“For if we died with Him, we shall live with Him.”
This verse eleven of chapter two contains four
faithful sayings as the passage says or you could say four trustworthy
statements. This verse explains what will happen when you come to Christ and
decide to be real Christian. This first part describes what happens to you
spiritually the moment you come to know Christ. This is not an allegory.
You died the moment you accept Christ. You became dead
to sin. Sin’s power no longer has an eternal bearing on you. Jesus paid for
your sins so you did not have to pay for them yourself. When God the Father
looks at us He sees us through Christ’s blood. We were once dead in our sins
but through Christ we are dead to sin.
A big fancy word for that is positional
sanctification. It means that no matter what you do your place is still held by
God. Does that mean we have a license to sin? Of course not! When we sin God
will punish us. He will convict us of sin. If we continue in sin the
consequences will become greater. Hebrews 12.6 says that whom the Lord loves he
chastens.
If you truly believed one way to prove it is to live
in sin and see God come after you. This would be called progressive
sanctification. It means like a roller coaster ride your Christian walk will
have ups and downs. It will not be the sweet by and by as they say. If you live
in sin and God is not punishing you perhaps you need to reconsider your
salvation. God does not want us to be a slave to sin. No matter how much sin
may appear to be freedom it is not.
We are created in His image. There is a part of every
person that longs to follow God’s ways. We are built that way. The sad part is
we are so taken over by our sin nature we reject the things of God. We become
like a petulant child where nothing is good enough.
The Father
does not want us to live this way. He loved us so much He sent His Son to die
for us.
