Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4).

 

If Christianity were all about salvation from sin, there wouldn’t have been the need for Jesus to rise from the dead. His death on the Cross would have been enough; it paid for all our sins and guaranteed complete propitiation. However, that’s redemption, and not Christianity!

 

Redemption refers to saving someone by paying a price. When Jesus died, He paid the price for man’s redemption with His own life; He did that for all humanity; not for Christians. The Christian isn’t the man that Christ died for. Look at it this way: when Jesus hung on the Cross, in the mind of God, we were all hanging there too (in Him), for He was our representative. When He cried out, “It is finished,” and gave up the ghost, we also died in Him.

 

Now, here’s the big thing, which Satan didn’t see coming and the angels still marvel at and seek to look into: Christianity is based on the resurrection of Jesus, and not on His death. The resurrection of Jesus Christ gave us something far beyond redemption; it ushered us into a newness of life. We’ve been raised up together with Christ (Ephesians 2:6).

 

Romans 10:9 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” It lets us know that salvation comes by believing in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the subsequent confession of His Lordship. A Christian is one who identifies with the resurrected Christ. The Christian has no past, for the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature...”; meaning that he is a new species, one that never existed before.

 

No wonder James declares that “Of his (God’s) own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures” (James 1:18). Being born again, therefore, you’re not the “redeemed”; you’re the fruit of the redemptive work of Christ. Redemption was consummated with His death, but Christianity came from the resurrection. Hallelujah!