Identification

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 (NIV)
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

“Identification” with Christ is the idea that we are not just “sinners saved by grace”, but new creations, recreated to be like Jesus. We’re transformed, not unlike when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. This is a one-way transformation, the butterfly does not go back and forth between the two stages.

Jesus became as we were – men born of a woman and subject to temptation – so that He could make us to be like Him. 1 Corinthians 15:22 (NKJV) says “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” But we don’t always think that way. Too often believers are like a butterfly that keeps thinking and acting like a caterpillar. We hang onto our identification with Adam, rather than our identification with Christ. It’s instructive here to read Romans 5:12-21 which further contrasts Adam-life and Christ-life.

There are about 135 verses in the New Testament that identify us with Christ – “in Him”, “in whom”, “Through Christ”. These verses describe our position in Christ. A list of these verses is here. Here are a few of those verses:

• We have been crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20)
• We have died and been buried with Christ (Romans 6:2-5)
• We have been made alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:5)
• We are raised with Christ (Ephesians 2:6, Colossians 3:1)
• We are positionally seated with Christ (Ephesians 2:6) – we can boldly go to God’s throne of grace (Hebrews 4:14-16)
• We are joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17)
• We reign with Christ (Romans 5:17, Revelation 1:6, 5:10)

We live FAR below what Christ has done for us – in the way we approach God in prayer, in the way we respond to life and circumstances, in our hopes and expectations. We need to recognize what Christ has done for us and who he has recreated us to be. We didn’t get there by our own efforts, but we can’t lose sight of what He has done in and for us.

Doug