Can You Identify with Christ today

Galatians 2: 20

Identity- Where ever you go, take a flight, show ID, some over the counter medication-show ID, some purchases you make-show ID, enter school- show ID- people and organizations want to know who you are. On a higher holier level the world wants to know who you are> can you identify with Christ or the god of this world. When one joins Jesus, everywhere you go you need to show ID. The Apostle Paul said it to the church at Galathia, I am crucified with Christ, but I still alive, but the mystery in it is that it;s not me but it is Christ who lives in me. The life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith of the son of God, who love me and gave himself for me.

The Gospel in a capsule is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus christ.

Christians understand their connection to Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection through a two-directional identification. Jesus first identified with humanity by becoming human and taking the sinner’s place1, but salvation requires believers to reciprocate by identifying themselves with Him—first in death, then in resurrection1.

The primary means through which this identification occurs is baptism1. Immersion in water symbolizes dying and being buried with Christ, while emerging from the water pictures His resurrection2. While identification with Christ’s death is inward, identification with His burial is outward—a visible declaration before the world3. By faith, believers are spiritually placed into Christ and united with Him, and water baptism graphically witnesses to and pictures this spiritual reality4.

Dietrich Bonhoffer, this Lutheren Pastor who stood against the natzi regime; said when God calls you he bids you come and die.

Matthew 16:24 “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”

In Covenant with Christ: It is a walk into death to self. that is what Pauls is talking about here.

This identification unfolds progressively. When believers are baptized, they are identified with Jesus in His burial, and being identified with Him in burial, they then experience every subsequent event with Him1. Ephesians 2 describes this progression: believers are made alive together with Christ, raised up or resurrected with Him, and seated together with Him in heavenly places1. This identification with Christ’s resurrection not only initiates new spiritual life in the present but also guarantees future physical resurrection4.

The significance extends beyond symbolism. Christians’ burial with Christ demonstrates that they have died to their former sinful ways4, while the newness of life believers experience mirrors Christ’s resurrection—not mere resuscitation but a life with fresh, transformed quality4. This foundational work of identifying believers with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection separates them from sin’s power and establishes the basis for the Holy Spirit’s ongoing sanctifying work4.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

Then in John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Hypostatic union (from the Greek: ὑπόστασις hypóstasis, 'person, subsistence') is a technical term in Christian theology employed in mainstream Christology to describe the union of Christ's human nature and divine nature in one composed hypostasis, or individual personhood.[1]

In the most basic terms, the concept of hypostatic union states that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man. He is simultaneously perfectly divine and perfectly human, having two complete and distinct natures at once.

The Athanasian Creed recognized this doctrine and affirmed its importance by stating:

He is God from the essence of the Father, begotten before time; and he is human from the essence of his mother, born in time; completely God, completely human, with a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father as regards divinity, less than the Father as regards humanity. Although he is God and human, yet Christ is not two, but one. He is one, however, not by his divinity being turned into flesh, but by God's taking humanity to himself. He is one, certainly not by the blending of his essence, but by the unity of his person. For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh, so too the one Christ is both God and human.

Closing: can you identify with him this morning?

His death- have you died?

Burial- have you been in the grave and left self there?

His resurrection- are you walking in a new life