Today’s topic may be a bit unusual but it just may be the word you need. This study is incomplete without the next topics of our series. It should have been a single article but for the sake of grasping the content and being able to divide this word rightly, it will come in a series of three parts. Please follow through to the end.
Death with Christ is not the same as death in Christ. The latter means to die as a believer or to die as someone who believed and served Christ till the end. Death with Christ, on the other hand, means to have died with Christ the day He was crucified.
Now, I know someone is probably wondering “How can this be?” In the real sense, we couldn’t pay the penalty for our sins so Jesus had to step in. His “stepping in” meant He would have to die by crucifixion. We couldn’t die this death. Jesus needed to do so for us. However, in our belief in Him, that is, by our faith, we can also lay claim to that crucifixion, being able to say we have been crucified with Christ. Simply put, death with Christ is a concept that we are partakers of Christ’s crucifixion, by our faith in Him. (Jn. 3:16; 2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 6: 3-7)
This is the baseline meaning of “dead with Christ”. But what does it really mean to a believer? Firstly, it means we have already died once so death should not scare us. The same Apostle Paul who said we are dead with Christ, is the same person who said to live is for Christ and to die is gain (Php. 1:21). Death meant nothing to him anymore, except a horse he would ride into eternity with his Savior. We weaken the enemy when we become unfazed by his “ace” card. Death should not scare you. You already died with Christ. At the point of believing, you have been baptized into the death of Jesus, having died with Him (Rom. 6:3). And you have now been given a life that death couldn’t dare to snatch away (2 Tim. 2:11; Gal. 2:20). That is if you live conscious of this truth.
It means you are now dead to sin and its pleasures. This death with Christ means death to sin (Rom. 6:2-3;7). We were once dead in sin but now we are dead to sin because we died with Christ (Eph. 2:1; 5-6). This is part of our new creature reality. For the new to come, the old must pass away.
That old self that couldn’t “help” that addiction, that couldn’t stop backbiting or was too invested in cheating others in the name of being wise, that old self has died with Christ. A new you has been birthed. A new you that can now say no to sin. Your old self found it too pleasing to even realize it was wrong. But it is dead now. The new you is no longer enslaved to sin (Rom. 6:6-7). That old self is already crucified with Christ. This includes that gory and shameful past. All of it is dead now.
“Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin”
Romans 6: 6 NIV
More than a call to our reality, this death to sin is a charge. It doesn’t mean we will not make mistakes now and then but that we must not make sin a habit. We who have died to sin should not live in sin. (Rom. 6:2)
To have died with Christ is to have died to self. The greatest problem of the body of believers, which has existed from time, is the problem of self. The Pharisees were self-centered and self-conscious. For that reason, they lost out on the good news of salvation. Today, the same spirit exists in our churches, making it difficult for us to see each other as one, properly witness to unbelievers, and even grow to become submitted vessels in God’s hand. (1 Cor. 3:3)
Selfish impulses will never die. They will continue to exist in this world but you can be dead to them. You can remain unmoved by selfish desires. In other terms, it means we have been set free from the flesh. Flesh is self-centered and it doesn’t submit to God’s principle. But having died with Christ, we are set free from the flesh. We are now led by the Spirit. (2 Cor. 4:11; Gal. 2:20; Rom. 8:13-14)
This death was necessary to bring us newness of life (Rom. 6:4). Yes, we have died with Christ. But the story doesn’t end there. We have also been made alive with Him (2Tim. 2:11). The concept of YOLO (you only live once) may not apply to believers. Some people have also said you live every day but die once. Still, it doesn’t capture our reality. As believers, we live every day and die every day (2 Cor. 4:11). Every day, we die to self and sinful pleasures. Still, every day, we are made alive with Christ.
Faith+blog 