Scripture for Meditation: I Peter 3:18

We are about to begin a study of spiritual growth in the Christian life.  What does it mean to grow spiritually? How does spiritual growth take place? What is God’s plan? There are lots of different methods of sanctification floating around Christendom today.  We want to see what God says about the subject in His Word. Simply put, God’s method of sanctification (like His method of justification) is by grace through faith.

Substitution: Christ Died for Me

We want to begin by asking the question, “Who died on the cross?”  I am sure we all know the answer. Each one of us would say that Jesus died on the cross for our sins.  That is exactly what Peter tells us in I Peter 3:18.  The Just One died for the unjust.  We were guilty, unjust, unrighteous, and worthy of death, and Jesus died in our place.  That is the doctrine of substitution, a doctrine found throughout the Scriptures.  The entire Old Testament sacrificial system was designed to teach this very truth – an innocent victim died for the guilty.  Adam covered himself and tried to hide behind the skin of a slain, innocent animal.  When Abraham was about to offer his son unto God as commanded, he found a ram stuck in the thickets and offered it as a substitute for his son. In the Old Testament, every sacrifice consisted of an innocent victim that died as a substitute for the guilty.  It all pointed ahead to the cross of Calvary, where Jesus would die, the just One for the unjust.

Consider Romans 5:6, 8.  In verse six Paul says, “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” And in verse eight we read, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” as our substitute. Paul tells us in I Corinthians 15:3, as he explains the basics of the gospel that “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.”  The substitutionary death of Christ is a basic but wonderful truth.  The result of this fact is salvation. It means that the believer can be right before God, because the Just One died for the unjust.  How can a guilty sinner like you or me be declared just or righteous before a holy God?  How can that ever be?  It is because Christ died for us. He paid the debt of our sin in full.  In fact, Paul tells us in II Corinthians 5:21, that in some mysterious way, Christ became sin for us. Our sin was placed upon Him and His righteousness was placed on us.  That is the only way you or I could be right in the sight of an infinitely holy God. His death for us resulted in justification and provided forgiveness of sins.  In I Corinthians 15:3-4, when Paul describes the gospel, he said that “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” and the proof of His death was “that he was buried.” His death was real, and so was His resurrection.  The fact that Jesus died on the cross for me means that I now can have forgiveness of sins, because the debt of sin is paid in full.  There is nothing left to pay. Because Jesus died for me, I also have eternal life.  He gave His life as a substitute for my life.  John 10:11 tells us that the Good Shepherd gave His life for the sheep.  My life should have been lost.  I should have been slain for I was the guilty one. But, Jesus offered up His life on the cruel cross as my Substitute.

All the benefits of the wonderful truths relating to Jesus’ substitutionary death are ours by faith.  The facts of justification, the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, are all by grace through faith. Consider Acts 13:38-39:  “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.”   Luke tells us very clearly that we have justification and forgiveness of sins by believing on Christ. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1).

John ends his gospel by stating that it was written for the purpose of explaining who Jesus is and how we can obtain eternal life.  He said, “these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (Jn. 20:31).  We must believe who Jesus is and what He has done.  What did He do?  He died, and the result of it is that my sins are forgiven, I am righteous in God’s sight, and I have eternal life.  It is entirely based on what Jesus did on the cross 2,000 years ago. The benefits of that sacrifice must be appropriated by faith.  There is no other way.  You cannot be saved apart from knowing and believing that Jesus died for your sins. You have to know the right facts. You have to trust in it completely.  Salvation is obtained no other way.

This is a wonderful truth – Jesus died for me.  And when He died for me, He dealt with the penalty and the guilt of my sin.  My sins are gone – they are paid in full.  Every true believer who has known these things and has trusted in this can now say, “There is therefore now no condemnation” (Rom. 8:1) because Jesus died for me.  Praise God!

Identification: I Died with Christ

It is wonderful to be saved, forgiven, born again, redeemed, and to be justified. The fact that Jesus dealt with my sins on the cross is marvelous, but it is only the beginning.  There is much more to this great salvation!

The birth of a baby is wonderful, but birth is just the beginning of a new life. So too, the new birth is not the end in itself, it is just the beginning.  There is much more to eternal life than merely possessing it. We are to lay hold of eternal life! Living the abundant life is what Christianity is really all about.  After the new birth a wholly new and marvelous process begins, called spiritual growth.

