Friday 31 August 2018

The centrality of the Cross (the terminal point for sin and taking point of a new life)


       Colossian 2:11
Col 2:11 In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ,..”  How did I find myself in Him? When was I circumcised in Him? How did this take place?

Circumcision is the cutting off of the male human foreskin. Medical science has shown that a child who is not circumcised is more susceptible to infections than the one circumcised. I remember in the village our mothers would talk of mbororo disease. In fact they meant venereal diseases which were rampant to mbororo people because their males are never circumcised. Medical science has proven that to be true. So physically, circumcision protects the child. The parallel in the spiritual realm is that we were circumcised in Christ and our protection is in Christ.
Isaiah 53:6 makes us know that our iniquity (singular) was laid on Christ. We became in union with Christ at the cross. That is where we find our union with Christ. We were all sinners and the wages of sin is death and nothing else. But God laid on Christ the iniquity of us all. Here the Bible is talking of iniquity not iniquities. Iniquities would mean sins, but iniquity (singular) here would mean the sinful nature. That producer of sin. God wanted to handle the problem from the root, destroying the base that it may be permanent. When Jesus Christ drank the cup at Gethsemane to take our sin to the cross, we were united in Him, he took everything to the cross. Col 2:11 makes us know that the sinful nature was put off when we were circumcised by Christ. It is not circumcision made by human hands.
How did He circumcise us? By immersion into Baptism. Verse 12 makes us know that it is in the burial through Baptism in Christ and the resurrection with Him through our faith in the working of God, who raised Jesus from the dead. Baptism in itself is an obedient response to the grace of God but salvation takes place in the spiritual realm where God washes away our sins in the cleansing blood of Jesus (Acts 22:16). There is no magic in the waters of baptism. No one merits salvation, but by God’s grace He pronounces one cleansed of sins bringing us into a covenant relationship with God.
Galatians 5:24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” So in Christ we have crucified the sinful nature. So the flesh (that sinful nature) was taken away with its desires on the cross.
Do you understand what I mean?
·       That Hereditary curses were crucified at the cross?
·         Hereditary diseases were crucified at the cross (diabetes, cancer etc)
·         Inherited sin (idol worship, fornication etc) are crucified at the cross. Have you ever heard that people worship idols because they inherited from their parents? Have you ever heard that someone has the blood of fornication? That their family is a line of fornicators? Is it strange to hear me say they are inherited? No!
Only if you would come to the cross. The cross is the terminal point for the flesh (sinful nature). The cross is therefore a taking point of a new life in Christ Jesus. Why do you keep on casting and binding, losing ancestral chains when God tells you that he dealt with them long ago at the cross?  The Devil’s strategy is to keep you in doubt so that you do not apprehend the centrality of the cross and be freed.
1 Corinthians 15:45,49 makes us know that the first Adam became a living being and the last Adam , a life-giving spirit. We inherit life from Christ just as we inherited from Adam the sinful nature. Inherited sickness is gone and life inherited from Christ. Are you still afraid? Some Christians still say my sickness, my trouble , my my my... Christ dealt with it long ago. You have to believe and receive it. Remember, you must be in Christ.
Read: The centrality of the cross (the place where the sinner is crucified)
Shalom!






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