Saved by His Life

The following vital understanding is from Norman Grubb's book Yes, I Am:

". . . the death side of our relationship [with Christ] must not remain in the foreground. The cross is the gateway to 'the life,' which is the living Christ Himself. 'Take my life, and let it be a hidden cross revealing Thee,' wrote C. T. Studd. To find and be in a faith-relationship to the death of Christ is a total necessity, but is only the background to 'the life.' For 'the life' is meant to be in the foreground.

"My first emphasis has to be on knowing that I really died with Him, because of my years of false condemnation of myself while being apparently alive in the flesh. Even Jesus remained three days in the grave--so it may take us each a little time to realize that 'I am in that tomb with Him,' so far as my self being enslaved to sin and self-effort is concerned. But it is important to have it clear that when I say 'I am crucified with Christ' I do not mean that I as a self have died to being a self--which is an absurdity. Yet preachers often mistakenly use the phrase 'death to self.' I cannot die to self, for I am eternally a self! I only die in the sense that my self has changed masters. I have 'died' to having a job in a steel firm, if I’ve crossed over and joined a cotton firm. That is the sense in which I have died in Christ.

"There are also teachers who put such a strong emphasis on this death reality of the Romans 6 'death to sin' that they leave folks tossing about in a death-mindedness. It is necessary for a time, but then out we come from the tomb!

"So Paul continues, in his famous Galatians 2:20 statement, with '. . . nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,' and we continue in our faith affirmation along with him. We say categorically, and with no ifs or buts, 'I am crucified with Christ'--cut off, dead to sin, dead as the old self which was Satan’s dwelling place, dead to the world system in which I outwardly live. Dead, dead, dead, in His death. That I have to say before I can move on. But then I say, '. . . nevertheless I live'--meaning, of course, by His resurrection out from the tomb."