, in the tomb, in the heavenlies! Thus would the exalted Lord of glory, Head of the new creation, share with every believer the glorious victory of His death, the mighty power of His resurrection, and the regal bounty of His throne.

"If Christ would live and reign in me,

I must die;

With Him I crucified must be;

I must die;

Lord, drive the nails, nor heed the groans,

My flesh may writhe and make its moans,

But in this way, and this alone,

I must die.

When I am dead, then Lord to Thee

I shall live;

My time, my strength, my all to Thee

I shall give.

O may the Son now make me free!

Her, lord, I give my all to Thee;

For time and for eternity

I will live."

The New Sphere - The Believer in Christ

The moment a penitent sinner puts his faith in the atoning blood of the crucified Christ that moment he steps out of life "in Adam" and enters into life "In Christ." Forever after he is ensphered and environed by the Lord of Glory. He is "In Christ Jesus" and will be through the ages upon the ages to come. All that he is and has he is and has "In Christ." In God's reckoning the believer has no life apart from His Son. Christ is the ground in which he is rooted and planted. Through the new birth the believer became a new creation with a new nature which demanded a new environment, a new atmosphere, as it were, where the new could mature into an ever deepening conformity to the image of Jesus Christ. This new environment is "In Christ."

Let us read a few passages out of scores in the Bible in which this expression "In Christ" is used to show that from the eternity of the past through our present life on into the eternity of the future God thinks of us who have accepted Christ as Saviour only in this relationship to His Son.

Ephesians 1:4, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love."

Ephesians 1:6, "To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved."

Ephesians 2:13, "But now, in Christ Jesus ye, who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ."

1 John 2:6, "He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked."

Phil. 3:9, "And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith."

Romans 16:10, "Salute Apelles approved in Christ."

Col. 2:7, "Rooted and built up in him and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving."

2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

2 Corinthians 2:14, "Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place."

1 Corinthians 1:2, "Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours."

Colossians 2:9-10, "For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in him which is the head of all principality and power."

Colossians 1:28, "Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus."

That every reader might be lead into a clearer apprehension of this marvelous truth I would commend the reading of the late Dr. A. T. Pierson's book "In Christ." To whet the appetite for it I would quote the following from the introduction:

"A very small key may open a very complex lock and a very large door and that door may itself lead into a vast building with priceless stores of wealth and beauty. This brief phrase "In Christ," a preposition followed by a proper name, is the key to the whole New Testament. Those three short words, "In Christ Jesus" are without doubt the most important ever written, even by an inspired pen, to express the mutual relation of the believer and Christ. They occur with their equivalents over one hundred and thirty times. Such repetition and variety must have some intense meaning. When, in the Word of God a phrase like this occurs so often and with such manifold applications, it cannot be a matter of accident; there is a deep design. These two words unlock and interpret every separate book in the New Testament. Here is God's own key whereby we may open all the various doors and enter all the glorious rooms in this Palace Beautiful and explore all the apartments in the house of the heavenly Interpreter from Matthew to the Apocalypse, when the door is opened into Heaven."

~Ruth Paxson~

(continued with # 5)