Crucified With Christ and God’s Work of Redemption

QUESTION: Crucified With Christ – God’s Work of Redemption

ANSWER:

It is important now to review the process that brings us to the moment of our conversion. This will not be an exhaustive list and is not intended to be a doctrinal statement. It will simply show the process of our coming to Christ for salvation.

• I am a sinner apart from God, dead in my trespasses and sins, totally unable to seek and find God on my own.
• God loves me as His special creation and desires to have fellowship with me and to restore in me His image that sin has so totally distorted.
• Through grace, God sends His Son to become my perfect sacrifice; He who knows no sin takes my place to die for my sin. Through His sacrifice the penalty of death for sin is provisionally paid for all mankind.
• God sends His Spirit to convict me of sin and to draw me to Jesus who has paid the penalty of death for sin.
• I accept by faith God's free offer of salvation. I believe in my heart that Jesus is the resurrected Son of God. I confess and repent of my sin. I confess with my mouth that Jesus is my Savior, and I receive Him into my life and make Him Lord.

Crucified With Christ – Growing Through Grace
Most of the time this is where we conclude the story of our redemption. But this is not where God stops His wonderful work of grace in our lives. If we will continue to see this event through the eyes of God, we will understand how it is that we are set free from sin.

• God sees His Son Jesus and the new believer as becoming one. The sin of the believer placed upon Jesus has been paid in full. The righteousness of Christ covers the believer so that God sees him as sinless.
  
  "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).
  
  
• As a seal of our redemption, God sends the Holy Spirit to indwell us. We actually become the temple of God because the Spirit of God dwells in us.
  
  "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16).
  
  
• The old sinful nature (the nature of Adam by whom we all die) that has ruled over us throughout our lives is not removed, but a new nature (the nature of Jesus, by whom we all have life) is placed within us. We actually have the nature of Christ within us.
  
  "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22).
  
  
• God confirms His New Covenant with us by the writing of His Law on our hearts. We have no need for someone to tell us what is right and what is wrong because God's Law dwells in our hearts.
  
  "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people" (Hebrews 8:10).

Do you understand how it can be proclaimed, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17). In the eyes of God we are not the same old creatures we once were. We are a new creation, a holy priesthood, and the dwelling place of God. We have been given everything we need to be free from our old nature. We have been justified from sin and sanctified (set apart) for righteousness. God has certainly done His part. It is now time for us to apply these truths to our lives. God has prepared us to be a holy people. Now we must live like the people He has created us to be!

Rendered with permission from the booklet, Free to Serve God: 7 Principles Every Believer Should Know, by James O. Jones, Jr. (Light of Life Ministry, revised printing 2009). Compliments of James O. Jones, Jr., and Light of Life Ministry. All rights reserved in the original.