◄ What Does Romans 6:8 Mean? ►

Identification with Christ's death is the most thrilling doctrine for the believer. Christ died FOR our sins, to pay the price for our sins, but He also died TO sin; His death broke our relationship to sin which enables us to walk in newness of life. The moment Christ died unto sin on our behalf, we also died to sin once and for all, and now we are to live for Christ day by day.

Once we are placed in union with Christ by faith, the power of sin was broken because from that moment forward we became identified with His death which broke the power of sin in the lives of all who would believe. Because of the death of Christ and our identification with His death, sin no longer remains our master. Before salvation, we were slaves to sin, but once we were saved, sins power over us lost its iron grip.

Because we were identified with Christ in His death, we are similarly identified with His life through His Resurrection. The power of sin was broken in the life of all who are identified with Christ by faith, because Jesus gained the victory over sin, death, and hell through the sacrifice of Himself. Just as we identify with His death, so also we identify with His resurrected life. Our new, born-again life in Christ is no longer a slave to sin but a servant of righteousness. 

It was our old sin nature that was identified with Christ's death, and it needs to be kept nailed to the Cross, but praise God that in Christ we have all we need for life and godliness for the power of sin is broken in our lives. Our new life in Christ is identified with His resurrected life: "Seeing that we have died with Christ (and have received His new resurrected life), we believe that we shall also live with Him." What a thrilling doctrine that because we share in the death of Christ, we will also share in His heavenly life.

Although our eternal life began at the moment of salvation, it is incomplete and will not be fully and finally completed until we are changed into the likeness of Christ when we see Him as He is. And praise God that identification with Christ means we can look forward to eternal life in a glorified body which is freed from the power of sin and death and hell, and we will live with Him through time and into the eternal, never-ending ages that are to come. 

Praise God that the certain consequence of our identification with Christ's death and Resurrection by faith is our full and final sanctification: spirit, soul, and body. 

Heavenly Father, thank You for dying for me so that I might be identified with Your death and also with Your Resurrection and the eternal life that it guarantees. May I live my life to Your honour and glory. Thank You that the power of sin has been broken in me, through Christ. May this become an increasing reality to me as I keep my old man nailed to the Cross so that my new life in Christ may grow in grace and in a knowledge of Him, until it is not I that live but Christ that lives in me. To His praise and glory, AMEN.