Identifying with Christ continued...

 In our last post, we saw that there are many principles scattered throughout the whole of the Word of God from which we can draw great and beneficial truth. In this session we will look at some principles that are very important with regards to our "Identification with Christ."
 
The first step is "We Must Truly Realize our Identification with Christ." Adam was the Federal Head of the Human Race. That simply means that God sees us all in such relationship with Adam, in such identification with him that whatever he does or gets is attributed legally to each one of us. In lieu of that fact, the moment that he disobeyed God and was found guilty of betrayal, we were all found guilty. Just as He was spiritually separated from God and entered into the state or spiritual condition known as death, so all of us, and his contiguous descendants, received the same sentence.
 
The only hope for man, therefore, is that he must come into union with another Federal Head who is in living and righteous union with the Living God. That is where Jesus comes into the equation with reference to our salvation. He is the only man who ever lived and was not under the curse of Adam's sin. This was due to His being conceived, not of fallen man, but by the miraculous ministry of the Holy Spirit.
 
But even that was not enough because "without the shedding of blood is no remission" (removal of the taint and the guilt of sin). The innocent one had to die. Since He was not guilty of sin, He could not die; therefore He took our sins upon Himself subjecting Himself to death as us. Because He was guiltless, His father was able to resurrect Him righteously to serve as the Federal Head of a New Race of people...the "born-again," the "redeemed of the Lord."
 
Now every man who comes to Him in true faith can be reunited with the Living God and partake of the Divine Nature again. The Bible explains this by revealing that through this event, we are crucified, buried, quickened, raised up together and seated with Christ in heavenly places. (Ephesians 2: 6). 
 
Paul gives us a very fine summary of our identification with Christ in Romans 6: 3-14. Verse three says, "Or do you not know (understand fully and clearly) that all of us who have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into His death?"
 
The word "baptized" means "to be put into." It carries the meaning of being identified and becoming one with what you are "put into." Paul is not talking merely of water baptism here; he is speaking of a spiritual action that take place the moment we exercise faith to become one with Christ. In that moment, by the supernatural, miraculous action of the Holy Spirit, we are immersed into Christ, AND Christ is immersed into us. We become one with each other.
 
Paul says in Galatians 3: 27- 29, "For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.
 
The effect of the New Birth is that we are taken out of Adam, the fallen man, and we are put into Christ, the One raised from the dead. Then in Romans 6: 4 Paul explains how we are identified with 'Christ: "Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
 
By faith we now so identify with Christ by faith that we see our old man dead in His death and our new man alive and raised up again in His resurrection. Paul admonishes us in Romans 6: 11, "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
 
The word "reckon" means "regard, consider, account your identification with, and in, Christ as being true, viable and functional now...and live accordingly, recognizing that the old man, the old sin nature no longer has any legal jurisdiction over your life. You now have the "ZOE'," the very life of God in you. This life is more powerful than your old man; therefore you don't have to live enslaved, dominated or ruled by sin, by the flesh or by the past.