Tuesday, October 4

Dead, risen, and alive forevermore in Him

The knowledge of Christ’s death for us as our sin-bearing substitute requires us to see ourselves as dead, risen, and alive forevermore in him. We who believe have died — painlessly and invisibly, we might say — in solidarity with him because he died, painfully and publicly, in substitution for us. His death for us brought remission of sins committed ‘in’ Adam, so that ‘in’ him we might enjoy God’s acceptance; our death ‘in’ him brings release from the existence we knew ‘in’ Adam, so that ‘in’ him we are raised to new life and become new creatures (cf. Rom. 5–6; 2 Cor. 5:17, 21; Col. 2:6–3:4).

— J. I. Packer and Mark Dever
In My Place Condemned He Stood
(Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2007), 86