by Jacob Ninan
Once we have repented from our sins and turned to Jesus as our Saviour, God sees us as 'in Christ'. This is a great privilege of grace. God is able to forgive us because our sins have already been punished by letting Jesus suffer for them. He has also credited the righteousness of Jesus into our account so that now He can see us in Christ as acceptable (Rom.4:5). So now we have been forgiven, accepted, become beloved to God, made joint heirs with Christ, and without any condemnation.
What do we do now, when we find ourselves in Christ? Our reasonable response is to surrender ourselves to God as living sacrifices and follow Jesus in the way He lived. "The one who says that he remains in Him ought, himself also, walk just as He walked" (1Jn.2:6). When we recognise the grace God has given to us, this is how we respond to Him.
Some preachers these days are placing an over-emphasis on recognising the privileges of our identity in Christ. They say that Jesus has 'finished' it all, and that there is nothing we need to do except to receive it. If anyone mentions anything we have to do, these preachers warn us about not going back under the Law, saying that Jesus has freed us from the bondage of the law. This one-sided proclamation of the blessings of being in Christ attract a lot of people because they give us a tremendous sense of security and significance. In this difficult world we live, this message provides comfort and encouragement. In this way of proclaiming the Gospel, our duty is only to abide in Him and He will do everything for us.
This sounds like the greatest news that anyone can hear, especially for those who have grown up through experiences of rejection, without finding love and affection from parents or anyone else. But unfortunately, this euphoria does not last because they are now expecting to live 'in Christ' without keeping their feet on the ground. When troubles, calamities, misunderstandings, etc., come their way, they feel shattered and sometimes they give up their faith altogether.
When people are only thinking about what God has done for them and what He has planned for them, and they are ignorant about what they should be doing from their side in response, obviously they cannot become what God wants them to be. But the New Testament is full of things we have to do from our side. In most of the epistles of Paul, he first explians what God has done for us, and then goes on to tell us what we should do. What I want to do here is to bring some balance to this subject.
When Jesus was about to die on the cross, He said it was finished (Jn.19:30). What He meant was that all that He had come to do in His life for us, He had completed. But it does not mean that there is nothing for us to do, because unless we respond now to what He has done, we cannot experience the reality of this salvation. Isn't God still working in us to make us into His image, and that is not finished by any means! He has given us a starting point in our salvation (Rom.3:24). And now we need to ensure that we experience this salvation in a deeper and deeper way (Php.2:12). This means that we have to put off our old man when we are tempted and choose to put on the new man, and deny ourselves in order to do God's will. It will be a great mistake if we imagine that Jesus has done it all for us.
God's word talks about baptism signifying our death with Christ and resurrection into a new life (Rom.6:4). But does this mean that because we have gone through baptism we are already enjoying the fullness of the new life with Christ? This is the kind of problem people have when they take verses in isolation and do not see the full context. Paul goes on to say that if we are to enjoy this new life, we ought to prevent sin from ruling in our bodies and therefore we must present every part of our body to God to be used as instruments of righteousness (Rom.6:12-14). Without this second part, our position in Christ and the consequent newness of life will not have any practical result. God wants us to be careful about how we actually live, taking heed to how we think, speak and behave. The New Testament is full of exhortations about what we ought to do, and none of them is about passively waiting for God to complete His work.
When we were born again, God gave us a new heart just like His which hates sin. As a result, we who used to be dead in sin, living in sin, now have become dead towards sin in our heart (Rom.6:11). It is with this new heart that we fight against the sinful desires that come up from the flesh. But if we just imagine that since we are dead to sin we don't have to worry about sin at all, that would be most unrealistic.
We know God has given us eternal life (Rom.6:23). But that does not take away the fact that if we sin we will suffer spiritual death to a certain extent (Rom.8:13). It will be foolish to tell ourselves that we have eternal life and become careless with sin. We will reap what we sow.
One of the gifts of salvation is that God has taken away our condemnation from us (Rom.8:1). But wasn't that giving us a new start from where our transformation has to begin which will change us more and more into actual righteous lives (Rom.8:3,4)? Does this freedom from condemnation give us a licence saying that even if we walk according to the flesh and sin, there will still be no condemnation?
Some people misunderstand freedom from the Law as if there is no law which we are subject to now. Of course, we are not under the Old Testament laws of sacrifices, ceremonial cleansing, keeping festivals, making a difference between clean and unclean foods, etc. But we have come to a different law, a deeper law of the Spirit, that works in our heart and mind, that hates sin in all its deeper forms (Rom.8:2). No, we can't live as if we have no law.
God has promised to love us with an everlasting love. Nothing on earth or in heaven will be able to take away His love from us (Rom.8:39). That does not mean that we can take that for granted, because we need to be careful to see that we don't move away from our love for Him (Heb.3:12).
Another favourite verse of preachers who over-emphasise 'in Christ' is 2Cor.5:17 which says that when we are born again, we become a new creature. Of course it is not that we become instantly perfect in every way. God gives us a new heart and and a new spirit and also helps us to follow in His ways. As we walk before Him, denying ourselves and doing His will, we become transformed into His likeness little by little. But this progress will not take place if we are living under a delusion that we have already become new in every way.
There are many more references to what God has prepared for us in Christ. Preachers who focus only on them and avoid bringing out our responsibilities may get some followers in the beginning, but unless they are balanced with directions for practical living, the euphoria will be short-lived.