What does being 'Dead in Christ' mean to you?

[Abide with me.]

What does being 'Dead in Christ' mean to you?
I am exploring this idea, and I think it means handing over or sacrificing your worldly desires to God, so you can leave behind a sinful life and start a new one with God, it's a dying so that you can truly live.
Your thoughts?

What this meant to me personally was losing all hope that my worldly desires for marriage, children, security, work, friendships would ever be fulfilled by my efforts, which meant that I lost all attachment to the things of this life, if I had left it at that, I believe I would still be in that dark place, but I handed it all over to God and said, please take my life and do what you want with it, I can't do it on my own anymore.

I have been watching a lecture by Elizabeth Elliot, a Christian missionary, called 'Suffering is never for nothing' which seems to illustrate that God brought me by whatever means possible to doing the right thing at last, she illustrates also that a seed needs to die and be buried in order to be reborn, and bread needs to be broken in order to feed many, like Jesus was broken on the cross for us.

In Revelation doesn't it say that the dead in Christ will be taken first?

 

[Rescued One]

Romans 6:8-14
8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

 

[Sabertooth]

In Revelation doesn't it say that the dead in Christ will be taken first?

In that context, it means "Christians who have physically died."

Bible Gateway passage: 1 Corinthians 15:51-54, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 - New King James Version

 

[Friedrich Rubinstein]

[STAFF EDITED DELETED QUOTE]
Here is what the male pastor Oswald Chambers says about it:

…our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. — Romans 6:6

Co-Crucifixion. Have you made the following decision about sin—that it must be completely killed in you? It takes a long time to come to the point of making this complete and effective decision about sin. It is, however, the greatest moment in your life once you decide that sin must die in you– not simply be restrained, suppressed, or counteracted, but crucified— just as Jesus Christ died for the sin of the world. No one can bring anyone else to this decision. We may be mentally and spiritually convinced, but what we need to do is actually make the decision that Paul urged us to do in this passage.

Pull yourself up, take some time alone with God, and make this important decision, saying, “Lord, identify me with Your death until I know that sin is dead in me.” Make the moral decision that sin in you must be put to death.

This was not some divine future expectation on the part of Paul, but was a very radical and definite experience in his life. Are you prepared to let the Spirit of God search you until you know what the level and nature of sin is in your life— to see the very things that struggle against God’s Spirit in you? If so, will you then agree with God’s verdict on the nature of sin— that it should be identified with the death of Jesus? You cannot “reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin” (Romans 6:11) unless you have radically dealt with the issue of your will before God.

Have you entered into the glorious privilege of being crucified with Christ, until all that remains in your flesh and blood is His life? “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…” (Galatians 2:20).

If we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection… — Romans 6:5

Co-Resurrection. The proof that I have experienced crucifixion with Jesus is that I have a definite likeness to Him. The Spirit of Jesus entering me rearranges my personal life before God. The resurrection of Jesus has given Him the authority to give the life of God to me, and the experiences of my life must now be built on the foundation of His life. I can have the resurrection life of Jesus here and now, and it will exhibit itself through holiness.

The idea all through the apostle Paul’s writings is that after the decision to be identified with Jesus in His death has been made, the resurrection life of Jesus penetrates every bit of my human nature. It takes the omnipotence of God— His complete and effective divinity— to live the life of the Son of God in human flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot be accepted as a guest in merely one room of the house— He invades all of it. And once I decide that my “old man” (that is, my heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, the Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything. My part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals to me. Once I have made that important decision about sin, it is easy to “reckon” that I am actually “dead indeed to sin,” because I find the life of Jesus in me all the time (Romans 6:11). Just as there is only one kind of humanity, there is only one kind of holiness— the holiness of Jesus. And it is His holiness that has been given to me. God puts the holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new spiritual order.

- From My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers

 

[aiki]

What does being 'Dead in Christ' mean to you?

You are not "dead in Christ" in a spiritual sense. Instead, Paul the apostle wrote that a Christian believer is alive in him. (Romans 6:8). The apostle John wrote that Jesus was the Life and the Light (John 1:1-4; John 14:6) not death. Romans 6 explains best, I think, the whole business of a believer's co-crucifixion with Christ. That co-crucifixion leads to life, however, not death.

