A Man in Christ

September 14, 2024

Saturday

Salvation has always been a mystery for me. I know that I needed it but I don’t really know how I got it. I know that saying a prayer by itself is not salvation. Lots of people are scared of going to hell and will repeat that prayer. They believe that saying it will keep them out of hell. They have neither repented nor committed their lives to the Lord. They feel better and may get baptized and attend church for a while. It is soon evident that they do not possess the Holy Spirit. Nothing changes. They simply say that they are going to heaven now even though they are on the same road they have always been on.

Paul has been keen to say that a believer is in Christ. He further tells us that we are so united with Christ that our baptism baptizes us into His death. That baptism must be the Spirit for water is just water. It symbolizes a new life but it is not the new life. So that salvation involves a baptism in the Spirit that unites us with Christ’s death. Understanding this is not necessary. Having this happen is absolutely necessary.

We often say that children have not come to an age of understanding and therefore cannot be saved before that happens. If that is the case, I could not be saved even now for I don’t really understand how this happens. I am united with Christ. I have been crucified with Christ. I am baptized into His death. I know it to be true. I know that I am united with Christ in all these things. I just don’t know how it happens.

My understanding is that faith causes a change in a person. Faith is more than being convinced that something is true. All of us know many things as true but we never act on them. We know that too much salt is bad for us. We know that exercise is good for us. We know that we should not sin. Unfortunately, some are better than others but no one is perfect. As believers we must be agreeable with God in our transformation but we cannot say we caused it. It comes from the Holy Spirit living in us. It comes from uniting with Christ. 

This morning I prayed about this. The Lord led me in my understanding of what some people are experiencing. There is a difference between seeing pictures or videos and actually going to a place. I have been to Israel five times. I cannot say that any virtual tour has ever been close to walking where Jesus walked. A virtual presence is an absolute absence. Sure, everyone can see what there is in Israel on a virtual tour. But being there is like uniting with the place. It is more than emotional. It is truly experiential. That is like the difference between a faith in Christ that believes that He is the Son of God and one that unites with Him that knows Him intimately. Some are just on a virtual tour. Others are there with Him.

Romans 6:3–6 (NASB 2020)

³ Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? ⁴Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. ⁵ For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, ⁶ knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;