We've never really understood the full scale of what actually happened when our Lord was raised from the dead. Everything Jesus did was for us. Our Father gave up His only Son so that we could become His very Own family. Because we're His family, we must be in His very Image and Likeness. Some people still miss what we say when we say that we're like God. To the unrenewed mind, like we're being boastful or even blasphemous to declare such a thing. Even if we say that we're like Jesus, people get very funny in their thinking.
Jesus didn't think it was boastful to say that He and the Father are One. We read in God's Word that we've all been made into the Image and Likeness of Jesus. According to the Word, we have become joint heirs with Christ Jesus and heirs of God. This isn't for when we get to heaven, but for now. Now, we are sons of God. We've been mostly afraid to take our place in the family of God because we're afraid of offending Him.
Jesus didn't just have authority over the devil when He was raised from the dead. He always had authority over him. We were given authority over him when Jesus was raised from the dead. Jesus didn't need to wait until His resurrection in order to put sickness and disease under His feet. He always had Divine health when He was here on earth. This was for us to be able to walk in at His resurrection. He didn't have to die and be raised in order to be sinless. He always was sinless. This was so you and I could be as sinless as He is.
Somehow, we've put off most of what Jesus did for us for until the resurrection. What we've failed to understand is that we were raised together with Jesus when He was resurrected. I certainly don't mean our natural body. I know that my natural body will still have to be resurrected, but in God's mind and plan, we're already been given eternal life when we were born again.
1John 4:17 (Amplified) tells us that, "In this (union and communion with Him) Love is brought to completion and attains perfection with us, that we may have confidence for the day of Judgement (with assurance and boldness to face Him) because as He is, so are we in this world."
According to this scripture, we're just like Him as He is now. Ephesians 2:6 (Amplified) says, "And He raised us up together with Him, and made us sit down together (giving us joint seating with Him) in the heavenly sphere (by virtue of our being) in Christ Jesus (the Messiah, the Anointed One)." You might say, concerning this scripture, "Yes, but this is only in the heavenly sphere." Didn't Jesus use His power from the heavenly sphere to walk out His earthly walk? How else could we ever hope to walk out what we're called to be without the power from on high?
When Jesus walked as a man on earth, He was the example of how God's Sons were to walk here. We watched as His Apostles walked in this power and raised the dead, healed the sick, took authority over demonic spirits and dealt with things on this earth. Were they any more sons of God than we are now? The same Holy Spirit they walked with is the same Holy Spirit Who is with us now and in us now. He is the same Holy Spirit Who empowered Jesus at the Jordan River when He started His ministry.
Paul made a very strange statement for us to comprehend in Philippians 3:10-11 (Amplified) where he said, "(For my determined purpose is) that I may know Him (that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His person more strongly and more clearly) and that I may in that same way come to know the power out flowing from His resurrection (which it exerts over believers) and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed (in spirit into His likeness even) to His death (in the hope) that if possible I may attain to the (spiritual and moral) resurrection (that lifts me) out from among the dead (even while in the body)."
Most of us gleaned from this scripture that we may "share in His sufferings." These sufferings weren't the sufferings that Jesus bore on the cross. The sufferings on the cross cannot be shared in. These sufferings were so that you and I could both be free from those things. We can't share Jesus' sufferings on the cross because that's where He bore our sins. We couldn't have done that because He is the Only One Who is sinless. We couldn't have bore the curse of the Law. Only Jesus could have done that.
The sufferings Paul spoke about were the things Jesus suffered as a man. Paul would need Jesus' help bearing up under the scorn and hatred of the people, withstanding the attacks of satan when he stirred up the people and enduring the hardships to preach what he was called to preach. Even Peter and the other Apostles didn't understand him.
In order to "finish the course and complete the race," Paul went through things that few of us would even dare undertake. To be conformed to Jesus' sufferings, didn't mean the sufferings on the cross. Only Jesus could endure that suffering and He did that (not for us to endure) so we wouldn't have to. Jesus died in our place so that we would never have to endure the penalty for our sins and trespasses. We can't do that.
Paul wanted to know and experience the power that Jesus' resurrection has now exerted over His believers. What power is that? The power we now have with Him in His seat beside the Father. When Jesus was raised, you and I were raised with Him in that power. When Jesus was given all power in His Name, you and I were given the power of attorney to use that Name in all its power. When Jesus was declared righteous, you and I were declared righteous. When He was justified, you and I were justified in His resurrection. When Jesus was raised, we were raised together with Him and in Him. When the Father gave Jesus authority in heaven and earth, you and I (in Him), were granted the authority too.
We've used very little of the legacy granted to us by grace in Jesus. Mostly, as Christians, we haven't dared believe that this grace and love have delivered us to this place with God. We keep forgetting that it was our Father Who did this in order to bring us back to His side like in the beginning. We had nothing to do with it. It was all His Own doing. He could have withheld part of our trespass if He wanted to. He could have left some of His wrath towards us if He chose too, but He didn't.
Until we understand that it was more that our sins Jesus bore, we will not enter into the "rest." We keep trying to be that which Jesus has already made us.
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