What Does It Mean to be Dead in Christ?
2 Cor. 4:10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
What does it mean to be dead in Christ? We see that the pathway to life in Christ is through His death. But in what does this death consist of?
There is a natural life force and a spiritual life force in the one who is born again by the Spirit. As a rule, when our natural life force is spent...then we die. So then death has to do with a termination of the natural life in us....our strength. Unless a person has another KIND of life force that kicks in after the natural life ebbs away...we have a physical death. But one who is born again...one with another life in him...has this other kind of life...the spiritual life that is of Christ... as a "back-up." But before a spiritual life force can take over in the body, a spiritual death force must deal with the natural life strength that has sustained the body until then. These, then, go hand in hand. Death and life.
So then while we can have a spiritual life force in us even while we yet have a natural life, our own strength can't bring out the spiritual life in us. It's in the way. Even applying all our faith and every faculty we know of...these still have no effect on the outcome. No, rather, the natural life force (the old man) needs to become weak in us so that the spiritual life force in us, which is Christ in us, may be made strong. The weaker we are in the natural man, the stronger we can become in the new spiritual man. And death brings in the full measure of Christ in us.
2 Cor. 4:10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
What does it mean to be dead in Christ? We see that the pathway to life in Christ is through His death. But in what does this death consist of?
There is a natural life force and a spiritual life force in the one who is born again by the Spirit. As a rule, when our natural life force is spent...then we die. So then death has to do with a termination of the natural life in us....our strength. Unless a person has another KIND of life force that kicks in after the natural life ebbs away...we have a physical death. But one who is born again...one with another life in him...has this other kind of life...the spiritual life that is of Christ... as a "back-up." But before a spiritual life force can take over in the body, a spiritual death force must deal with the natural life strength that has sustained the body until then. These, then, go hand in hand. Death and life.
So then while we can have a spiritual life force in us even while we yet have a natural life, our own strength can't bring out the spiritual life in us. It's in the way. Even applying all our faith and every faculty we know of...these still have no effect on the outcome. No, rather, the natural life force (the old man) needs to become weak in us so that the spiritual life force in us, which is Christ in us, may be made strong. The weaker we are in the natural man, the stronger we can become in the new spiritual man. And death brings in the full measure of Christ in us.