NOTE ON DEATH AND THE DEATH OF CHRIST

Death in scripture never means ceasing to exist. It is the termination of a previous state of existence, and change of condition. It is the end of a man’s history in connection with this world. With the unbeliever it is not ceasing to exist. It is “appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment”, Heb 9: 27. In Luke 16 the rich man died and was buried, and then lifted up his eyes in hades being in torment. He had not ceased to exist. For the believer death is the end of a life of suffering, toil, and conflict, and the entrance into eternal rest with Christ.

With Christ death was a change of condition, He was “put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit”, 1 Pet 3: 18. (Morally there was no change.) In dying He passed out of the flesh and blood condition, and all that was connected with it. In resurrection He became the beginning and pattern of a new creation, in which all believers have part. “If any one be in Christ, there is a new creation”. Hence the apostle says, “But if even we have known Christ according to flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer”, 2 Cor 5: 16, 17. He is no longer in that condition. Nevertheless, in the resurrection condition He is truly man, only in a new condition. We know Him now in His present condition as man in glory, in that condition in which He will abide for ever, the pattern of that to which we shall be brought at the coming of the Lord, when He will transform our bodies of humiliation into conformity to His body of glory.

In appearing to His disciples after His resurrection, He said, “Handle me, and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have”, Luke 24: 39. Not now ‘flesh and blood’. He is still truly man, but in a new condition. In this new condition He is the Firstborn of a new and heavenly race of His own order.

Christ in going into death has annulled death, He has the keys of Hades and of death; therefore He could say, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, If any one shall keep my word, he shall never see death”, John 8: 51. The believer does not see death, he sees the Lord on the other side, like Stephen, Acts 7. Christ in dying for us has made death a door of escape from a world under judgment, the sphere of Satan’s power, and a door into heavenly life and blessing. So that death has become an asset in the possession of believers: all things are yours, life, death, &c., 1 Cor 3: 22.

We appropriate death, that is, Christ’s death, for deliverance from the world, from sin, from the power of death; it is our servant, not our master.

For us, in having part in Christ’s death our past condition and history in connection with sin, and with Adam, has been terminated, so that the believer has passed out of that condition in which he was born and lived, passed into a new condition of righteousness and life in Christ. “Our old man has been crucified with him” (Rom 6: 6), it has been judicially terminated in His death. So that we are entitled to reckon ourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Him. “He that has died, is justified from sin” (v 7), not from sins. We could not be justified in the flesh; we are justified in Christ, in a new condition,

In 1 Corinthians the apostle brings in the truth of the cross as that which has brought to naught all the glory of man. It is the expression of what man is at the best, the wise, the mighty, the high born, the princes or leaders of this world, and at the same time it is the expression of God’s judgment of man. The place which Christ took on the cross was man’s true place, and what He suffered was what was due to man. “If one died for all, then were all dead”, 2 Cor 5: 14. It was the culmination of man’s wickedness, and the end of man’s probation. The princes (the leaders) of this world crucified the Lord of glory, 1 Cor 2: 8. It is impossible for man of that order to be with God. God has removed that order of man from His sight for ever in the cross, and has brought in one after His own heart in Christ; He will now recognise no other. So the apostle in the light of the cross would know no man save Jesus Christ. He rejoiced to see in Christ crucified the end of himself as a man in the flesh, and of every other man. Christ was all his glory. “We are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and boast in Christ Jesus, and do not trust in flesh”, Phil 3: 3. Happy those who can say this.

In the epistle to the Galatians the cross is brought in as the judicial ending of man after the flesh, especially the religious man, with all that such a man might boast of in a religious way, see Phil 3: 4-7. He could say, “I, through law, have died to law, that I may live to God. I am crucified with Christ, and no longer live, I”. He held his life as a religious man in the flesh to have been terminated in the death of Christ. And now if he lived, it was no longer the old “I”, but Christ lived in him, and his life of responsibility was lived in the faith of the Son of God, and under the influence of His love. It was no reconstruction, or renovation of the old “I”. Yet he was the same individual. We do not lose our individuality; it is the same individual in a new life. Again in Galatians 6: 14, he would boast in the cross as that which had terminated his status as a religious man in this world, and broken his links with a world under judgment. Looking at the world in the light of the cross, it is a judged world, as the Lord said when He was about to die, “Now is the judgment of this world”, John 12: 31. The day is coming when that judgment will be executed at the coming of the Lord. It is well to remark that the world has its religion, as well as its theatres and racecourses, &c. This has been so ever since the days of Cain. What a mercy to be delivered from it.

In the epistle to the Colossians death is brought in as terminating our life in connection with this world. “If ye have died with Christ from the elements of the world, why as if alive in the world do ye subject yourselves to ordinances?”, Col 2: 20. Again, “Ye have died, and your life is hid with the Christ in God”, Col 3: 1. Our life is now connected with Christ and the place where Christ is. We have been buried with Christ in baptism; that is, figuratively we have passed out of sight as those not having any status in connection with this world. Our portion is in the things above, not in the things on the earth. Yet how many Christians are still in bondage to the world and its fashions as if alive in it, as seen in their dress and manners and pursuits.

When the saint actually dies, he passes out of the condition of flesh and blood with its attendant responsibilities, toil, and suffering, and in his spirit goes to be with Christ in a scene of eternal peace and rest. “Absent from the body” he is “present with the Lord” (2 Cor 5: 8), awaiting the day of final victory at the resurrection from among the dead.

From Goodly Words vol 5 (1927)