The Doctrine of Christ

LESSON TWENTY-FIVE Crucified with Christ

1. In baptism we acknowledge our acceptance of the death of Christ, our representative, as our own death to sin. Romans 6:1-3; 1 Peter 2:24. TDOC 66.5

2. This crucifixion of the old nature sets us free from the bondage of sin. Romans 6:6, 7. TDOC 66.6

3. This crucifixion with Christ is the first and necessary step toward receiving the life of Christ. Galatians 2:20. TDOC 66.7

4. This union with Christ in his death puts an end to the fleshly life. Galatians 5:24; Colossians 2:20; Romans 6:11. TDOC 67.1

5. This union with Christ in his death involves the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new man. Colossians 3:3, 5-11. TDOC 67.2

6. When we partake of the Lord’s supper, we testify to our acceptance of his death. 1 Corinthians 11:26. TDOC 67.3

(The American Revised Version must be used in the study of this lesson.) TDOC 67.4

NOTES: A common experience

“Other things, therefore, may be doubtful, but this is sure: the cross and resurrection must be ours, if we are his.” TDOC 67.5

An intimate relation

“The relations between Christ and those who are in him are so intimate that his death is their death and his resurrection their’ resurrection. They were crucified with him, buried with him, and they arose again with him. The truth has been verified in the spiritual consciousness of devout men. The death of Christ is the death of sin.” TDOC 67.6

Dying with Jesus

“They died with Christ when they clave with penitent trust to the truth that Christ died for them. When a man unites himself by faith to the dying Christ as his peace, pardon, and Savior, then he too in a very real sense dies with Jesus.” TDOC 67.7

“If we know nothing of dying with Christ, it is to be feared we know as little of Christ’s dying for us.” TDOC 67.8

Power through his sacrifice

“We must learn ‘to die daily,’ I to be made conformable unto his death, But when we ask how this can be, how can we follow his example and be made like unto him? Then we enter upon the second line of truth-Christ our sacrifice. There is no thought of merit or atonement for sin in our following of Christ, nor does a perfect pattern give sinful man any new power to live a holy life. The question of atonement, of acceptance, must have been already settled. The power to follow Christ our example comes through the virtue of Christ our sacrifice. His death has established a new relationship between God and man. His resurrection has brought a new life power within our reach. If, we would follow Christ, ‘we must know him and the power of his resurrection.” TDOC 67.9

A continuous union

“Our union with him is not dissolved. Through his death we receive forgiveness, through his death we die to the sin which brought the death upon him; and in his resurrection and ascension we see the visible manifestation of that eternal life which we have already received, and which will some day be manifested in us as it has been manifested in him.” TDOC 67.10

Deliverance through his death

“Death with Christ to the world should deliver us from the temptation of making much of the things which perish with the using, whether that temptation is presented in the form of attaching exaggerated religious importance to ascetic abstinence from them or in that of exaggerated regard and unbridled use of them.” TDOC 68.1

The basis of union

“By spiritual birth we are joined to the Second Man, and share in his righteousness and salvation. When we ask how we are joined to Christ, how and by what right we enter the new family of which he is head, we must look, not to the incarnation, but to the atoning death upon the cross f or our answer. For ‘except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone; but if it die, it brings forth much fruit.’ There is no communication of life except through death and resurrection. The basis of union with Christ is not the birth at Bethlehem, but the death at Calvary.” TDOC 68.2

A dying to sin

“Meanwhile, as to the elements of this world, the life which stands in these must die, or they must die to it, growing into the mind of their Lord. TDOC 68.3

“It is difficult to speak of this without, on the one hand, conveying a strained and unreal view of the Christian’s attitude toward the present life, or, on the other hand, weakening too much the sense of ‘conformity to his death.’ In the first place, the Christian’s dying is mainly, and certainly it is first of all, a dying to sin, a mortifying the flesh with the affections and lusts. It is the practical renunciation of evil, along with the maintenance of the watchfulness and self-discipline, needed in order to be ready to renounce evil when it comes. Evil has to be rejected, not merely by itself, but at the cost of those earthly interests which are involved in the surrender to it, however dear or constraining those interests may seem to be; so that conformity to Christ’s death, if it covered no more, would still cover a great deal of ground. But it seems to cover something more-namely, a general loosening of the grasp upon this life, or on the temporary and sensible elements of it, in view of the worth and certainty of the higher and the better life.” TDOC 68.4

The doctrine of the cross

“The boast of our day is that Christ crucified is preached. But is he, even in this one respect, fully preached, or the doctrine of the cross fully apprehended? Let the walk of those who make the boast answer. It is not insinuated that such are chargeable with licentiousness or immorality. TDOC 68.5

But are they therefore not chargeable with ‘walking after the flesh,’ and ‘making provision to fulfill its desires’? In the multitude of particulars it is difficult to make a selection. But what, then, is the high regard in which blood and ancestry and family connection are held by some? What is the regard to personal appearance and dress in others? What the attention to ease and comfort, and often times profuse expenditure, not to speak of actual luxuries, in the arrangement of the houses, tables, etc., of almost all! Is all this, and a thousand things too numerous to particularize, consistent with reckoning ourselves dead as to the old or natural man? Is this what the Scriptures intend by crucifixion of the flesh. Alas full well do many of the professing Christians of our day show that they are but half taught the very doctrine in which they make their boast: that they have but half learned the lesson which even the cross teaches. They have learned that Christ was crucified for them, but they have not learned that they are to be crucified with him.” TDOC 69.1