When Jesus died for me, He dealt with my sins. But, that did not change me one bit.  I am still the same vile, wretched sinner that I ever was.  I am forgiven and my sins are gone because Jesus died for me. His death for me dealt with the guilt, penalty, and condemnation of my sins, but it does not change me.

Consider Romans 6 carefully.  Here Paul tells us what God did with me.  In order for the new birth to take place, in order for someone to be saved, one must know and believe that Jesus died and rose again. In Romans 6, there are some other things God wants the believer to know.  We have already been born again and have had our sins forgiven.  We have entered into eternal life, but there is so much more! Romans 6:3 says, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?”  Here is something God wants us to know – we were baptized into Jesus’ death.

What does it mean to be baptized?  The term baptism does not refer to a sprinkling or a pouring. It means to be immersed and enveloped in a new atmosphere.  Here Paul tells us, that when Jesus died, in some sense, I was baptized into that death.  His death became my death.

In Romans 6:4 it says, “therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death…” Not only did I die with Jesus Christ, I was also buried with Him.  In verse 6, there is something else God wants us to know.  If we are ever going to enter into the process of spiritual growth, we have to know truths relating to spiritual growth.  If a sinner is ever going to be saved, he has to know the facts of the gospel.  If the saint is ever going to grow, he must know the facts about spiritual growth as recorded in the Bible.  There is one important truth in Romans 6:6 that God wants us all to know.  “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him…” When was our old man crucified?  Now, I can not explain this.  I was born in 1952.  I do not know how it could be that I was crucified 2,000 years ago with Christ, but that is what the Bible says.  In God’s mind, I died with Christ. By faith I was united to Christ, and in a very real way, I shared in His death. I was crucified with Him.

God says that He wants us to know this.  Why do we need to know that our old man was crucified?  Look again in verse 6 where Paul states the purpose of this death: “that the body of sin,” (our physical body dominated by sin) “might be destroyed.”  The end result is that “henceforth we should not serve [be a slave to] sin.”  God does not want us to be a slave to sin anymore.  If we are ever going to have victory over our sin nature, we have to know something – that we died with Jesus Christ.

The Bible is full of this truth. This is a truth that the Apostle Paul emphasizes over and over again in his epistles. Galatians 2:20 is one of the most important verses in the New Testament relating to the subject of spiritual growth.  Here Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live.”  We will be looking at the words, “nevertheless I live” later on, but let us consider the crucifixion now.  Paul says that he died.  He was crucified with Christ.  That is a co-crucifixion. Paul experienced death when Jesus died on the cross.

In Galatians 5:24, Paul says, “they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” If you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, this is what has happened to you.  Your flesh was crucified on the cross when Jesus died.

Look at Galatians 6:14. “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”  Here Paul says that he was crucified unto the world with Christ.  His flesh was crucified, with its affections and lusts.  Somehow God wanted Paul to know and believe that when Jesus died on the cross, Paul too was there.  This is what Paul means in Ephesians and Colossians when he repeatedly mentions that our old man has been put off.  He is gone; he is dead.  In some way, when Jesus died, my old “I” died.  The unregenerate me, (that old man who was previously dominated by fallen, corrupt, human nature), was crucified with Jesus Christ.   He is gone.  And, God says, I want you to know this.  You have to know this if growth is ever going to take place.

Jesus died for me.  That results in salvation.  We have to know it and trust in it to be saved.  But as a believer, I also died with Christ.  That results in sanctification.  We also have to know it and believe it, and reckon it to be so, in order to grow.  Spiritual growth is based on the fact that I died with Him.

In Romans chapter seven Paul describes a frustrating experience that every one of us, (if we are honest) have faced over and over again in our Christian lives.  All too often, spiritual growth begins with an awful period of frustration, such as Paul describes.  “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not…” Paul describes here the awful frustration he faced as a Christian, trying to produce spiritual fruit in his own power under the Law.  All of his efforts to produce spiritual fruit led only to defeat.  He said in Romans 7:21, “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.” He observed a principle occur so often that it was like a scientific law.  Every time he wanted to do that which is right, evil was right there to drag him away! Sound familiar?

