One Thing 5/26/20 Newness of Life

Romans 6:3-5 NASB

Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? [4] Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. [5] For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,

 

1 Peter 2:24 NASB

and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the Cross, so that we might be removed from sins and live the righteousness;  by whose wound you were healed.

 

 

The version of 1 Peter 2:24 listed above is an accurate word for word translation of what the verse actually says in the original language. I’ve spent the last 42 years of my life in pursuit of discovering all that’s meant in the phrase “walk in newness of life.” As a result of the finished work of Christ at the Cross, every believer is a totally new creation, having been raised up in the resurrection of Jesus, that we might walk in newness of life. I’ve become convinced over the decades that the wonders of being in Christ, being in union with the risen and ascended life of the Lord Jesus, is an endless discovery, and it never ceases to exhilarate and fascinate my heart. With each new discovery, it feels like I’ve been born again, again. Each small new discovery of what Jesus accomplished on my behalf is so vast that it makes every other big event in life seem irrelevant. The journey that began in a small stable on the hillside of Bethlehem has been jaw-dropping. Who could’ve ever known that the stable could be so big, that innocent child lying in a manger would destroy evil and raise up a whole New Creation.

1 Peter 2:24 is actually a quote of Isaiah 53:4, yet Isaiah 53:4 states that Jesus bore our sicknesses, griefs, sorrows, and pain. So did Jesus carry away my sins or the other things mentioned in verse 4 of Isaiah 53? The answer, of course, is YES. Jesus became sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil and, thus, the reign of sin, and the reign of sin includes all of human brokenness. Jesus took all of our brokenness into his person at the Cross, and he crucified it and buried, and on the 3rd day, a whole new creation rose up in Him innocent and free to walk in newness of life. Jesus bore the root and all the effects of sin in our lives, so that the wounded, rejected, abused, fearful, angry, insecure, bitter, resentful, depressed, self-hating, immoral, etc., person no longer exists, but what’s left standing is what arose in Christ in the resurrection. Someone who is innocent and free and who can do all things in Christ. Paul prayed that we would know the power that raised Jesus from the dead. Indeed, this is part of that knowing.

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