The Faith of the Son of God

Faith 21

Galatians 2:20

 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.

 

        As a child of God, our position is one of freedom. One of the most precious and least emphasized doctrines is our identification with Christ. It frees us from having to fulfil the demands of sin in our lives. For he that is dead is freed from sin (Romans 6.7).

          The lost man cannot stop sinning no matter how much reformation, education, hypnosis, or psychology you throw at him. You can place him in a new environment, you can immerse him in the self-help movement, and you can enroll him in twelve steps of this, that, or the other and he will still sin. He cannot cease from sin (II Peter 2.14). Jeremiah rhetorically asked a question that already had an answer. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leapard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil (Jeremiah 13.23).

          The saved man, however, is in a different position altogether. Because of his identification with Christ’s death/burial/resurrection he does not have to sin anymore. He has been freed from the dominion or rule of sin in his life. Why do saved men still sin then? Because salvation does not eradicate the old nature. It crucifies the power of the old nature, but those desires remain in us. If we so choose, we can yield to those fleshly desires if we want to. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? (Romans 6.16) But the power that demands we live in sin has been broken by Christ.

          To greatly abbreviate my book, “Freed From Sin”, grace leads to justification, justification is married to sanctification, thus grace leads us to holiness and prevents us from continuing in sin. How? By breaking the stranglehold of sin’s power in our life. Is there any law that has authority over a dead man? Patently, no. 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 (Romans 6.6). “Destroyed” is not annihilated, for clearly our fleshly desires are still present, rather it means sin can no longer reign over us. “Henceforth” or because of this reason, we do not have to be sin’s slave.

          I repeat, our position is one of freedom. Being crucified with Him I am free of the power or dominion of my flesh. And being resurrected with Him I have the power to live right.

Romans 6.4-5 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:

          This new life – radically different than the old life – is not lived out by me in my own strength, however. It is lived out in me as I rely upon Christ. I depend upon Him and He lives out His life through my own. This is holiness. This is becoming like Christ. This is how it is done – in faith, depending upon Him to help me to do it; yielding myself to Him so that He may live through me. I refer you again to the text at the top of this post: 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. He lives His life through faith depending on His Father. I am supposed to live my life the same way that He did – in faith.

          The faith of the Son of God… What was it like? What was Jesus’ faith like? In a word, it was complete. It was entire. It was total. Consider Paul’s introduction in Galatians. Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father who raised him from the dead;). To proffer a somewhat controversial statement, nowhere in the Bible does it say that Jesus raised Himself from the dead. Again and again it says He was raised, a passive tense meaning the subject is being acted upon. Recently, one of our church members put a new flag on the flag pole in front of the church. The flag was raised. The flag did not do the raising; the man did the raising. The flag simply accepted.

       What does that have to do with the faith of the Son of God? Everything. It means Jesus went willingly into the valley of the shadow of death entirely depending on His Heavenly Father to raise Him up. That is the faith of the Son of God, a total/complete/entire/wholly/everything-on-the-line kind of faith.

          Do you want to succeed in the Christian life or just muddle through? Beloved, to thrive we must realize sin has no more power over us for we are crucified with Christ. We must yield ourselves to the Lord and let Jesus live His life through ours. In faith, we must depend upon God to help us just as Jesus depended upon God to help Him. With the same total/complete entire faith that Jesus had.

          We must live by the faith of the Son of God.