Crucified with Christ and Romans 6

[KGP]

Gal 2:20 - I am crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

For a long time as a youngster this verse seemed to me to be a "mindset to put on". It was only as I came into reformed understanding of the Scriptures that I began to see it a bit differently, especially in light of Particular Atonement and Paul's copious use of the term "in Christ".

This is a fairly concise outline of where my views fit right now.

1. The elect were placed in Christ before the world began.

2.The elect fell in Adam, and sin reigned in them historically in their own lives for a time.

3. Sin can only end in death

4. Christ carried the elect, and the reign of sin in their life, to death in his person.

5. Therefore, the reign of sin must necessarily end for all those who died in Christ, and at God's appointed time, they will pass from death to life.


Now today I was considering Romans 6 and the need to be BAPTIZED INTO the death of Christ, and it brings up some questions for me.

Is that referring to the Holy Spirit's work on the elect person described by point 5?

Were the elect in Christ at the time of his crucifixion, so they were all crucified in him in a more literal sense?

When he talks about "we who died to sin" in 6:2, is he referring to the actual death of Christ, through which the reign of sin was ended in the life of the believer; or is he talking about an act of faith by the believer (wrought by God of course)?


Gal 2:20 implies a union with Christ and his crucifixion, and I guess I am wondering if that is referring to being in Christ at the time of his crucifixion (Christ carried all those who would be in him to the death that sin demanded of them, in his person) or being baptized into the work of his crucifixion. (The death of Christ is applied to the elect after the fact, which effectually brings and end to sin.) or perhaps in some other sense (crucified with Christ in the eternal scheme of things??)


Apologies if these questions seem a bit convoluted; I hope that you are able to decipher what is going on in my head here. Correct me wherever I seem off.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Rom.6:3 is speaking of our union with Christ. Our union with the Head is as wholistic a union as can take place, a thoroughgoing identification, encompassing life, death, and resurrection. This verse is clearly speaking directly of our identification with Christ in his sacrificial death--a death due unto us for our sins, a penalty which he was under no obligation to discharge, not even of his own being innocent of all sin.

It is the work of Holy Spirit to effect the believer's union with his Head, as he applies Christ's work of redemption unto every elect person. Existentially, this union takes place upon our regeneration and conversion. Similar to what is written in Gal.3:27, "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." When was Christ "put on?" When he was believed in. The identification-by-union (i.e. baptism into) should be viewed as coincidental with saving faith.

Our "in-Christ" identification with him in the temporal moments of his passion should be understood forensically, legally. The term "literally" is unhelpful, mainly because in certain obvious senses "literally" no one was nailed there to the wood with him. He was alone, and he had to be alone. His death was pro nobis, that is for us. It was particular, it was definite, it was intentional for the elect. He knew, he loved those for whom he died. You might say, we were with him on the cross in his heart.

I think 6:2 Paul is speaking of that time when we believed in Christ's death, when we understood: "In my place." When sin became hateful to us, and alien to us, we died to it. Christ died to the claims of sin (v10), actually and legally, but not for himself. When we understand what our sin did to him, our intimate connections to sin are severed. There's still a major clean-up operation to follow, as long as we remain in this flesh; but we are more and more occupied with starting a new life, in him.

Gal.2:20 and Rom.6:11 are very close in concept.