REDEMPTION AND CHRISTIANITY
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4).
Many don't realize that the Christian isn't actually the "redeemed" If Christianity were all about redemption or salvation from sin, there wouldn't have been the need for Jesus to rise from the dead. His death on the Cross would have been enough; it paid for all our sins and guaranteed complete propitiation. But that's redemption and not
Christianity.
Redemption refers to saving someone by paying a price. So when Jesus died, He paid the price for man's redemption with His own life; He did that for all humanity, not for Christians. The Christian is the result of Christ's resurrection, not His death.
This should make it clearer: when Jesus hung on the Cross, in the mind of God, every human person was hanging on the Cross too (in Him), for He was our substitute. When He cried out, "It is finished" and gave up the ghost, we also died in Him. Hallelujah! Now, when He came out of the grave, when He resurrected, we were also in Him.
resurrection of Jesus Christ gave us something far beyond redemption; it ushered us into a newness of life. We've been raised up together with Christ (Ephesians 2:6).
Romans 10:9 lets us know that salvation comes by believing in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the subsequent confession of His lordship. A Christian, therefore, is one who identifies with the resurrected Christ.
Thus, just as Christ was raised from the dead into a newness of life, the Christian has no past. That's why the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature..."; meaning that he is a new species, one that never existed before.
Being born again, therefore, you're not the "redeemed"; you're the fruit of the redemptive work of Christ. Redemption was consummated with His death, but Christianity came from the resurrection. Hallelujah!
CONFESSION
Just as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, l also have been raised into a newness of life to walk therein. I'm a new creation, conscious that I've been raised together with Christ and made to sit together with Him in the place of victory, authority, and dominion forever, in Jesus' Name. Amen.
FURTHER STUDY: 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 2:20; Romans 10:9-10
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if any man be in Christ, He is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Galatians 2:20
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Romans 10:9-10
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
1 YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN:
1 John 5 & Daniel 3-4
2 YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN:
John 17:22-26 & 2 Chronicles 9-10
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