Positional Sanctification Series

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8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.

Our death with Christ is one side of the truth. The other side is that we shall also live with Him. We died to sin; we live to righteousness. Sin’s dominion over us has been shattered; we share Christ’s resurrection life here and now. And we shall share it for all eternity—praise His name! Living with Him is the inevitable result of our having died with Him. There can be no other consequence of this, than that we live with Him now, and shall do so forever. This is confirmed in the next verses. Life with Christ, upon which the believer enters when he is born of God, never ceases. Its continuance has nothing to do with our efforts, any more than salvation by grace does.

9 Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.

Knowing—this is something else we ought to know.

Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. This is the third time Paul has used the word know or knowing. These three instances teach that we have been baptized into Jesus Christ, that our old man is crucified with Christ, and that because Jesus died unto sin once, He never shall die again—“I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore” (Rev. 1:18). Death is a completed transaction by which we have once and for all passed into the resurrection life of our Lord. Jesus Christ can never die again. When we died with Him to sin, we never die to sin again.

Death no longer has dominion over Him. The Greek word used for “dominion” means “to have the power of a lord over another. To this power of death, Christ voluntarily submitted Himself. Death did have dominion over Him for three days and nights, but that dominion was shattered by His resurrection. Christ can never die again! When He went to the cross and paid the debt in full for our sin, death could no longer claim Him or those who died with Him. Therefore, sanctification is knowing what Christ has already accomplished for us through His death. It is not primarily a matter of striving to live holy, but of knowing that we are holy in Him.

It has already been pointed out that all true believers are united to the Body of Christ by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. When we share the death of Christ by believing in His finished work, we share His life through our union with Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. The death of Jesus Christ on Calvary completely and entirely fulfilled the Law and answered every demand of righteousness. Jesus died on the Cross, and with His own shed blood He paid the penalty for sin “ONCE FOR ALL.” “Who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself” (Heb. 7:27).

Dominion is mastery, control, or domination.

10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.