The Principal of Identification
The principal of Identification is that Christ was our substitute, and God counts the things that He did as if we did them. Let’s look at an example.
Romans 6:1-12 1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?
3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
7 For he who has died has been freed from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.
10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
This passage begins by saying we are dead to sin. It then tells us why – because we died, were buried, and rose from the dead with Him. It is the principal of substitution – Jesus did these things in our place.
This is how God sees us – through “Jesus colored” glasses, as it were.
The next part is something we need to do – the principal of identification – we need to see ourselves the same way that God sees us, by identifying with what Jesus did for us.
God no longer sees us as poor old miserable sinners saved by grace. We are not! We were saved by grace, now we are new creations in Christ (2 Cor 5:17)! However, if we still see ourselves that way, we will not experience victory over sin in our lives.
The passage concludes with this statement: “… reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God.”
The word translated reckon is actually an accounting term. It means to think, impute, reckon, suppose, estimate, account, or conclude. The root comes from a word that means to take an inventory.
So, you can say, “I reckon I’m dead to sin”.
“But how can I say that when I’m still sinning?”
You can say it because God says it. And He tells you to do it. It’s not lying when you say what God says, even if you can look at your own behavior contradicts it. The first step in changing something is to see it changed. God does this all the time.
Romans 4:17 (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed–God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;
The reason why God calls those things that do not exist as though they did is so He can bring them to pass with His faith.
Legal and Vital Aspects of Redemption
Legal aspect – God counts it as done because Jesus purchased it on Calvary. This included our spiritual salvation, and the redemption from the curse of poverty, sickness, and spiritual death.
However, we will not experience any of that redemption in our lives until we accept it and apply faith.
God has purchased salvation for every human being by the blood of Jesus, but we have to accept Him as Lord.
God has purchased our healing by the stripes of Jesus, but we need to believe.
God has redeemed us from poverty, but we need to believe that He will meet our needs according to His riches in glory, and be givers.
This is the Vital aspect – getting what God has purchased for us to work in our lives.
For example, the slaves were freed with the Emancipation Proclamation. But it took the Civil War for the slaves to experience that freedom.
Philemon 1:6 that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgment of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.
The word here translated sharing is koinonia – it means sharing, fellowship, communication, participation in, communion. It has the idea of something going outward from you (in this case faith), and interacting with the world and other people. And it says this communication of our faith becomes effective – able to produce the desired results – by acknowledging those good things which are in us in Christ Jesus.
To acknowledge carries the same idea as reckon in Romans 6 – we admit and agree with something that it is true. What are we to acknowledge? It says acknowledge “… every good thing which is in you.” But it’s not talking about listing all the wonderful points of your sparkling personality, because it adds, “… in Christ Jesus.” Every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.
God says many things about us in the Word; who we are, what we have, and what we can do. These are the Legal aspects of our redemption. We are to acknowledge them – admit the truth of these things, and then confess them. The word confess is the Greek word homologeo – which means to speak or say the same thing.
We read in Romans 6:2 that we are dead to sin, that sin no longer has power over a dead man. We could look at our own behavior and conclude that Romans 6:2 can’t be true about us,
OR, we can acknowledge it after the manner of Romans 6:11: “Reckon yourself dead to sin.” Then we confess it (“ Í reckon I’m dead to sin!”)
This builds an image in our hearts, and then and only then will we be able to accomplish verse 12: “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body.”
Too many people try to do it backwards. They want to change their behavior first before they will acknowledge what God has said. And then they get into what Paul talks about in the next chapter, what I call the “Romans 7 loop” – where you don’t do the things you want to, and the very things you will not to do is what you end up doing.
The Mirror
James 1:21-25 21 Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;
24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
Vs. 21: the Word of God implanted is able to save our souls. Salvation means much more than you go to heaven when you die. The word sozo means to make whole. And the people James was addressing in his letter were already saved, they were already Christians. He told them the Word implanted in their hearts could make the souls whole.
The soul is the mind, will, and emotions. James is talking about the changing of our thinking processes and beliefs, with the result that we can have joy and peace.
Vs. 22: Be a doer, and not just a hearer. There is a term that has been coined: mental assent. Someone who is mentally assenting to something will say they agree with something if you ask them (“Yes, I believe that!”), but it doesn’t have any effect on their behavior – they don’t act on what they supposedly believe. He hears it, may even say he agrees with it – but he doesn’t do it.
