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Fragment: Association With Christ

From: Present Testimony: Volume 8, 1856

• 2 min. read • grade level: 6

Association with Christ-how blessed a subject! And who but God Himself has the ability to connect anything, or anybody, -with the Christ who is His Son. Hear however, what He says: "He that spared not His own Son, kit gave Him up for us all, how shall He not with, Him freely give us all things?" (Rom. 8:32³²He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32)).

1. Have you Christ? Then all things are yours (see also 1 Cor. 3:21-23²¹Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; ²²Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; ²³And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's. (1 Corinthians 3:21‑23)). But if you cannot say, Christ is mine, as I am, His," then can you not correctly say that anything is yours.

2. But " How came I to be His?" says the Christian. "He that stablishes us with you in the Anointed One, and hath anointed us is God" (2 Cor. 1:18-22¹⁸But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay. ¹⁹For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. ²⁰For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. ²¹Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; ²²Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. (2 Corinthians 1:18‑22)).

3. See now some of the results of this:-

1. By baptism we have confessed that we are dead together with Christ from all guilt, through His death (Rom. 6:8⁸Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: (Romans 6:8)).

Therefore, also,-

2. We have been quickened together with Him (Col. 3:13¹³Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. (Colossians 3:13)); that is, we have been made partakers of the life in which He rose from the grave [not had our old man set to rights and made orderly and soft, but a new nature communicated to us].

3. This death with Christ sets us entirely free from legality (Col. 2:20²⁰Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Colossians 2:20)), and is-

4. Connected with a Life which is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3³For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)). This leads-

5. To a life according to the Spirit (2 Cor. 13:4⁴For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you. (2 Corinthians 13:4)), and-

6. To a death, practically, as to the flesh with its affections and lusts (Col. 3:9⁹Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; (Colossians 3:9); Gal. 5:24²⁴And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. (Galatians 5:24)). Its natural instinct, as well as a fruit of its possessing us is that we know that-

7. To leave the body is to depart and be with, Christ (Phil. 1:23²³For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: (Philippians 1:23)), for, to us, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord: and

8. God gives us thus the hope, as a certainty of association with Christ in the glory (Col. 3:4⁴When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:4); comp. 1 Thess. 4:17¹⁷Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:17), and 5:10, and 2 Cor. 4:14¹⁴Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. (2 Corinthians 4:14)).

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Present Testimony: Volume 8, 1856

• Abraham and of Jacob*, Thoughts on the Experience of

• Acts of the Apostles, The

• Child of the Bridechamber, The

• Christian Position as to Life and the Spirit, The

• Corrections of the Translation of Some Passages in the New Testament

• Deliverance From Under the Law*

• Divine Names and Titles

• Enoch and Noah; or Israel and the Church

• Fold and the Flock, The

• Fragment: Association With Christ

• Fragment: Bearing the Name of Christ

• Fragment: Glory to God

• Fragment: Longing to Be Home

• Fragment: No Confidence in the Flesh

• Fragment: Service for the Lord

• Fragment: The Year of Jubilee

• Fragment: Waiting on God in Dependence

• Fragment: Wills vs. Judgments

• Hardening the Heart

• Heaven: Thy Dwelling-Place

• Honor That Cometh From God Only, The

• How to Know the Will of the Father

• Let There Be Light

• Living Grace of Christ, The

• Man of the Pharisees, A

• No Man Becomes a Child of God by an Act of His Own Will

• Revelations 21, 22