Christianity

We've talked before about 1 Corinthians 15:1–5, that gives us the gospel as four propositions centered on the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we've mentioned that Christ's death, burial, and resurrection mark out the path for us: we are dead with Christ, buried with Him, and raised with Him. And just as He was seen by Cephas and the Twelve, we also will be seen with Him some day.

What I've tried to say over and over – but perhaps haven't said very well at all – is that Christianity differs from what came before in that it involves death, burial, and resurrection. The Old Testament saints were justified by grace through faith, just like we are (Romans 4:1–8). I have no doubt they were born of God, just like we are. But they weren't crucified with Christ, buried with Him, and raised with Him. That's our place, it wasn't theirs.

In a very real way, the Christian life is uniquely the life of death, burial, and resurrection.

I said at some point that the Christian life begins with baptism. It's not so much that baptism stands at the gateway to the Christian life (although I think it does), it's that where the Old Testament saints end and we begin, is at the truth of baptism: that we are identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.

Someone who believes but hasn't yet been baptized is justified by grace through faith in exactly the way that Abraham and David were, but he hasn't yet come to the point where Christianity starts – at least not consciously. Notice I'm not arguing whether God sees him as dead, buried, and raised with Christ. My point isn't what God sees, but what we see. An unbaptized believer is effectively an Old Testament saint.

Those of us who have been baptized are in an entirely different position, at least outwardly speaking. We are now in the place of those who have died with Christ (Romans 6:3).

In my experience, evangelical teaching on baptism is so weak it's effectively error. In my experience, when evangelicals talk about baptism, they're speaking in terms of obedience, not in terms of identity. So the statements of Romans 6 – baptism means we've died with Christ, been buried with Him, and shall have been raised with Him – are transformed into commands: baptism means we must live an entirely new sort of life, as though we had died with Christ, etc. I'm dismayed almost every time I hear evangelical teaching on baptism.

But it is true that our awareness of our identity in Christ has a tendency to fade over time. When we first realize we have died with Him, our shock turns to relief as we realize that we are now freed from that terrible sin that lives within us. We are relieved when we realize that God sees us as no longer being that old man that we were, and we are now free to agree with God, and count it as true ourselves. "I'm no longer that terrible old man, I'm no longer the slave of sin!" and suddenly we find ourselves free.

Because death is where slaves are free of their masters (Job 3:13–19).

But over time that realization fades, and we start to live again as though we're alive in this world. The memory of those first few moments of miraculous freedom fades, and we start to live and act as though we hadn't died with Him.

What's the solution? I'll blatantly rip a verse from its context and say, "remember therefore from whence thou art fallen" (Revelation 2:5). We're awfully quick to forget what it was like to be a slave to sin, and we can find ourselves drifting back that way all too easily. Like Israel, we start to think things weren't all that bad when we were eating leeks and onions back there... 

One thing about baptism, it doesn't give us a path back to the pre-baptism life.  You can't undo death.

In a very real sense, Colossians 3 picks up where Romans 6 leaves off. Romans 6 teaches that we have died with Christ, and that's something we have to reckon (count as true). Colossians 3 starts with that assumption, then goes on to say that, having died with Christ, we now have to "put to death" our "members on the earth." Colossians 3 gives a list of those members on the earth, but I'm not convinced it's a complete list. Be that as it may, it's striking that the command to mortify (put to death) our members on the earth is given to those who have already died with Christ.

Here's another place where evangelicals have gotten it wrong, in my experience. We have a tendency to put Colossians 3:5ff. before Colossians 3:1–4. In other words, we tend to see our having died with Christ as a result of our mortifying. But that's the opposite of what the text says. It says because we have died with Christ, we ought to mortify. In other words, our mortifying is a result of our already having died.

I've mentioned in the past that we can't skip Romans 6 on our way to Romans 12. We keep trying to throw people into Romans 12:1–2 who haven't yet learned Romans 6, and it just doesn't work. It can't work. Romans 12:1-2 is for those who have already learned Romans 6. In the same way, Colossians 3:5ff. is for those who have already learned Colossians 3:1–4.

Notice the progression of our relationship with death. When we first hear the gospel, the death of Christ means that Christ has died so I don't have to. That's a really basic, but really profound gospel. But then we learn that when Christ died, I died too. That's not something that's true in our experience, we are to believe it based on the word of God: we reckon (count on) it to be true. But now we come to Colossians 3:5ff., and death gets a little more real to us: now we begin to feel it. Now it cuts a little, and we might feel some of its sting. It cuts into those passions and lusts and sins that we enjoy. It starts to cost us something.

But we're not done yet. There is a third death for the believer, it's "death works in us" in 2 Corinthians 4:10–12. Notice this isn't something that's to be accepted on faith like death in Romans 6. And it's not something where we have some sort of control like the mortifying in Colossians 3:5ff. No, this cuts us very deeply, and we feel it, and we don't have any real control over it. This is death up close, personal, painful, and interfering. This is death as God's instrument to reveal the life of Jesus in our mortal flesh. This is, if you like, how God gets us out of the way so that people see Christ instead.

I've been reminded of this because I've been reading in Joshua. It seems to me that the Romans 6 death is connected with crossing the Red Sea (see 1 Corinthians 10:1–5, where the Red Sea represents baptism). And the children of Israel, we are told, crossed on dry ground (Exodus 14:21–22).

The children of Israel crossed the Jordan the same way (Joshua 3:14–17), but notice that the priests had to step into the water before it parted. So we can reasonably say that although the vast majority of the nation crossed over without getting wet, it seems like at least the priests got a little wet.

But once the children of Israel got to Gilgal, then the idea of the cutting off of the flesh got real. This wasn't like walking on dry ground through the Red Sea, it wasn't even like walking over the Jordan and the priests' feet getting wet. This was full-on death. It was circumcision with stone knives (Joshua 5:2). This was very, very painful. In fact, it was debilitating pain, so that they had to wait in Gilgal until those who'd been circumcised recovered (Joshua 5:8–9). 

That's what the 2 Corinthians 4:10–12 death is like. It's not something we need to reckon as true, because it's painfully true in our own experience.

We've talked about all this before. It's nothing new. But sometimes we need to be reminded of these things.