Romans 7:22 says, “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man.”  Paul’s heart was regenerated.  He knew he was saved.  His inward man genuinely delighted in the things of the Lord, and he wanted to obey. However, he observed another law operating in the members of his body. His mind wanted to do that which is right, but there was something warring against the law of his mind which brought him into captivity (slavery) to the law of sin.  At times, Paul experienced defeat and frustration in his Christian life. He experienced the agony of defeat until finally, in Romans 7:24, there was nothing left for him to do but to cry out in desperation as a defeated man.  “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”  Paul struggled trying to produce fruit on his own, and discovered that it was all in vain.  He had to come to the place where he realized that it was impossible except through Jesus Christ.  Paul had to come to the end of himself.  He had to come to this realization through this painful repetition of defeat and frustration, until finally he agreed with God’s estimate of his flesh – in me dwelleth no good thing.  The self-life cannot produce fruit!  Lord, help me, was his cry.

In Romans 7:25 he says, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  Notice those words, “through Jesus Christ.”  That was what Romans chapter six was all about. Paul just explained how the believer died with Christ, was buried with Christ, and was raised into the heavenly sphere in Jesus Christ.  In Romans chapter seven Paul writes of the significance of this truth. After his initial frustration and defeat, he finally realized that his only hope for victory was through Jesus Christ, and not through the efforts of self! The old self-life hinders us from producing good fruit.

 “Knowing this, that our old man,” (the unregenerate individual that we were when dominated by our sin nature), “was crucified with Christ.”  God commands us to know this.  We need to know this truth, because it sure doesn’t seem to be true. It does not seem as if my old man is dead.  It feels like he is very much alive.  I still get angry.  I still covet.  I still lust.  I still say things I should not say.  I struggle with the same old things.  It seems like I am the same old man.  But, God says, I want you to know something  – You are not the same old man! Paul wrote in Romans 6:11, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.”  In other words, I want you to know this.  Get these facts in your mind.  I want you to count this as a reality, even when it doesn’t seem to be the case- even when it feels contrary to your experience.  That is what faith is all about.  Believing what God says even though my feelings are telling me something different.  God says, I want you to know this, and I want you to believe it, rest in it, and count it as a fact.  In Romans 6:6, Paul states that he wants us to know why we were crucified with Christ, so “that henceforth we should not serve sin.”  The whole purpose of knowing and believing these truths is so that in our daily experience we will not practice sin.

What is God’s answer to the self-life?  It is death!  In Romans 6:7, God says, “for he that is dead is freed from sin.”  Look in Romans 6:14, “For sin shall not have dominion over you.”  Spiritual growth and victory are the result of one fact – I died with Christ.  My salvation, my justification, my new birth are due to the fact that Christ died for me.  But my growth is due to the fact that I died with Christ.  It was a co-crucifixion.  Paul says that my old man is dead.  In Galatians 2:20, he says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live.”  The following is a very difficult fact for us to accept.  Note Jeremiah 17:1. It is not very flattering to our Adamic nature and human pride. Look at what God says about us.  We need to know what we are like, what we are made of.  Jeremiah is speaking of the hearts of his countrymen (and by the way, they were no different than us).  He says, “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart.”  Here God gives us His estimate of the human heart.  He says it is deeply etched with sin.  Sin is engraved in our hearts so much that it is our nature.  Look also in Jeremiah 17:9.  The flattery continues, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”  The NIV translates this,  “The heart is…beyond cure.”  The NASB translates this as, “the heart is desperately sick.” That is not very complimentary.  God looks at the old me.  He looks at the old you.  He looks at us in our unsaved condition and He says there is no cure.  The heart of man is beyond curing.  Nothing but death will suffice.

Look at Jeremiah 13:23.  “Can the Ethiopian change his skin”? No!  It is his nature to have dark skin. “Or the leopard his spots?”  Can the leopard suddenly decide he wants to be striped?  No! It is his nature to be spotted, and there is nothing he can do to change that. Then “may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.”  Just as a leopard cannot change his spots, so too, our heart is incapable of doing good and we are incapable of changing our nature.  Paul learned that in Romans 7.  God wants us to know it as well.  Our old man with his Adamic nature is incurably sick.  Now, can a leopard change his spots?  No! You could shave them off, but they would grow back.  You could paint the leopard, I suppose, but eventually the paint will chip off.  No matter what you do to a leopard, he is going to have spots because it is his nature as a leopard. Because we are sinners by nature, sin is naturally produced.   God looks at the sinner and declares that he has no chance of rehabilitation.  Nothing but death can change him. God does not try to fix up the old man.  God does not try to make the old man religious.  God does not encourage the old man to turn over a new leaf. You see, man’s way of ‘changing his spots’ is by attempting to suppress sin.  God’s way is to remove the sinner.  God gets the sinner right out of the way.  He crucifies the sinner so that the indwelling life of Christ can begin to manifest itself through the new nature of the believer.  It is no longer I, but Christ.  That is the way of spiritual growth.  That is the only way of victory.  Just get out of the way! Know that we were crucified.  We must reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, and, allow God to work.

