The Union At the Cross

Prince John

The Union At the Cross • Sermon • Submitted 9 months ago • Presented 9 months ago

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Introduction

We as believers know that Christ died for us at the cross of calvary and that He died for our sins. We know that He took our sins, and when He died, He carried our sins, and by His death on the cross He bought us with His blood.

But many are unaware of the fact that there is something profound that happened at the cross that evening. That it was not just that our Christ died as an atonement for our sins, but also that we were set free!

We are liberated in Christ Jesus.

How it started

When God created Adam and Eve, He created them righteous, or in other words, they had a right standing with God. That is why God looked at everything and said that it was good (Gen 1:31)

But then, God gave one command, He said in Gen 2:17 “but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”” . That was one law that was given. The law had a consequence.

This meant that Adam and Eve could technically do anything sinful, but it would not be imputed to them as sin, but if they “disobeyed” God, they would die.

The consequence was that they would die-die, or dying they would die. It’s said that the dying part referred to the physical death, because Adam died after 900+ years, and the “die” part was spiritual death, because the moment they sinned, they died spiritually, or the spirit lost its connection with God.

So, we know what happened, Adam and Eve, sinned and after they sinned, they died spiritually, and physically too.

Ever since that happened, sin entered the world (Rom 5:12), man was born in sin (Psalm 51:5). Adam was actually Son of God (Luke 3:38), because he was born of God, but after he disobeyed and died, he became sin, and as God had said in Gen 1:24

Genesis 1:24 NASB 95

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so.

Hence, Adam multiplied after his own kind, in sin, and sin multiplied (Gen 6:5).

What the devil did

What the devil did was that by tempting man to sin, he made man eat from the tree of good and evil, and hence man started to have a consciousness of what is good and what is evil.

Also man, disobeyed God, and hence man became sinful. Sinful man, out of his consciousness started to “work” his way to salvation.

We see later that God brings the law, and the law is good, and with the law comes to knowledge of sin, and hence through the law no flesh will be justified. This means that man became sinful, wanted to “do” something, but the more he started to do, the more iniquities started to increase. It became more like a quicksand.

Romans 3:20 NASB 95

because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.

Romans 5:20 NASB 95

The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,

Give the devil a taste of his medicine

As you know, there were two trees at the garden (Gen 2:9).

As soon as Adam sinned, he could still eat of the fruit of the tree of life, and live forever. We would think, why would God not allow man to eat from tree of life? That was not nice, God, Right? Wrong. It was an act of God’s love and God knew exactly what he was doing. In Gen 3:24

Genesis 3:24 NASB 95

So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

In a way, He was going to use this “death” to work together for good. The devil thought he had outsmarted God, but God outsmarted the devil at his own game.

If there would be no death, how would Jesus come as a man and die? It would not be possible.

The Bandaid with a foresight

Now, with sin multiplying, God had a plan. The first thing which God did was God had to put some control over the multiplication of sin.

Sin was being done, but it was not being imputed. It was not like nothing was going against the absolute truth and standards of God. It was, but it was not held against them. Romans 5:13 says:

Romans 5:13–14 NASB 95

for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

One of the reasons why God gave the law to curb the sin as mentioned in Ga 3:19.

Galatians 3:19 NASB 95

Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made.

So this means that we became married to the law. Things got different after that, and every transgression against the law, caused more punishment.

We then ended with a dual problem. The problem that we are sold to sin, with a sinful nature, and we are married or bound to the law, which expects us to do everything perfectly.

It is at this point that crucifixion delivered and liberated us.

Masterstroke

What God did was that he did a masterstroke. The devil did not know that God had chose us in Christ before the foundations of the world.

Ephesians 1:4 NASB 95

just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love

By putting us in Christ, one of the many things that happened was that we were with Him when Christ was crucified, which making us part of the whole passion, which makes us say

Galatians 2:20 NASB 95

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Why all this? What was God trying to do through this?

Crucifixion delivered from the law

We were married to the law, and the law was like a strict husband. Read Romans 7:1-4

Romans 7:1–4 NASB 95

Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

In the picture in Romans 7:1-4 Paul illustrates our deliverance from the Law there is only one woman, while there are two husbands. The woman is in a very difficult position, for she can only be wife of one of the two, and unfortunately she is married to the less desirable one.