Vs 23: Natural face – literally, the face of his birth or the face of his nature. Specifically, the face of his new birth.
Vs 24: He looks in the mirror, sees the face of his nature, then immediately goes away and forgets what manner of man he was.
Vs 25: Look into the perfect Law of Liberty, like it was a mirror. Continue in it – don’t quit. Don’t be a hearer that forgets, but a doer. What will be the result? “This one will be blessed in what he does.”
The Law of Liberty
James 2:12 So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.
So what is this Law of Liberty? I believe it can be found here:
John 8:31-32 31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.
32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Knowledge of the truth brings freedom. But then we must also acknowledge it.
2 Peter 1:1-9 1 Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:
2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,
3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,
4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge,
6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness,
7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.
8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.
Vs 1: We have obtained like precious faith – faith of the same kind and value – as Peter.
Vs 2: Grace and peace are multiplied to us through knowledge…
Vs. 3: All things pertaining to life and godliness – that covers both spiritual and natural things – are given to us through the knowledge of Him.
Vs. 4: Through promises we are made partakers of the divine nature. Basically, we act like God.
Vs. 5-8 presents a list of Christian virtues. In verse 8, it says if these things are yours and are increasing (the meaning of abound), then our knowledge is bearing fruit.
The key word here is increasing, i.e., that we are growing. Not that we are fully grown, but that we are growing. God does not evaluate us by what level we have achieved, but by what progress we are making. If we are growing, He is pleased.
Vs. 9: It doesn’t say that if you lack these things you are carnal or a sinner. It says you are blind or short-sighted – you can’t see straight. You’ve forgotten that you were purified of your sins.
You’ve forgotten what manner of man you are.
Transformation
2 Corinthians 3:17-18 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
It’s talking about liberty again. And it uses the image of looking in a mirror again.
What do you see when you look in a mirror? Yourself. Here it says we should look in God’s mirror, which is His word, the perfect Law of Liberty – and behold the glory of the Lord.
Col 1:27 says “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
As you behold the glory of the Lord in yourself (your new, spiritual nature, seeing as God sees you), you are transformed into that image.
This word transformed is interesting. The Greek word is one from which we get our word metamorphosis. For example, a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, or a tadpole into a frog, is metamorphosis.
Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
The same word is used in Romans 12:2. We are transformed by the renewing of our minds. Kenneth Wuest, who was one of the translators on the Amplified Bible, puts it this way in his Expanded Translation:
Romans 12:1 Wuest Expanded Translation I therefore beg of you, please, brethren, through the instrumentality of the aforementioned mercies of God, by a once-for-all presentation to place your bodies at the disposal of God, a sacrifice, a living one, a holy one, well-pleasing, your rational, sacred service,. And stop assuming an outward expression that does not come from within you and is not representative of what you are in your inner being but is patterned after this age; but change your outward expression to one that comes from within and is representative of your inner being, by the renewing of your mind, resulting in your putting to the test what is the will of God, the good and well-pleasing and complete will, and having found that it meets specifications, place your approval upon it.
Note the language about your expression patterned after that which comes from within you. That is in the meaning of metamorphosis. A caterpillar can become a butterfly, and the tadpole into a frog, because it is built into their DNA – the nature of the butterfly or frog is already inside them, but hidden. The transformation is letting what is already on the inside have its expression on the outside.
We shall be like Him
1 John 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
Why will we be like Him when we see Him as He really is?
1 John 4:17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.
Because as He is, so are we! When we get to heaven? No – it says so are we in this world!
We are already as He is on the inside. We have been recreated in His image. It’s in our spiritual DNA. When we behold Him face to face, we will behold that glory of the Lord and the last of the transformation – the letting what is on the inside become visible on the outside – will take place. But that process is to begin and progress now.
So why aren’t we more like Him now?
1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
The image we see in the mirror is dimmed – we only get a partial glimpse of the glory of the Lord in that mirror. It is clouded by our flesh. Our knowledge is partial.
But when we come face to face with Jesus, when we see the image in its full glory, we shall know even as we are fully known.
And we shall know the truth, and the truth will make us free.
