Total Love, Total Identification

In yesterday's post, I shared just a fraction of what I'm discovering about the amazing grace of God. Today I want to take this one stage further and explore one particular aspect of that grace - an aspect which has great bearing on my own personal walk with the Lord right now.

In 1 John 3:1, John describes God's mercy and grace as a "lavishing" of God's love upon us:

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!..."

The Amplified Bible brings out 1 John 3:1 in this way:

"See what [an incredible] quality of love the Father has given (shown, bestowed on) us, that we should [be permitted to] be named and called and counted the children of God! And so we are!..."

This "lavishing" of love, however, is not just a past-tense event, but an on-going experience, for Romans 5:5 tell us:

"And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

God's love is not an abstract feeling or a distant affirmation, but rather an active intervention in the here-and-now - the result of the "ever-present God" pro-actively participating in our lives. And it was in the sending of Jesus (historically) and is in our connection with Jesus (presently) that this love has an ever-present expression in our lives. After all, Jesus himself said in John 15:13:

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

In a similar vein, Romans 5:8 explains the practical nature of God's love:

"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

And so it is in the death and resurrection of Christ - the work of the Cross itself - that we see both the love of God and the grace of God in full force. On the Cross, Jesus' total love resulted in total identification with my humanity. As Isaiah 53:4-5 explains:

"Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed."

The Message renders Isaiah 53:4-5 in this way:

"But the fact is, it was our pains he carried -
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him - our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed."

In the New Testament, Matthew 8:17 specifically applies this to the healing ministry of Jesus, even before the Cross itself:

"This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: 'He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases.'"

Peter takes this up further in 1 Peter 2:24, applying this prophecy to the Cross itself:

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed."

This fact is so significant that it alters forever the way that I not only view my relationship with the Lord, but also the healing I seek from him. As The Amplified Bible puts it:

"He personally bore our sins in His [own] body on the tree [as on an altar and offered Himself on it], that we might die (cease to exist) to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed."

The whole purpose of the Cross was a total identification with my condition in such a way that Jesus not only should die for me, but that I should "die (cease to exist) to sin and live to righteousness"! In the same way, this same verse indicates that the purpose of the Cross is also that I should "die (cease to exist) to [sickness] and "live to [health]." As The Message puts Isaiah 53:4, God wasn't just interested in solving my sin problem, but resolving all my "disfigurements, all the things wrong with [me]."

This is a profound and life-changing understanding of the atonement of the Cross. Time and again, the Cross is described in terms of a total exchange of one type of life for another (2 Corinthians 5:17). Not only did Jesus die for me (he identified with me, through sacrifice, 100% on the Cross), but I also died in him (I now identify with him, by faith, 100% on the Cross). Just take a look at these verses:

• Romans 6:6 - "For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin..."

• Galatians 3:13 - "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.'"

• Galatians 6:14 - "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."

• Galatians 2:20 - "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

In these passages of Scripture, we discover that on the Cross, Jesus became for me:

1. Sin


2. Sickness


3. My old self


4. The curse

No wonder Paul, when writing to the Corinthians regarding the numerous problems that needed to be resolved, declared in 1 Corinthians 2:2:

"For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified."

The Cross is God's sole solution to the predicament of human life, and Paul knew that if he deviated even slightly from the message of the Cross, this would result in "the cross of Christ be[ing] emptied of its power" (1 Corinthians 1:17). In the same way, I must take the same approach in my life. It is all about the Cross of Christ. It is all about, not just the sacrifice of Jesus itself, but the total identification that this sacrifice means for me. My sin is resolved on the Cross, as is my old self. Not only that, but also my sickness and the very curse itself (note all the curses of Deuterononomy 28:15-68, particularly verses 60-61).

That's the amazing thing for me about God's grace. Jesus actually took on himself my sickness. He actually became the very curse of my sickness itself. On the Cross, cancer was crucified in Christ. He became that dreaded illness and so God dealt a death blow, not just to the cause of the illness, but to the very illness itself.

This profoundly changes the way I now approach healing. I'm no longer in a position where I'm simply asking God to act on my behalf; I'm now extending faith to an established fact - the fact that God has already established my healing for me through the death of Jesus upon the Cross. This is one of the blessings I have already been blessed with "in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3). This is part of the "everything" that I have already been given "for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness" (2 Peter 1:3).

Total grace, total love, total identification. This is the starting point of my life. But now my faith kicks in, not just to appropriate this established fact for myself, but to complete the loop. I'm now called to love the one who loved me. I'm now called to identify 100% with Jesus, just as he identified 100% with me. And so today, this dual identification defines my day.

Lord, like Paul, my desire is to "know [Christ] and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings..." (Philippians 3:10). I want to experience "the fullness of his grace" (John 1:16) today.