Last month we looked at the introduction to our understanding of our Identification with Jesus Christ.

Our Master text is found in Romans 6. Re-read this chapter to familiarize yourself with the text as we will be referencing it throughout this study.

Paul has just told his readers in the previous chapter about the contrast between Adam and Jesus - that by one, sin entered the world, and through sin, death. In The Living Bible Romans 5:12 says: When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. His sin spread death throughout all the world so everything began to grow and die, for all sinned.

Jesus was made like Adam. God was Adam’s father - both spiritually and naturally, just as He was Jesus’ Father. Because Adam gave the earth away to Satan, God had to use a human to bring His Son into the world, because a man had relinquished his God-given dominion to the devil; therefore, God has to use a Man to get it back. Otherwise, God would be a respecter of persons and the plan wouldn’t work.

Our redemption had to come through a man AND through God. Jesus had every opportunity to sin - just as Adam did. Adam had every opportunity to live a sinless life - just as Jesus did. One could not have been any better than the other - or that would not have been ‘legal’ in the Supreme Court of the Universe, if you will.

Jesus IDENTIFIED with us when He took on flesh. He maintained His ‘sinlessness’ throughout His life, experiencing every temptation that humanity could experience - yet without sin.

We were IDENTIFIED with Jesus when WE accept His substitutionary sacrifice

On our behalf on the Cross and ask Him into our heart as our Lord and Savior.

This month, we are going to look at 6 Steps to Understanding Our Identification with Christ.

Romans 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

Galatians 2:20 (Amplified) I have been crucified with Christ (in Him I have shared His crucifixion.) it is no longer I who live, but Christ (the Messiah) lives in me; and the lift I now live in the body I live by faith in and by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Romans 4:25: Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. TLB says it this way: He died for our sins and rose again to make us right with God, filling us with God’s goodness; ….

God made Jesus to become SIN FOR US! 2Cor 5:21 says: God made Jesus, Who knew no sin, to be sin for us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God IN HIM (emphasis added). It was OUR spiritual death and OUR trespasses that He bore. He was forever identified with US on the Cross; HE WAS OUR SUBSTITUTE!

What this is saying is that as He died, we died with Him. In fact, The Living Bible says: “For you have become a part of Him and so you died with Him….” Jesus died both spiritually and physically on that cross. He could not have died physically if He had not first died spiritually. He took upon Himself OUR spiritual death so that WE could be made alive in Him (GLORY!)

You see: As He died, we died with Him. As a result of OUR spiritual identification with Him in crucifixion, the death of His body followed. As soon as His spirit died, only then could His physical body die. In John 10, Jesus says HE lays down His own life - no one takes it from Him. That’s why no one couldn’t kill Him before His time. The religious people of the day go so angry with Jesus one time, they tried to throw Him off a cliff; on another occasion, they tried to stone Him…but He just walked away from them.

His body could not die until His spirit died. Remember: our spirit-man is the eternal part of us. In the Garden of Eden, God told Adam that if he disobeyed what God had told him, he would surely die. Adam was created in God’s class - Adam was like God. (In Genesis 1:26, God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our LIKENESS!…” Adam was not a mortal being. “Mortal” means subject to death. As soon as Adam disobeyed God, he died - he became subject to death. And we know that it first had to be spiritual death because he was immediately separated from God; whereas prior to that time, he communed with God; he walked with God in the cool of the evening in the Garden. God brought all the animals to Adam and they talked about what Adam would call them. They probably talked about the universe and all sorts of wonderful things - they had FELLOWSHIP like no other fellowship. But as soon as Adam disobeyed, he was separated from God. But he didn’t die PHYSICALLY for 930 years. The ultimate price - the farthest extent - not just the highest price, but the long-term price that Adam paid was his physical death. First spiritual separation from God; then physical death (remember, we read that in Romans 5:12); physical separation from this world. (The wages of sin is death: sin’s paycheck).

Jesus’ body did not become MORTAL, or subject to death, until His spirit had taken on OUR spiritual death. As a result of OUR identification with Him in the crucifixion, He experienced physical death, because His body had thus become mortal, or subject to death, as had Adam’s. Since He took OUR spiritual death in His body, we were identified with Him. Therefore, in God’s eyes, WE died with Him.

As Jesus’ spirit left His physical body and went into Hell, WE were identified with Him.

Water baptism is a TYPE of our burial with Christ.

His body was in the tomb, but His Spirit suffered in Hell as HE paid the penalty that was due US.

He, and He alone could pay man’s debt and meet the demands of Universal Justice, because He had been identified with man. HE became identified with Man through the Incarnation. And the price He paid on the cross was not HIS debt - it was OUR debt; it was mankind’s debt.

As far as Father God was concerned, it was YOU and ME on that Cross. It was YOU and ME in HELL those 3 days and 3 nights - in that place of torment, bearing the judgment that was due US! And it is on the basis of THIS IDENTIFICATION, that the man - the WHOSOEVER WILL - the person who receives and accepts the redemptive work of Christ Jesus doesn’t NEED to go to hell, but has passed from death into LIFE - o hallelujah - from death INTO LIFE and will live eternally with God. AND the man/the person who refuses this redemption that Jesus bought with His own life will suffer in Hell, ETERNALLY separated from God.

When the penalty of man’s high treason was paid, man was FREED from his bondage to Satan.

ROMANS 6:1-11 gives us the picture, the reality of OUR identification with Jesus Christ in His crucifixion, death and burial.

In the meantime, I want you to let these three first steps sink down into your spirit-man. Meditate on the Scriptures outlined above - go back to the first lesson and study it in light of these first 3 steps. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth of the Word to you so that you will know without a doubt that YOU ARE A NEW CREATION IN CHRIST JESUS WHEN YOU ARE BORN AGAIN… OLD THINGS HAVE PASSED AWAY; BEHOLD! ALL THINGS HAVE BECOME NEW! Let the Word bring revelation to your spirit-man as you begin to understand your identification with Jesus and all that was accomplished for you on that Cross, making us FOREVER FREE from the bondage that comes against us day-in and day-out.

More on our Identification next month, so stay tuned!