Saved…

Part 7 – To come alive in Christ     

The reality of what God created us for – the human potential he gave us in Genesis – comes alive in Christ. Apart from him it won’t happen (John 15:5). Only Jesus is “the way” to our human potential being restored (John 14:6), “the truth” of how its done, and the source of bringing it all to “life” in us personally.

Our attachment to Christ, then, is essential, which is why the Father raised Jesus from the dead and “united us with him in his resurrection,” Romans 6:5. Which is quite startling, that “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms,” Ephesians 2:6. Not “will” raise us up in a future resurrection, note; it’s “you have been raised with Christ,” Colossians 3:1. It’s happened already.

So right now we’re alive together with Christ. We sit with him. It’s what the Father ripped us out of this “dominion of darkness” for, to “bring us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,” Colossians 1:13. 

So we’re right there with Jesus in his world. And for what purpose? For creating new humans, who are being restored back to what God made humans to be in the first place. All these new humans coming alive in Christ, therefore, so that one day, Colossians 3:4,“When Christ appears” and “you appear with him in glory,” the whole world will see what God had in mind for us humans. Because there these new humans will be, in all their glory for all to see: living witnesses to the glory Jesus prayed we’d have in John 17:24. 

To come alive in Christ, then, means becoming a new creation. And that’s going to make a huge difference in our lives, because “if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you,” Romans 8:11. The same Spirit that raised Jesus to new life from the dead is now living in us to do the same thing – “conforming us to the likeness” of Jesus, because that was the Father’s original and intended plan for us (verse 29).  

Jesus became the first of those new humans, and through the Spirit many more are coming alive to “live that new life” too (Romans 6:4)…(continues tomorrow)