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Crucified and Yet AliveBy: Joseph H. Murray“I am crucified with Christ: Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ” (Gal. 2:20). Carnally speaking, that is one of the most absurd statements a person could make. The natural man promptly asks the question, How can a person be dead and alive at the same time? The answer is simple when the Scriptures are rightly divided concerning what Paul has written to us. In Romans, chapter 6 and verse 3, he tells us this, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?” “Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin” (Rom. 6:3–7). Verse 11 of this chapter reads, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Common sense teaches us that for anyone to live again after being dead is for a resurrection or renewal of life to take place, for Paul wrote unto us again these words, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:1–3). There is involved a death, burial and a resurrection in the new birth or the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. This spiritual baptism applies a spiritual application of each of these to our souls and causes a notable change to our natural life, for we walk in newness of the life of Christ. We are, actually, baptized by this one Spirit into our death, our burial and our resurrection. When this natural life ends, if we don’t carry our resurrection in the grave with us, we will be without one in the first resurrection, for we are all going to be raised in our order (1Cor. 15:23). |
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