LIKE CHRIST -- In the Likeness of His Death -- Andrew Murray

LIKE CHRIST -- In the Likeness of His DeathAndrew Murray“For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection….For in that He died, He died unto sin once….Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” ….Romans 6:5,10,11 We owe our salvation to the death of Christ. The better we understand the meaning of that death, the richer our experience of its power will be. In these words, we are taught what it is to be one with Christ in the likeness of His death. Let everyone who truly longs to be like Christ in his life, seek to know correctly what the likeness of His death means. Christ had a double work to accomplish in His death. The one was to work out righteousness for us. The other was to obtain life for us. When Scripture speaks of the first part of this work, it uses the expression, Christ died for our sins. He took sin upon Himself—bore its punishment. Thus, He made atonement, and brought us a righteousness in which we could stand before God.

When Scripture speaks of the second part of this work it uses the expression. He died to sin. Dying for sin refers to the judicial relationship between Him and sin. God laid our sin on Him, and through His death, atonement is made for sin before God. Dying to sin also refers to a personal relationship through His death -- the connection in which He stood to sin was entirely dissolved. During His life, sin had great power to cause Him conflict and suffering: His death ended all of this. Sin no longer had power to tempt or to hurt Him. He was beyond its reach. Death had completely separated Him and sin. Christ died to sin. Like Christ, the believer has also died to sin—he is one with Him in the likeness of His death. And, as the knowledge that Christ died for sin as our atonement is indispensable to our justification, so the knowledge that Christ—and we with Him in the likeness of His death—is dead to sin is indispensable to our sanctification. Let us endeavor to understand this.(continued)

It was as the last Adam that Christ died. With the first Adam we had been planted together in the likeness of his death. He died, and we with him, and the power of his death works in us. We have in very deed died in him, as truly as he himself died. We understand this. Likewise, we are one plant with Christ in the likeness of His death: He died to sin, and we in Him. And now, the power of His death works in us. We are indeed dead to sin, as truly as He Himself is. Through our first birth, we were made partakers in Adam’s death. Through our second birth, we became partakers in the death of the last Adam. Every believer who accepts Christ is partaker of the power of His death, and is dead to sin. But a believer may be ignorant of much of what he has. In their conversion, most believers are so occupied with Christ’s death for sin as their justification, that they do not seek to know what it means that in Him they are dead to sin. When they first learn to feel their need of Him as their sanctification, then the desire is awakened to understand this likeness of His death. They find the secret of holiness in it—that as Christ, so they also have died to sin.(continued...)

4. The Christian who does not understand this always imagines that sin is too strong for him, that sin still has power over him, and that he must sometimes obey it. But, he thinks this because he does not know that he, like Christ, is dead to sin. If he only believed and understood what this means, his language would be, “Christ has died to sin. Sin has nothing more to say to Him. In his life and death sin had power over Him. It was sin that cost Him the sufferings of the cross, and the humiliation of the grave. But He is dead to sin. It has lost all claim over Him, and He is entirely and forever freed from its power. Even so I as a believer. The new life that is in me is the life of Christ from the dead, a life that has been begotten through death, a life that is entirely dead to sin.” The believer, as a new creature in Christ Jesus, can glory and say: “Like Christ, I am dead to sin. Sin has nor right or power over me whatever. I am freed from it, therefore, I need not sin.” And, if the believer still sins, it is because he does not use his privilege to live as one who is dead to sin. Through ignorance, unwatchfulness, or unbelief, he forgets the meaning and the power of this likeness of Christ’s death, and sins. But, if he firmly believes in what his participation with Christ’s death signifies, he has the power to overcome sin. He truly understands that it is not said, “Sin is dead.” No,sin is not dead. Sin still lives and works in the flesh, But, he himself is dead to sin, and alive to God.. And so, sin cannot for a single moment, without his consent, have dominion over him. If he sins it is because he allows it to reign, and submits himself to obey it. (continued…)

5. Beloved Christian, who seeks to be like Christ, take the likeness of His death as one of the most glorious parts of the life you want to lead. First of all, appropriate it in faith. Believe that you are indeed dead to sin. Let it be a settled thing. God says it to every one of His children, even the weakest. Say it before Him, too. “Like Christ I am dead to sin.” Do not be afraid to say it; it is the truth. As the Holy Spirit earnestly to enlighten you with regard to this part of your union with Christ, so that it may not only be a doctrine, but power and truth. Endeavor to understand more deeply what it means to live as dead to sin, as one who, in dying, has been freed from its dominion, and who can now reign in life through Jesus Christ over it. Then the conformity to His death will follow the likeness of His death. It will be gradually and increasingly appropriated as Christ’s death manifests it full power in all the faculties and powers of your life. (See Philippians 3.) (continued…)

6. And in order to have the full benefit of this likeness of Christ’s death, notice two things in particular. The one is the obligation under which it brings you, “How can we who are dead to sin live in it any longer?” Endeavor to enter more deeply into this death of Christ into which you have been baptized. His death meant: Rather die than sin—willing to die in order to overcome sin—dead, and therefore released from the power of sin. Let this be your position as well: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death” (Romans 6:3). Let the Holy Spirit baptize you continually deeper into His death, until the power of God’s Word—dead to sin until the conformity to Christ’s death—is discernible in all your walk and conversation. The other lesson is this: The likeness of Christ’s death is not only an obligation, but a power. O Christian longing to be Christlike, if there is one thing you need more than and above all else, it is this: know the exceeding greatness of Christ’s power which works in you. It was in the power of eternity that Christ, in His death, wrestled with the powers of hell and conquered them. You have part with Christ in His death; you have part in all the powers by which He conquered. Yield yourself joyfully and believingly to be led more deeply into the conformity to Christ’s death. Then, you can do nothing other than become like Him.(continued…)

7. O my Lord! how little I have understood Your grace. I have often read the words, “planted into the likeness of His death,” and seen that as you died to sin, so it is said to Your believing people, “Likewise also ye.” But I have not understood its power. And so, not knowing the likeness of Your death, I did not know that I was free from the power of sin, and as a conqueror could have dominion over it. Lord, You have indeed opened to me a glorious prospect. The man who believingly accepts the likeness of Your death, and according to Your Word considers himself dead to sin, will not be dominated by sin. He has power to live for God. Lord, let the Holy Spirit reveal this to me more perfectly. I wish to take Your Word in simple faith, and to take the position You assign me as one who in You is dead to sin. Lord, in You I am dead to sin. Teach me to hold it fast, or rather to hold You fast in faith, until my whole like is a proof of it. O Lord, take me up and keep me in communion with Yourself, that, abiding in You, I may find in You the death unto sin and the life unto God. Amen.END