trustworthy statement” that Paul included in his second letter to Timothy was this: “If we died with Him, we will also live with Him” (2 Timothy 2:11). What does it mean to die with Jesus? This does not necessarily mean physical death – though this could certainly happen (Revelation 2:10, 13). Paul was talking about something else – something that we must do if we want to “live with Him.” Notice what he wrote to the saints in Rome:
“Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:8-11).Dying with Christ is about becoming dead to sin and alive to God. This happens when we are “obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed” (Romans 6:17). What form of teaching was Paul talking about? It was what he described earlier in the chapter:
“Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 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” (Romans 6:3-4).If we want to live with Christ, it is not enough simply to believe in Him and want Him to save us. We must become dead to sin (repent), be buried with Him (be baptized), and be raised to walk in newness of life (live faithfully). If we do this, we can enjoy the “gift of…eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). –Andy Sochor
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