Ephesians 1:4 NASB
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.
Revelation 13:8 KJV
And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Galatians 5:24 TPT
Keep in mind that we who belong to Jesus, the Anointed One, have already experienced crucifixion. For everything connected with our self- life (flesh) was put to death on the cross and crucified with Messiah.
Galatians 6:17 NASB
From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus.
The crucifixion of Christ was entrance again actualized before the foundation of the world; it was realized 2000 years ago in Calvary’s hill, and it is personalized every time an individual embraces Christ as his Lord and Savior. The Ephesians passage says that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, and we know that Scripture tells us in various places that we were crucified with Christ, and because were placed into Christ even before the foundation of the world, his crucifixion was my crucifixion even before the creation of the world. One of the amazing things about this truth is that God’s solution was already accomplished in the heart and mind of God before the problem in the garden even happened. From God’s perspective, we were saved before we were lost, and of course this is the way God does all things; His provision and solution is already prepared and provided, before the need ever arises.
Keeping these thoughts in mind, let me tell you a little bit about the flesh. The word “flesh” is used in two different ways in the New Testament. First, it is simply used speaking of the human body, and secondly it is used in referencing a spiritual condition called “flesh,” which is the condition of the Old Man before conversion. The Bible tells us that there is a “law of sin” that lives in our mortal body, and when we were lost all we had to work with was our humanity, or flesh, and because our flesh, or humanity was infested with the law of sin, sin became our nature and our master. The old man lived in the condition of the flesh at all times, and the old man was also under sin’s condemnation.. The old man, the flesh man, the person that we used to be, was crucified with Christ, actually before the foundation of the world; in time space reality, two thousand years ago at the cross, and personally the moment we were born again. We still have our humanity, our flesh body, and the law of sin still lives in our members, but it is no longer our master, because we are in union with the risen Christ, and Christ now is our master. We no longer have to give into sin, because we are no longer slaves to it.
When Galatians 5 says that we who belong to Jesus have crucified the flesh, Paul is saying that the person you once were; the critical person, the anxious person, the angry person, the addicted person, the fearful person, the bitter person, the depressed person, the whole fallen personality, was crucified with Christ even before the foundation of the world. Now think about this; in anticipation of each of our own individual struggle, and brokenness, the broken person was taken care of by God through crucifixion with Christ before hand. I am a new creation, and a totally new man in Christ.
Christians don’t have to struggle with identity confusion, or identity issues of any sort, or slavery to sin of any kind, because seeing who we would become before we were ever even born, and anticipating our struggle as a fallen humans, God crucified that person so that we can find our identity, our purpose, and our resources to fulfill our purpose in the risen Christ. This is really important and it is hard to explain in a short devotional, but simply put, God saw the flesh person that you were going to become as a result of the Fall, and he took care of that shattered and confused slave to sin, even before the foundation of the world. When you and I were born again, we were born into the solution. We were born into the answer, not born again to struggle to find the answer. The answer to all of our brokenness found us. We will look at this a little bit more tomorrow.