The Cross, Part 17

It Is Finished

By Tammy Lacock

This week, Warren Litzman dives deep into Christ’s death on the Cross so we might understand exactly who we are now in Christ.

In His last words, “It is finished,” Christ testified that His death was the culmination of God’s plan of salvation for humanity. If not for His death on the Cross, we would not have new life. We would remain dead in this world, never to experience eternal life with Him.

By Christ’s death, Satan’s nature, which was passed down to us by the curse of Adam, can now be uprooted and exchanged with Christ’s nature, joined to our spirits making us one spirit in Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). We are brand-new creations, crucified at the Cross with Christ, and raised to a new life in Him in His resurrection. We are no longer defined by anything outside of us. Our identity is Christ, alive and well in each of us.

The Apostle Paul was the greatest psychologist of all time because not only did Christ reveal to him his new identity, but He revealed to him exactly how the believer in Christ can now live in freedom from sin.

Warren explains, through Paul’s epistles, that the reason we continue to make poor decisions as believers is because we don’t know who we are. Paul’s gospel of grace—that we are saved not by anything we do or don’t do, but by Christ’s perfect sacrifice on the Cross—reveals to us our new identity in Christ, and by Him we are made bona fide sons and daughters of God.

“To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col. 1:27)

“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Rom. 8:16-18)

We can be confident of eternity with Christ in heaven when we know Christ is already in us now. Once we start to get a grip on Christ as our new life, the Holy Spirit continues to renew our minds, bringing us into a closer unique relationship with the Christ in us, through our everyday circumstances and situations and especially through our adversities.

God’s plan of salvation is finished. By only believing in Christ as our Savior, we are redeemed, co-heirs with Christ to God’s kingdom. Yet the Apostle Paul tells us this is just the beginning of our new life in Christ. By cultivating a deep relationship with the Christ that lives in us now, through the renewal of our minds, we can begin to experience here and now the abundant, eternal life that Christ’s death promises.

“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)