About 2 months ago I, along with others, was asked if perhaps Gal 2:20 (I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me) should change our traditional way of thinking about Christ's substitutionary death. We would commonly say that "Christ died for us" or "on our behalf" when speaking of His substitution. (note Gal 2:20 says we have died with Christ).
To begin with, I would like to say that I am thankful for questions like this because they cause us to once again reflect on the cross of Christ and the manifold blessings that flow from His work there. Also, it's just good practice to sharpen our thinking about these things so we can better articulate them to others and to ourselves, with the end goal being worship and obedience. Also, I want to say that I definitely don't have all the answers here but maybe some of these thoughts will get us thinking.
Basically, what I would say to this question is that there are numerous blessings, as well as countless aspects of what Christ did on the cross, so I don't think being "crucified with Christ" contradicts our traditional thinking about Christ dying in our place. 2Cor 5:21 speaks of a divine switch, our sin to Christ and His righteousness to us. Rom 8:16-17 and Gal 4:7 speak of our adoption into Christ and our becoming heirs along with him. Col 2 speaks of "the handwriting of requirements against us" being nailed to the cross so that we are now free from the law. Rom 3:21-25 speaks of us being justified (declared righteous), redeemed (bought out of slavery), and God's wrath against us being propitiated (satisfied). These are just a sampling of what was accomplished on Calvary. In my view, the Gal 2 passage could be tied closely with Rom 6:5-6 in which we are united with Christ in his death and resurrection as well as Hebrews 2:10-18, where it says that Christ is not ashamed to call us brothers (what a great verse!!) and it goes on to expound the benefits that come from being this closely connected with Christ. So Christ did take our place, receiving the wrath that we so deserve, yet He also identifies with us and we receive the blessings of salvation, from legal righteousness (2 Cor 5:21) to power to live righteously (1 Cor 15:10).
May thinking through this lead us to be more like our Saviour who humbled Himself and took the form of a servant, willingly dying for our good and for the Father's good pleasure!
1 comment:
I appreciate your comments, and certainly, the substitutionary nature of Christ's suffering is overwhelmingly evident in scripture. I suppose my original question was (and is) provoked by our general tendency to laud the blessing of new life in Christ (as should be the case)while minimizing the reality of our "death" with Christ. (ie: our crucifiction.) (Rom 6) I find that my capacity for rejoicing in the "New Birth" is inseparably linked with and dependent upon my realization (By God's grace) of the reality of my having been crucified and buried "with" Christ. My later thinking on the subject has led me to conclude (tentatively in some areas) that without "Identity" there could be no substitution. In another way, our identity with Christ, preccedes His substitution. if we are not identified in Christ, He could not have experienced death, for without sin, death had no hold upon Him. On the opposite side, apart from our identity with or "in" Christ, we could have no life, death being our wages. Life for us apart from Christ was as mach an impossiblity as death was to Christ apart from us.
Praise be to God that in the mysterious working of His Spirit, He joined us to Christ so that Christ might die for us and that we might live in and through Him. (What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.)
Larry,
(I lost my blogger password)
God bless!
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