Most Christians have not experienced in a vital way our legal identification with Christ.
At once, you should ask, “What does identification mean?”
It means our complete union with Jesus in His substitutionary sacrifice.
For instance, this phrase: “I have been crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20). This is our identification with Christ in His crucifixion. This is a legal aspect of our redemption.
Crucified “systauroō” this word in the Greek is “the perfect indicative passive”
You say what is that? What is that, is that you have never read a Bible, that is what that is.
That is why Christianity has become a religion. Christianity is the only religion that has never read the original manuscript.
Instead, you have allowed someone else interpret the bible for you, and it has shaped your belief system, and religious people are very hard to reach because their mind has been governed by a belief system that is not the truth. It is a strong hold of the devil.
Only knowing the truth will set you free.
The Apostle Paul was fluent in Koine Greek. You can buy “the complete word study New Testament” for seven dollars and sixty-seven cents brand new in paperback and you will get it in a couple of days on Amazon.
The perfect indicative passive. This is “the past perfect tense”, that means something that has happened in the past. The indicative mood in this context means the completeness of the action or the finished results, which have continued to this present day. It is in the passive voice which represents the subject (Paul or us) receiving the action of the verb (crucified).
Galatians 5:24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
I cannot study the bible for you, as a teacher I can help you study the bible.
OK in this verse we the word crucified “stauroō” Now take notice this is a different word than the last verse word we looked at “systauroō” it is a The Aorist indicative active. The aroist indicative expresses action that is not continuous, it is an action that happened at a specific point in time, once and for all. It is in the active tense which means you are the one doing the acting.
Now this is the vital aspect of redemption. It does no good to have a million dollars in the bank (legal), when you have no access (vital) to it.
Now remember what I said, “YOU CANNOT LIVE THE CHRISTIAN LIFE”, but Christ can through you.
Now this is where people fall into legalism, they try to do what only God can do.
So, look at the verse right in front of it.
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Now first look at verse 23 against such there is no law. We are not under the law, and that includes the moral law of the Old Covenant and Boy do Christian’s not want to hear that. What do you mean we are not under the moral law? You mean I can do whatever I want to because I am under grace and not the law?
When you hear a person say that it reveals right there that they do not even know what Grace means.
Grace is the empowering presence of God to enable you to do what you cannot do in yourself.
This is 101 Christianity, another words this is foundational teaching.
We must build the foundation first, and Paul is a master builder. Saul his former name, was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, he was top gun of the pharisees. He was the legalist of all legalists and would kill you if he found out you were a Christian, thinking he was doing the will of God, talk about being deceived, he was the deceived of the deceived.
1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I AM WHAT I AM, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I LABORED more abundantly than they all, YET NOT I, but the GRACE of God which was with (union; together with) me.
This is grace first to become and then to do.
You say those “who are Christ’s” have crucified the flesh, we’ll then I am not saved and you are correct.
But don’t freak out on me now, let me qualify that statement, your spirit is saved or you would not even be reading this, but your soul is not saved yet. The salvation of the soul is a process called sanctification.
We must be filled with the fruit of the Spirit and then we will displace the lusts of the flesh. There is no comparison between being filled with the joy of the Lord and fulfilling some lust of the flesh. It is called the principle of displacement. https://glorytogodministries.site/blog/principles-of-displacement/
I died together with Christ. I was buried together with Christ. I was made alive together with Christ. Now I am seated with Him.
This little preposition together with is the key that has unlocked a long-hidden truth that is of vital importance to us.
“Together with” is “syn” in the Greek. meaning union, together with, implying a nearer and closer connection than metá with.
It means when Jesus died on the cross it was legally you who died; he died because he took our place. That means the iniquity in your soul was taken into his soul, because his soul was innocent, until the sin in our soul was transferred into his soul. https://glorytogodministries.site/blog/the-principle-of-transference/
The teaching of identification or substitution is the legal side of our redemption. It unveils to us what God did in Christ for us, from the time He went to the cross until He sat down on the right hand of the Father.
The vital side of redemption is what the Holy Spirit, through the Word, is doing in us now.
Several times, Paul uses the preposition together with in connection with His substitutionary teaching on our identification with Christ.
Galatians 2: 20 I have been crucified(Past perfect -legal redemption) together with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives (present tense-vital redemption) in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Based on our legal redemption, we are righteous in God’s sight, and when we see ourselves the way the Father see us perfect in Christ, it eliminates the sin-consciousness.
This gives us boldness (because our approach to God is different and causes us to rejoice enabling us to actually be filled with the Spirit so that Christ can actually live through us, the vital or actual reality of who we are in heaven can actually be manifested here on the earth.
And when you learn how to be continually filled with the Spirit, it actually displaces the flesh, where we have no desire to yield to the flesh, because that quenches the infilling of the Spirit.
I would rather be filled with the Spirit, than to try to get gratification from the flesh. I have taken almost every kind of drug there is, and there is no comparison to being filled with the Spirit. Another words I would rather get high on God than some counterfeit the enemy can offer.
But if you don’t learn how to be continually filled with the Spirit and walk in the Spirit, you are going to have all kinds of problems on the human level, and you will have no power to overcome them.
Then he tells us, “We died(legal) together with Christ” (Romans 6:8) and “We were buried (legal) therefore with him” (Romans 6:4).
This gives us the key that unlocks the great teachings of identification.
Christ became one with us in sin, that we might become one with Him in righteousness.
He became as we were to the end that we might be as He is now. As he is, so are we in the world (1 John 4:17) He became one with us in death that we might be one with Him in life.
There is a twofold oneness: first His oneness with our sin on the cross; second, our oneness with Him in His glory on the throne.
This is who we are right now in heaven, sitting in glory on a throne, our spirit is dimensional just like Jesus we are on earth but also in heaven at the same time.
John 3: 13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
Now Jesus is on the earth telling Nicodemus that he is in heaven.
Although at this moment our spirit is seated in the heavenly places in Christ, our soul cannot translate what our spirit is sensing in the heavenly places (which is the realm of the Spirit). Because it takes training and practice, through meditation, for our soul to become aware of this realm. https://glorytogodministries.site/blog/meditation/
And raised (legal redemption) us up with him and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus. —Ephesians 2:6
He was made sin to make us righteous. He became weak to make us strong.
He was condemned in order to justify us.