The Bible says that the wages of sin is death.  Death is what my sin really deserves. Jesus paid that debt for me on the cross.  He died for me and dealt with my sin, but that does not change my heart. It changes my sins.  They are taken away.  They are gone, but it does not change my incurably sick heart.  God has another way of dealing with me,and His method is death.  Co-crucifixion is God’s answer to me in my wretched condition.  God looks at me and says there is no cure.  There is no way to fix him.  Let him be crucified!  Religion tries to fix up the sinner.  Remember what Paul learned in Romans 7.  As he struggled and agonized through this he came to the realization that “in me, that is in my flesh dwells no good thing.”  It is not that the old man is weak and he needs a little help.  He is incurably sick. Only death will change that condition.  It is kind of hard to swallow, but it is God’s way.  God’s way of spiritual growth begins at the cross, where not only Jesus died, but I died with Him.  At the cross, the sinner is slain.  The cross is where the old man is crucified, buried, and removed.  Before we can ever begin to grow, before spiritual fruit will ever begin to be manifested in our life, the sinner must be slain.  This happens to every believer at the moment of saving faith. We need to recognize it as such and believe it. “Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin…” (Rom.6:11a).  The old man needs to be completely put out of the way so that Christ can live through us.

This is a far cry from what we hear from modern psychology today.  Some believers (who seem to be dazzled by modern psychologists), are telling us that what we really need is to feel good about ourselves, to be puffed up with self-esteem, and that if we are going to love our neighbor, then we must first love ourselves. Phooey!  Where in the Bible does it ever say we are to love ourselves?  Now, Moses did say, love your neighbor as yourself, but he did not say to love self. He meant, love your neighbor as you already selfishly love yourself!  Paul says in Ephesians 5:29, “No man ever yet hated his own flesh.”  We take excellent care of our body of flesh.  We are experts at loving self.  We treat ourselves very well.  God says to treat others that way.  Our problem is that we love self too much. As a result, we have a hard time accepting and believing God’s estimate of our old man!

What is God’s cure for the old man?  Death! That is God’s answer.  Before we are ever going to enter into the process of spiritual growth we need to know and believe this.  God sets us free from the dominion and the power of sin, not by strengthening the old man, but by crucifying him. Any other method of trying to produce fruit is doomed to utter failure.  This is what Paul learned the hard way in Romans seven.  Romans seven is a lesson in futility: flesh trying to cure itself, when God says it is incurably sick.  The Law cannot improve the flesh; it can only impose the death penalty!  We are not going to improve the flesh through self-discipline or self help.  Over and over again, believers with good intentions, who in their minds want to serve Christ, find themselves falling into sin, frustrated, and never producing fruit.

Men have tried all kinds of methods to produce spiritual fruit. Men have invented many religious systems.  Some have turned to hypnotists to get the power of sin broken in their lives.  Some have turned to superstition, psychology, self-help groups, meditation, even to the occult.  But all of man’s efforts to produce freedom from the bondage of sin are hopelessly doomed to failure.  The flesh is incurable.   They that are in the flesh cannot please God.  It must be crucified, and we have to know this, and believe it.  We have to reckon it to be so – count it as a fact.  We need to believe it so deeply that these truths become our experience.  That is what faith is all about. Trusting in what God said to the place where we finally rest in it, and it becomes an actuality in our life. By faith, our earthly condition is gradually transformed (from glory to glory) closer to our heavenly position. Faith is the victory!

In Romans 6:11, Paul says that we are to reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.  Sin refers to the fallen nature that previously had enslaved us.  But since we died with Christ, God says we are now free (Rom.6:7).  The fact that we are crucified may sound depressing to some, but there is something wonderfully liberating about death.  Well, for one thing, you do not have to pay taxes any more! Death frees us from all obligations to the IRS!  Death also frees us from both obligation to, and dominion of sin. I once was sin’s slave, but no more – even though it doesn’t always feel that way. To me it does not feel any different. At times I still feel like I am under the dominion of sin.  But, God says I am freed from it, and I believe Him!  As I grow in my faith and lay hold of these truths, spiritual growth takes place.  These truths become a reality in my life by faith.

