12-22. Peaceful Knowledge
“I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20).
The difference between stultifying carnality and growing spirituality is the believer’s realization that he the sinner, as well as his sin, were taken down into death. Seeing one’s identification in the Lord Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and ascension is the necessary foundation for spiritual growth to maturity.
“How often do we find believers plunged into the very depths of distress and darkness as to their spiritual condition and prospects! So many do not as yet see the application of the death of the Lord Jesus to their old man. They do not realize the glorious truth that in that death they were delivered from this present evil world, from the dominion of sin and the law, and from the power of the enemy.
“All believers see that the Blood of the Lord Jesus screens them from the judgment of God; but most do not as yet see that they are ‘dead unto sin’ in the Lord Jesus; that their ‘old man was crucified with Christ’; that not only have their sins been put upon Him at the Cross, but they themselves, as sinful children of Adam, have been personally identified with Him in His death unto sin; that God pronounces them dead and risen with Him. But if this foundational truth is not apprehended by faith, there is no bright, happy, emancipating sense of full and everlasting salvation.” -C.H.M.
“We are to hold by faith the position which the Father has given us in the risen Lord Jesus, and abide therein, occupied with the interests of our Father and not our own. Taking thought of ourselves is a divergence from the place of faith.”
“We enter the heavens in order to be qualified for earth; we do not begin on earth, to reach the heavens. Our simplest earthly responsibilities require us to be conversant with the ‘things above.’“
“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).