Henry Blackaby

Director of Henry Blackaby Ministries and Special Consultant for the North American Mission Board

Excerpt from Henry Blackaby’s article “The Cross in the Christian Life” (Experiencing God Report, June 1997)

The cross is God’s decisive deed in history! It is in the cross that God dealt with sin, once for all, and completely! Not only did God deal with sin on the cross, but He also dealt with sin for us! “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

But a crucial truth concerning the cross is our identification with and participation in the cross. Paul insisted that we are crucified with Christ: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20), and “For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin” (Romans 6:6).

We are buried with Christ: “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” (Romans 6:3).

We are risen with Christ: “We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:4).

We reign with Christ: “For if, by the trespass of the one man (Adam), death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one Man, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17).

Our whole identity with Christ is found in the cross! There it was that God totally dealt with sin. And it is there that God intends that we would be so united with Christ in His death that we would forever hate sin, abhor sin, and forsake sin. In our intimate relationship with Christ in His crucifixion, God intends that we would see, as He does; feel the horrors of sin, as Christ does; and let God deal with sin in our lives, as God did in the crucifixion of His Son.

But that is not all! The cross created an opportunity for us to be buried with Christ. That is, we can experience in our lives all God did when He defeated – forever and totally – sin, death, and hell. That incredible power of God that dealt with sin, and defeated it, is the same power that is at work in us to radically defeat sin in us. “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 5:20-21).

But that is not all! We were united with Christ in His resurrection! “Having been buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead” (Colossians 2:12).

The same power that raised Jesus from the dead, defeating sin, is the same power given to us who believe. The victory accomplished through Christ’s death and resurrection is the very same victory we may experience daily in our lives!