In Galatians 2:20, Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ.”  In that context he meant that he was crucified to the Law.  Death also has a liberating effect from the Law of Moses.  As long as you are alive, the law can dictate things to you, but the law has no power over a dead man.  It makes no more demands. It can exact no more punishment. So, when we died with Christ, it was a liberating experience.  It freed us from the bondage and obligation to the Law.  The sin nature has no more dominion over us.  The Law has no more dominion over us.  When Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ,” he meant that his old self-life was crucified.

I am my own worst enemy, how about you?  But God said that I was crucified with Christ.  That means that my old nature does not have the power over my life that he once had.  At the end of Galatians 6:14, Paul wrote,  “the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”  That means that because of death, (my co-crucifixion with Christ on the cross) I have been set free from the world system that once had a grip on my life.  Death accomplished that for me! Death is God’s answer.  It is the only way for the sinner to really experience freedom.  When our old man was crucified, we were freed from self, from sin, from the law, and from the world system. The cross is liberating! Out of the ash heap of death arises a new creature in Christ that is able to walk in newness of life (see Rom. 6:4).  Praise God!

We MUST know these truths, and really believe them, even when it does not feel true. We are to keep on trusting and resting in what God says. If we do not, we are doomed to the same frustration and failure that Paul describes in Romans seven.  Because we are saved, we are going to want to do what is right, but if we do not know what to believe, and are not resting in Christ, then we are going to experience frustration.  When we came to Christ for salvation, what was it that we had to do?  All the work was done already.  God wanted us to cease from our dead works.  We think that somehow “I” can do something.  “I” can add to His work on the cross. Yes, Christ died for me, but “I” have to be good and DO my part too.  Together, we can make it.  That is salvation by faith plus works.  You will never be justified that way (Eph.2:8-9).  God wants us to cease from all trust and confidence in our own efforts.  We came to Christ as Savior by faith. We are to continue walking by faith! “As ye have therefore receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him” (Col.2:6). God wants us to completely cease from trusting in that old man to do anything good, because God says there is nothing good in him.  He is incurably sick. Let him be crucified.  We need to cease from our own efforts to produce spiritual fruit. The branch does not produce the fruit.  It bears fruit as it yields to the Vine.  Our job is to water, weed and take care of the plant, but only God can give the increase.  Spiritual growth is what God does in us when we get out of the way and rest in Christ.

God desires for us to come to the end of self.  Read Romans seven and be reminded of just how frustrating it is for the flesh to produce anything good.  Get a good glimpse of just how wretched our old man really is, and agree with God. Yes, the old man deserves to be crucified.  Believe it and rest in that.  Then God is able to work in us to will and do of His good pleasure.

True victory, spiritual growth, and sanctification come in the very same way that justification comes – by faith and faith alone in what God did on the cross.  Do you know what religion offers man?  Religion offers man a life of frustration, unending toil, effort and work, vainly trying to produce something that will please God.  Religion demands an endless series of good works that ultimately results in death.  In contrast, consider what Jesus Christ offers man in Matthew 11:28-29.  “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,” (all you that have tried so hard to produce righteousness and have found nothing but futility) “and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”  In other words, God wants us to quit trying to fix the unfixable.  Quit trying to cure the incurable and to simply yield our members unto God by faith.  Just allow God to work in our hearts.  Recognize that if anything good is going to be produced through our lives, God has to do it.  I have to reckon myself to be dead, and get SELF out of the way.  Yield unto the Lord.  Then God is free to produce His fruit in our lives.  You see, the work has already been done 2,000 years ago.  When it comes to being born again, that realization has to sink into the heart of man or he will never be saved.  He has to know that Jesus died for him and rose again and he has to trust in that.  As a Christian, if we are ever going to grow spiritually, we also have to know that our old man died with Christ and was raised up a new creature.  Trust in that.  Believe it.  That is God’s way of victory.  As we grow and mature in the faith, and as we learn to trust more and more, we discover that it is no longer I, but Christ. He is my life and He wants to live through me.  His life, His character, and His grace are manifested as I reckon the old man to be dead.  When I think that my old man is dead, all I can say is praise the Lord!  Now Christ lives in me. That is God’s method of sanctification. It starts with my old man being crucified with Christ. Death with Christ makes me free at last!  Free from the law of sin and death!  Free to walk in newness of life! Positionally, our old man died with Christ. In our daily walk, faith keeps that old man on the cross! Faith is the victory.