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Determining Your Future

In his second letter to Timothy, Paul wrote: “Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him.” [2Timothy 2:11] This simple statement implies a contrast, but we’ll look at it at face value to begin.

Here, Paul is talking about our willingness to identify ourselves with the Lord Jesus in His death and accept it as our own. The first phrase of the proposition “if we died with Him” reminds us that Jesus died for our sin and that we have a choice in identifying with Him in that. Some, because they deny their sin or because they feel that they can make themselves acceptable to God without it, chose to refuse identification with Jesus in His death on the cross.

Through the work of the Holy Spirit, others recognize their personal helplessness to approach God because of their sin. They gladly accept His role as their substitute and accept His death as their own. This is crucial because sin condemns us to separation from God. When Jesus died on the cross, He suffered this unimaginable condition of being separated from the source of life. Physical death - the separation of our non-material aspect from our body - hints at spiritual death, but is not the same. Outside of the Christians who are alive when the Lord Jesus returns, all humans suffer physical death. Spiritual death, the final separation of the spirit from God still lies in the future. This is beyond our imagination and the Bible uses graphic word pictures to emphasize the unutterable unalterable horror of this condition.

However, Paul is speaking to Christians. To those who have already identified with the Lord Jesus to the point of making His death their own. He writes that, for them, they also participate in His resurrection - they live with Him. In the present, this spiritual life is introduced through the presence and influence of the Holy Spirit. In the future, when we escape the confines of our corruptible physical bodies, we will experience life in a way which defies our ability to imagine - “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” [1Co 2:9]

The options, then, are straightforward (and here’s where the contrast is highlighted). Those who choose to die with Christ will surely live with Him. Those who choose to die for their own sin will not live with Him. To live with Christ brushes the remainder of our physical life with the promise of eternal spiritual life. The alternative is to experience complete and eternal separation from the God who made us for relationship with Himself. God leaves us with the decision of dying and living with Christ, or dying on our own indefinitely. The choice we make in life for ourselves will be honoured by God for eternity.

When it comes to determining your future, there’s a world of difference between your prospects if God sees your death as already completed by His Son and those if you chose to face God on your own.

Ron Hughes
© June 2008