Today is another day that I am reading my wonderful book The
New Man in Christ by Dr. Shawn Smith and the Holy Spirit is opening the
eyes of my understanding in countless ways. All of it has to do with knowledge
and understanding who we are in Christ and the extent to which we have been
completely made anew in Him. It is important to note that in order to
understand our identity in Christ we need to grasp an understanding of what
happened on the cross and in the grave. I pray that the Spirit of God will
grant us all an understanding of what Christ accomplished for us in His
crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, ascension and seating at the right
hand of the Father
I will start by defining the term ‘to Identify’ which means
to cause to become identical; the very same, exactly alike. Christ identifies
with us and we have become identical to Him, He has given us what we call, our
identity. It is in Christ that we have been made all that we are He is the
origin of our identity. Another term that is very important to understand is
the term ‘substitution’. Substitution can be defined as putting someone in the
place of another, to exchange or to interchange. A synonym for substitute is
‘vicarious’ which means deputed or acting for another. This is a quote from the
book I earlier mentioned by the Minister of the Gospel Dr. Shawn Smith, that
gives a clear understanding of the word substitution in everything Jesus did
for all mankind. “Jesus took our place on the cross at Calvary. This means that
everything Jesus did, He did for us, in our place and all He did is marked out
to our credit as us having done it and it thus belongs to us and is set down to
our account. In the mind of God, we did what Jesus did. We are represented by Christ
and thus enter into all the benefits and privileges of His standing in for us…
The believer thus becomes to God what Christ is by His substitution. Complete
substitution is the means to complete victory for all who believe (Romans
6:5-7, Matthew 20:28, pg. 56). Thank You Lord Jesus!
Now that we have understood what substitution is, we will go
straight to understanding our identity in Christ that we may understand the
benefits of what we have received in Him. It is important to note that
everything about our new identity in Christ is about how the Father sees us;
what He is persuaded of us and not about us defining ourselves apart from
Christ. And so we have to agree with God on what He is persuaded of us. We
didn’t work for or earn all that Jesus did for us and we were foreordained from
the foundation of the world by the Father to be in Christ. So we cannot define
ourselves apart from Christ; we are in Christ and He is in us in an
indissoluble union. We have to agree with God on what He is persuaded of us. I
will like to share another quote from the book I mentioned in the beginning of
this article. “In identifying Himself with us, Christ has taken man up into
Himself, taking all that belongs to Him. The cross does not permit us to simply
see our sin transferred to our substitute, while we stand apart, afar off. The imputation
of our sins by the Father to Jesus our substitute on the cross brought us into
personal communion with His sufferings. As such the judgment of the cross is
intensely personal in that Christ identified Himself with you personally,
taking unto Himself not only sin, but it’s nature and not only its nature but
your personality. Therefore, the death of Christ does not supersede yours. It is
rather implied and recognized as yours. What Christ did for us has been
recognized by God as being done by us (pg. 65).
Who we are in Christ is a powerful privilege and blessing.
Through our union with Christ we have received the honour of a face to face uninterrupted
audience before the Father. We are celebrated and we are beneficiaries of the
wealth of Heaven. In Him we have been made righteous, redeemed, justified,
sanctified. We have received His life, we are sons in the Son Jesus Christ, we
have received His peace and we have eternal life which is the quality of the
life of God. We have been made beneficiaries of the wealthiest economy;
everything we’ll ever have need of, has been made available to us in Christ
Jesus. We have received perfect health and eternal youthfulness in this divine
union. We are complete in Christ. Who we are in Christ has put us in a place
where we will never be in a place of disadvantage; we may not always see from
this standpoint but all things will always work together for our good because
God is for us and thus no one can be against us (Romans 8:28, 31, Colossians
1:9-10, Galatians 2:20).
You are a Blessing!!!
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