- Romans 8:35 KJV
Just as it was the supreme mission of Jesus to give eternal life, so it is the supreme responsibility of the believer to appropriate that life.
God contemplates the believer even now in the image of Christ. We can rejoice as those who are already justified.
Our pardon is full and it is secure. God put the terms of salvation so high that we could never measure up to them, and therefore has saved us by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Therefore, the “title-deed” to our salvation is so high that we can never void it because “we are hidden with Christ in God.” God keeps the original copy of His eternal covenant with us in heaven with Himself. The Lord Jesus’ atoning sacrifice is our only reason for acceptance with God. Nothing can remove us from our standing with Him because the righteousness of Christ is upon us by our vital union with Him.
Our imputed righteousness is still in Christ, and not in us, even when we are made partakers of the benefit of it.
When we are in Christ we can look back upon our lives and see that everything in time past of our unregenerate lives ended at the cross. Moreover, we look at our lives since we believed on Christ as our Savior and see it in the risen Christ in a fresh new perfect blessing in eternal life.
All that we are and all that we need to live the Christian life are found in Christ and His perfect provision for us.
In Christ our perfect righteousness we see all that we shall become when He is finished with us. Being in Christ is the greatest motive for living a pure life. When we realize who we are in Christ we want to become that in practice.
Our justification pledges a holy life just as truly as it pledges eternal life on the part of Him who gives it to us. The apostle Paul wrote, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Rom. 8:29 KJV).
Low views of both justification and sanctification will produce low advancement in the likeness of Christ, whereas high views of justification and sanctification will produce a high level of motivation to grow in His image and likeness.
Evidence of a vital union with the Lord is found in the constant flowing into us of the life that is in Him and the death which He died.
How is that possible? Communion with Christ in our daily life ought to make us holy in practice. There is no escaping the words of Jesus, “Abide in Me, and I in you.” We die to sin and are alive to the new life in Christ.
Our faith rests upon Christ. With every assault upon the soul we hear the Spirit of God whispering the words of the Father into our spiritual ear, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” The blood of Jesus Christ alone answers every accusation against us. My soul responds in faith saying, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.”
We appropriate God’s perfect provision for the present life in Christ and our eternal life in the future by trusting Him. In response to His love toward us we obey His word. “If you abide in Me you will keep My commandments.” Any obedience problem is truly a love problem.
Christ is received into the soul as we feed upon Him. There is a repeated partaking of the One who is and gives eternal life. We grow from life to life in the new person in Christ and we grow from death to death in the dying of the old self. We are to “put on” Christ, and “take off” the old self. Because we have been clothed in His righteousness we want to become like Him in our daily practice.
Are you Saved?
