Wanted Dead AND Alive!

Much of Christianity seems strange - full of oxymorons. An oxymoron is an apparently self-contradictory statement. They usually point out a poignant truth with wry humor. For example, efficient government, military intelligence, friendly fire and bitter sweet. And "he who will save his life must lose it."

The Bible explains that in our human state we are dead to God and alive to sin, and that He wants to reverse this condition. He wants us alive to Him and dead to sin. He wants us dead AND alive.

So how is this changed life to be achieved? It can’t - not by us. But Christ has done it for us. He both represents us before God and substitutes for us before God. When we trust in Jesus, His death substitutes for ours, and He gives us new life in Him. When we are "in Christ" we are both dead to sin in His death, and alive to God in His life.

The idea is oxymoronic. That is just what Jesus intended - instead of the human life of sin we are born into with its death to God, He came to institute a new eternal life with its death to sin. Yes, an old life AND death exchanged for a new life AND death! Oxymoronic!

The Bible firmly reminds us that all have sinned, and have fallen short of the glory of God. Sin - now there’s a word that has lost its currency. But it still pays wages - which the Bible says is death. There is no escaping what that means. But Jesus Christ loves us so much that He has already paid the cost for our sinfulness. That means we can accept His love for us and in Him start the new, clean life He has already prepared for us.

In their quieter moments people all know that there are things not right with their lives and not right with their attitude to others. Many go to their graves with those feelings. But the best way to go to your grave is to do so voluntarily - accept Christ in His death for you, and to be born again into new life AND death to the power of sin over you.

Through His own Son who became one of us for this very purpose, our loving God provides our escape from the prison of sin and its death sentence, which has taken hold of us all.

Yes, God wants us dead AND alive – dead to sin AND alive to Him.

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