Becoming and Living a Christian.
THE apostle Paul in giving his Christian experience said: "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Gal. 2: 20. This is the experience of every true, intelligent Christian. He may not know just how or when or where the work was done, only he knew that Christ died for him and rose for him. By faith he accepted Christ's death for his death, because death comes by sin, and on Christ were laid the sins or iniquities of us all. He who thus chooses Christ yields to Christ all his sins. He keeps none himself. Christ "gave Himself for our sins" (Gal. 1: 4), and we yield the sins to Him who thus purchased and bore them. By faith we are crucified with Him, by faith we die with Him for the sins. But this crucifixion is not a theory, but a fact. We renounce all sin, we separate from that in which we formerly walked, from the old man, to whom we were once married; the old man, the body of sin, dies and is buried forever, or should be. We rise with Christ to walk in the new life; for He not only gave Himself for our sins, but He died for us, that we might live through Him. "He was delivered for our offenses, and was raised for our justification," our righteousness. In His death we die by faith. In His life we live by faith. His death was for our sins. His life is for our righteousness. Christ's life was one of willing, faithful, perfect obedience to all of God's commandments. He "did no sin," because He kept His Father's commandments. Knowing them in their fulness, because He knew the Father in His fulness, He kept those commandments — God's righteousness (Isa. 51: 7; Ps. 119: 172) — in their fulness, and so possessed a character complete in the righteousness of God. And He did all this that He might save mankind. All this is abundantly taught in Christ's own life and in the epistles to the Romans, Philippians, and Colossians, and elsewhere. "For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell." "For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power." It is "Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God," and "the righteousness of God," and to them who accept Him by faith He is "wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption," "the way, the truth, and the life." All this Christ is to those who yield all to Him, and accept Him for all to them. They have then of "His fulness;" and He bears their infirmities. Such will esteem it a privilege to put on their Redeemer before the world. "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." Baptism is the marriage bond before men between the saved soul and Christ. "Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law [to its transgression, sin, Rom. 6: 2, 11] by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." Rom. 7: 4. The old man is slain and buried; we die, and rise, and are planted with Christ. As a prince, who is not prevented by a human morganatic law in taking a peasant for his wife from the lower walks of life, bestows on her all his own royal prerogatives and privileges, so Christ does to every soul who will yield to Him. He gives them His righteousness and His life. They walk in newness of life, and therefore they bring forth fruit unto God. As before their union with Him they brought forth sin, or transgression of God's law, unto death, united with Him they live His life and bring forth righteousness, or obedience to the law. Rom. 6: 16-23. He kept God's commandments (John 15: 10), so will they (1 John 5: 3). They will walk as He walked (1 John 2: 6), if Christ dwells within. They can not do otherwise, because they have no desire so to do.