PEARLS OF GREAT PRICE CHRIST’S LIFE STUDIES
HAVING THE MIND OF CHRIST:KNOWING CHRIST
APOSTLE GILBERT KARUZA
God wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth ( 1 Timothy 2:4 ). This shows us that the post salvation focus of the believer should be the acquisition of the accurate and precise knowledge of Christ. To know Him as He is should remain our emphatic focus.
“For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead”. 2 Corinthians 5:14The term “constraineth ” comes from the Greek term “sunecho” . “Sun” is a preposition which indicates an association closer than close, a proximity which can only be described in terms of union because it refers to one being in the other. The term “echo” refers to a harmonic resonance whereby what happens in one happens in the other.
The love of Christ has joined us in an association closer than close, a proximity that can only be described by union, whereby Christ is in us and we are in Him; and whatever happened to Him from the cross to the throne, equally happened to us. The Apostle Paul uses the term “in Christ” one hundred and sixty-four times, directly, to refer to the summary of the Gospel, the signature of God that certifies what happened in His Son, resulting in the new Creation.
“And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again”. 2 Corinthians 5:15
The result of what happened in Christ gives us the perspective from which we are to evaluate all things. The conclusion drawn is that if one died for all then all were dead. Thus the death of Christ equals to the death of all because in His incarnation, He didn’t just become a man, but He became the Man — the consummate man whom Adam merely prefigured in his creation.
He came to perform in reverse what Adam’s act of disobedience did to the human race. So, if Adam’s disobedience resulted in the death of all, and Christ comes in inverse of the first Adam, His death being the death of all would reverse the disobedience of Adam.
At the cross, God identified Himself with the human race in the depth of her alienation from God. God did not simply give us a prescription that would result in us being made whole if we applied it to ourselves. The Great Physician became the patient. The unassumed is the unhealed and Christ did not simply assume an aspect of our humanity, but He fully took upon Himself the diseased and corrupted human nature of Adam.
When He died, that condition was brought to an end. That is why Christ was buried; so, for the three days and the three nights, the ages are summed up in that one event and the resurrection morning is the first day of the new Creation. This is the news of the Good News. It is so new that it brought something new to God Himself.
The Godhead in the eternal Son was now clothed with true humanity. Many people don’t know what happened at the cross. Sin was abolished; all temporal economies were brought to a conclusion, such as the Law of Moses. All the promises made to the forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as well as David, were brought to their fulfilment in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
The Good News does not stop at the cross. Apostle Paul tells us that unless Christ was resurrected from the dead, there would be no certification that what He did on the cross was valid. So, if Christ is not risen from the dead, Paul says we are still in our sins. This would imply that if Christ is risen from the dead, then we are no longer in our sins. Irrespective of what you may consider to be your failures in your personal life, you are not in sin.
There is a difference between being made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus and spiritual growth or attaining maturity. The faults you may commit are categorised as the works of the flesh and the works of the flesh indicate the areas where you do not trust in Christ. It is an issue of failure to identify yourself with Christ.
As hard as it is for many who are trained in religion to believe, as the believer in Christ, you cannot lose your righteousness when you falter. This is because righteousness is based on certain legalities which were fulfilled and met by Christ. He is your righteousness because He stood in as you, representing you by taking on the position of the last Adam. You are to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; not just be saved and live in ignorance. If you were to be counted as a sinner, then, the incarnation, His crucifixion, death, burial, quickening, raising and seating would have to be undone and that is not going to happen. Our association with sin has been eternally dissolved at the cross in the death of Jesus Christ.
Identifying yourself as a sinner results in the actions that people describe as sin. Unless you understand that at the cross there was a mutual exchange of equivalent value, that Christ became what we were that we might be made what He is in Himself, you will always struggle with the issue of sin and assume a mistaken identity.
Christ died for all but after His death, there is a reality that ensues. The term translated as “unto ” in the verse can be translated by the word “as”. Thus the verse would read: “…that they which live should not henceforth live as themselves”.
The cross and the resurrection resolved the identity issue. Adam’s original sin was about him missing the mark regarding his origin. He voluntarily refused to accept what God said about him. It is the same thing many of God’s sons are doing right now.
Adam decided to establish an identity independent from God, on the basis of his own works, to be like God apart from God. That is the definition of religion.
The very root of Paul’s anthropology is that man is created in the image of Another than himself. Thus man can only truly be man by identifying with Another than himself — that is, God.
For God to raise us to what is truly man, God Himself became man. In the resurrection of Christ, you can no longer live as “yourself” because we have all accumulated a list of aliases which we suppose as our identity. Once you accept Jesus, within the ramifications of accepting Him is the response of accepting yourself because He gave Himself for you. Accepting Christ without accepting yourself is in a sense rejecting what Christ did. You can’t live unto yourself.
“Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more”. 2 Corinthians 5:16
The cross of Christ, His resurrection, gives us the basis of the new knowledge of man, whereby we no longer analyse persons on the basis of our sense observations. This includes your perception of yourself. All were included in the death of Christ, represented in His resurrection. So, no matter what you may think of someone based on your observation through the senses, or by natural standards, that is not who they are. This is equally true concerning you.
There was a knowledge of Christ which was possessed, which came from the observation that the Twelve had of Him while He was on earth. Now, there is supposed to be a transition. Knowing Christ means you understand the exchange of equivalent value. He became what you were to make you what He is in Himself. This is what is known as union.