The man to whom she is married is a good man; but the trouble lies here, that the husband and wife are totally unsuited to one another. He is a most particular man, accurate to a degree; she on the other hand is decidedly easy-going. With him all is definite and precise; with her all is vague and haphazard. He wants everything just so, while she accepts things as they come. How could there be happiness in such a home.

And then that husband is so exacting! He is always making demands on his wife. And yet one cannot find fault with him, for as a husband he has a right to expect something of her; and besides, all his demands are perfectly legitimate. There is nothing wrong with the man and nothing wrong with his demands; the trouble is that he has the wrong kind of wife to carry them out. The two cannot get on at all; theirs are utterly incompatible natures. Thus the poor woman is in great distress. She is fully aware that she often makes mistakes, but living with such a husband it seems as though everything she says and does is wrong! What hope is there for her?

If only she were married to that other Man all would be well. He is no less exacting than her husband, but He also helps much. She would marry Him, but her husband is still alive. What can she do? She is “bound by law to the husband” and unless he dies she cannot legitimately marry that other Man.

This picture is not drawn by me but by the apostle Paul. The first husband is the Law; the second husband is Christ; and you are the woman. The Law requires much, but offers no help in the carrying out of its requirements. The Lord Jesus requires just as much, yea more (Matt. 5:21-48) but what He requires from us He Himself carries out in us. The Law makes demands and leaves us helpless to fulfill them; Christ makes demands, but He Himself fulfills in us the very demands He makes.

Little wonder that the woman desires to be freed from the first husband that she may marry that other Man! But her only hope of release is through the death of her first husband, and he holds on to life most tenaciously. Indeed there is not the least prospect of his passing away. “Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished (Matt. 5:18).

The Law is going to continue for all eternity. If the Law will never pass away, then how can I ever be united to Christ? How can I marry a second husband if my first husband simply refuses to die? There is one way out. If he will not die, I can die, and if I die the marriage relationship is dissolved. And that is exactly God’s way of deliverance from the Law. The most important point to note in this section of Romans 7 is the transition from verse 3 to verse 4. Verses 1 to 3 show that the husband should die, but in verse 4 we see that in fact it is the woman who dies. The Law does not pass away. God’s righteous demands remain for ever, and if I live I must meet those demands; but if I die the Law has lost its claim upon me. It cannot follow me beyond the grave.

Crucifixion delivered us from Sin

I am referring to the principle of Sin, which was operating in our bodies. Sin had dominion in our body, and we were slaves to sin.

Romans 6:5–11 NASB 95

For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 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; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

What this says is that when we united with Him in the likeness of death, what happened was that our old self was crucified with Him. Why? So that our body of sin may be done away with.

So if you are crucified with Christ, you do not have a body of sin.

Exactly the same principle operates in our deliverance from the Law as in our deliverance from sin. When I have died my old master, Sin, still continues to live, but his power over his slave extends as far as the grave and no further. He could ask me to do a hundred and one things when I was alive, but when I am dead he calls on me in vain. I am for ever freed from his tyranny.

God’s purpose in uniting us to Christ was not merely negative; it was gloriously positive—“that ye should be joined to another” (Rom. 7:4). Death has dissolved the old marriage relationship, so that the woman, driven to despair by the constant demands of her former husband, who never lifted a little finger to help her carry them out, is now set free to marry the other Man, who with every demand He makes becomes in her the power for its fulfillment.

I am no longer a slave to sin, but slaves to righteousness, Romans 6:20

Romans 6:20 NASB 95

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

This is because we were bought with a price.

When we say delivered us from sin, it does not mean that we will not have any temptations or anything.

Romans 6:14 NASB 95

For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

What this means is that sin shall not have any jurisdiction over you. You are outside the jurisdiction of sin, because we have died with Christ.

And what is the issue of this new union? “That we might bring forth fruit unto God” (Rom. 7:4). By the body of Christ that foolish, sinful woman has died, but being united to Him in death she is united to Him in resurrection also, and in the power of resurrection life she brings forth fruit unto God. The risen life of the Lord in her empowers her for all the demands God’s holiness makes upon her. The Law of God is not annulled; it is perfectly fulfilled, for the risen Lord now lives out His life in her, and His life is always well-pleasing to the Father.

Final thoughts

The love of God is beyond words, that even at the time of deepest darkness, he made a way. He pulled a masterstroke and defeated the devil through his own game, death.

By including us in Christ, and with Christ dying at the cross, we were crucified with Him, completely liberating us from the law, and also freeing us from sin, as sin has no jurisdiction over us, anymore.

We are free!