Alive part 1
Sometimes I really almost get discouraged by "theology" and "religion." I constantly find myself asking, "What are we talking about?" We seem to have totally and completely missed the point. "Christianity" is not a moral code to live by. We are not supposed to follow the Law of Moses in order to be "good people." Jesus did not come to make "evil" people "good." He came to make dead people alive. He came that we might have life, and that more abundantly! But it seems like we're either so preoccupied with the afterlife that we miss out on the actual life, or we're so busy trying to earn something that can't be earned that we miss out on what is freely given. Here's what happened: God told Adam that on the day he ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (the tree of death) he would surely die. And that's exactly what happened. Adam ate from the tree of death... and he died. And that's not God punishing Adam for disobeying Him either. That's the natural consequences of eating from the tree of death. What else could have come from that decision? So from that day Adam was the walking dead. The "living" dead. Because he "lived" until he was 930 years old. He lived... but he wasn't alive. Another way to say it is that he was sleepwalking. And that fits with what Jesus said in John 11:11, "...Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awak him out of sleep." Lazarus was dead. Jesus came to make Him alive. That's what the cross was all about. It wasn't about God absolutely positively being so angry that He HAD to kill someone in order to satisfy His wrath. And it wasn't about Jesus taking what we had coming to us. We didn't have any punishment coming. The wages of sin is death, and we WERE dead in our trespasses and sins! It's not, "If you sin you have to die." It's, "Sin (or unbelief, or the knowledge of good and evil and the dead works that flow from that) had you in the bondage of death." Jesus became what we were and died so that WE could die. Not as a punishment, but as a release from the death that we were already in! Jesus became sin and died so that sin could die. So that DEATH could die. And then, after the second death... a new birth. That's why Romans 6:11 says, "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." It doesn't say, "Die unto sin." It says, "RECKON yourselves to be dead unto sin." We ARE dead to sin. Because sin died. But if you don't know that glorious truth, it can't do a whole lot for you. Which is why we need to reckon ourselves. The word "reckon" is 3049 in Strong's Greek Concordance and it means, "to take an inventory: - conclude." And remember how we're supposed to measure the temple (ourselves and each other)? With the reed that is Jesus! And remember how we're NOT supposed to measure the outer court? The dead old man that was buried in the watery grave of baptism? Take an inventory of Jesus, and the work He finished on the cross (both for you and as you) and the only conclusion you can draw is that you ARE dead to sin and you ARE alive unto God! Not an "evil" person trying (and failing) to be "good." But a person who WAS dead in trespasses and sins but who has now been raised up to walk in newness of life! A person who is now alive in Christ as Christ is alive in him!