Know Your Rights in Christ

What are our rights in Christ?  I think most of the time we think of things like love, joy, peace, etc., but the Bible says that these things are fruit, not a right.  (Galatians 5:22-23)

2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.  The old has gone, the new is here.”  (NIV)  The NKJV says that if anyone is in Christ, then he is a new creation and old things have passed away, all things have become new.  Passed away, what does this imply?  Well, when my grandmother was deceased, we said she “passed away.”  Using the term passed away didn’t make her any less deceased, but softened the finality of her death.  In this way, being new in Christ, the finality should be expressed.  We are dead to the world and have been made new in Christ.  We are a new creation.  All the sins of our past are buried with Christ in the tomb.  But, Christ did not stay buried.  He was resurrected and so this new creation is resurrected with Him, when we accept Him in to our hearts, to be the Lord of our life.  

Many people have a revelation of the burial.  They were aware that the old has passed away, but they don’t have a revelation of the resurrection.  When Jesus was on earth, he traveled, healed the sick, preached the Gospel.  Once He was resurrected, he did a NEW THING, he ascended to Heaven, and so a promise could be fulfilled.  He didn’t try and stay and do the SAME THING he had been doing.  Jesus realized that the old had passed away, it was dead.  He was alive and new.  He must do new things.  Once we are resurrected, we must as believers also do new things.  We shift our focus to the new things in Christ. 

 

But, what if we continue to live a life focused on the old things?  What if our thoughts are dominated by our past?  Many of us have a revelation of the Cross, but haven’t the revelation of the resurrection.  We focus on the things that are supposed to be DEAD! 

In John 11 the story of Lazarus is told.  Lazarus had fallen ill and died.  Martha and Mary sent word to Jesus that their brother was ill, but by the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus was dead and had been laid in a tomb four days.  John 11:41 says that Jesus lifted his eyes to Heaven and thanked the Father for hearing Him.  He then called for Lazarus to come forth.  John 11:44 And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth.

Today, if Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he would be wearing his Sunday best suit.  He would come back looking ready for church, but in Jesus’ time bodies were wrapped in cloth or shrouds.  Therefore, when Lazarus emerged from the tomb, he was bound in cloth.  Jesus instructed the disciples to go and LOOSE him and let him go!  

The graveclothes are a symbol of death.  Lazarus emerged from the tomb wrapped in death.  He was wrapped in the past.  He was no longer dead, but needed help loosing himself from the bondage of death.  Jesus did not run to him and strip away the graveclothes, but sent his disciples to do it for Him.  Jesus knew that as a new creation, Lazarus could not walk around in death.  How many times do we do this once we have been resurrected in Christ?  We are a new creation, but still walk around BOUND by the death that Christ has set us free from?  Just as Jesus sent the disciples to loose Lazarus from his graveclothes, so do our mentors, teachers, pastors, spiritual authorities help us loose the bondage of living in the past from our lives.  If we are truly a new creation, then we must produce something new.  We cannot produce anything new wrapped in a shroud of death (the past).  In Christ we are buried, and then we are resurrected to a new life.  New life, new focus. 

 

We should value the Cross, the death, but we must also value the Resurrection.  This is the new life that we have in Christ.  Old things have passed away, what are you doing that’s new? What spiritual authority is helping you pull off those graveclothes?

This is our right in Christ.