385. Justified From Sin

“For he who has died, has been justified from sin.” Rom. 6:7. [Norw.].

A person who is dead does not sin. He has been justified from sin. He is blameless according to the law because he is not a transgressor of the law. He neither lies nor steals. He is irreproachable according to all the commands of the law.

“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.” Rom. 6:8.

We must believe that we have died with Christ. When that is the case, sin has no power over us. For the death that Jesus died, He died to sin. If you believe that you are dead with Him, you will also live with Him who has been raised for our justification. Christ lives His life for God, and this life is ours—Christ, who is our life.

Here we see the one thing that is truly important in time and eternity—namely, a new creation, a creation that has been made alive by the last Adam, who became a life-giving Spirit. This life-giving Spirit is clothed with our earthly body. For this reason we must present our earthly body as a well-pleasing sacrifice to God. This is our spiritual worship. Sacrifices are required in this body—His earthly body. Jesus says, “In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. A body You have prepared for Me: Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.”

In the old covenant, an animal was slaughtered—it became a sacrifice, and when it was eaten, it became a food offering. Christ, our Passover, has also been slain for us. From God’s side, the matter is finished and the work complete. Now it remains for us to eat His flesh and drink His blood, which Jesus Himself says is food indeed and drink indeed. What does this mean from our side? It means that when we resist sin to bloodshed, we are walking in the light, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. The flesh that is food indeed is the flesh of a lamb that was sacrificed, a lamb from which sin has been driven out by a life lived according to God’s will, because Jesus Christ was manifested in the flesh to do the will of God. And so what was true for Jesus can also be true for us: My food is to do the will of My Father. This is where we get fellowship with Christ in His sufferings, and what is written becomes true: “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now if the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?” 1 Pet. 4:17-18.

This is what it means to walk on the new and living way through the veil, His flesh. This is the way of light, the way of judgment. On this way it is difficult for even the righteous to be saved from the power of indwelling sin. How then can the sinner and the ungodly, who have not even begun on the way, imagine that they can progress on this narrow way?

This is the way of death down here, in order that we might attain to righteousness on resurrection ground; for Christ has been raised for our justification. And if we died with Him to sin, we will live with Him in the resurrection. Then what is written becomes reality: “We who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” This is where the dimensions of the temple become evident—the temple for the new creation—which the angel was to measure with the gold reed. But not only was the height to be measured, but also the depth—how far we have gone down. That is why it says that the angel was to measure the altar and those who worship there with the gold reed. Rev. 11:1.

The many souls who have this mind belong to the bride, the city which came down from heaven. That is why it is written that the angel was to measure the city with the gold reed. “And he who talked with me had a gold reed to measure the city, its gates and its wall. The city is laid out as a square; its length is as great as its breadth. And he measured the city with the reed: twelve thousand furlongs. Its length, breadth, and height are equal.” Rev. 21:15-16.

This is the city that has solid foundations, whose builder and maker is God. This is what Abraham was looking forward to when he dwelt in tents in the Land of Promise as a foreigner and stranger. This is the city that the whole creation is looking forward to as it groans with pain, waiting for the redemption of the children of God, so that it, too, will be able to come to the glorious liberty of God.