I am exploring this idea, and I think it means handing over or sacrificing your worldly desires to God, so you can leave behind a sinful life and start a new one with God, it's a dying so that you can truly live.
Your thoughts?

This is too you-centered. Every genuinely born-again Christian is already "dead unto sin but alive unto God through Christ Jesus." This condition is a work of God, however, not the product of a Christian's self-effort.

What this meant to me personally was losing all hope that my worldly desires for marriage, children, security, work, friendships would ever be fulfilled by my efforts, which meant that I lost all attachment to the things of this life, if I had left it at that, I believe I would still be in that dark place, but I handed it all over to God and said, please take my life and do what you want with it, I can't do it on my own anymore.

Amen! This is the place from which truly walking with God begins! Submission, yielding, surrendering to God is the key to fellowship with Him and a transformed life. (See: Romans 6:13; Romans 6:22; Romans 8:14; Romans 12:1; James 4:7-10; 1 Peter 5:6)

I have been watching a lecture by Elizabeth Elliot, a Christian missionary, called 'Suffering is never for nothing' which seems to illustrate that God brought me by whatever means possible to doing the right thing at last, she illustrates also that a seed needs to die and be buried in order to be reborn, and bread needs to be broken in order to feed many, like Jesus was broken on the cross for us.

This is the crucified life to which all disciples of Christ are called. (John 12:25-26; Matthew 10:37-38; Matthew 16:24-25) It's actually the normal Christian life. When's the last time you heard a sermon on the crucified life, though? I haven't heard one since I was a teenager nearly forty years ago. Sad. So many milk-fed believers today, living in affluence, complacency and spiritual compromise and failure.

Galatians 2:20
20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

 

[ViaCrucis]

The "dead in Christ" are literally those who have physically died as faithful believers in Jesus. The usual language elsewhere is "sleep" as sleep was a common ancient euphemism for bodily death. As the body "sleeps" in the ground, until it is awoken in the resurrection of the dead.

The dead in Christ are those who have already "fallen asleep", they have died bodily; and when the Lord Jesus returns, the dead shall be resurrected to renewed bodily life--resurrection. That even as Jesus rose from the dead, so shall all who belong to Him likewise rise from the dead, bodily, to that new and future glorious life when God renews all creation. A new heavens and a new earth.

Unfortunately we are living in a time of Church history where the very basic teaching of the resurrection of the body has not been properly taught to many Christians. Instead the popular narrative is that the Christian hope is to die, and for the soul to ascend upward into some place called "heaven" to spend eternity as a kind of ethereal ghost. Sitting on fluffy clouds, strumming harps, or walking around streets of gold with pearly gates and all that.

But that isn't what Scripture teaches, and it's not what the Christian religion has historically taught. "Going to heaven" isn't what we hope for. In a sense that's like going on a vacation, and thinking the destination is the airport lobby you are waiting at before takeoff. "Going to heaven" is what theologians often call the "intermediate state", what happens between death and resurrection. It's the waiting lobby; or if one wants another analogy, it's like the pre-game show. We are in the Lord's presence, and there is a foretaste of what awaits us, but it's not the big game, it's not the big show, it's not the final destination. The final destination is when Jesus returns and God brings conclusion to all of history, and brings healing and renewal to the whole of creation.

"But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

...

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." - Romans 8:9-11, 18-25

"But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself." - Philippians 3:20-21

"But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words." - 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17

"But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, 'all things are put in subjection,' it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all." - 1 Corinthians 15:20-28

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Abide with me.]

You are not "dead in Christ" in a spiritual sense. Instead, Paul the apostle wrote that a Christian believer is alive in him. (Romans 6:8). The apostle John wrote that Jesus was the Life and the Light (John 1:1-4; John 14:6) not death. Romans 6 explains best, I think, the whole business of a believer's co-crucifixion with Christ. That co-crucifixion leads to life, however, not death.



This is too you-centered. Every genuinely born-again Christian is already "dead unto sin but alive unto God through Christ Jesus." This condition is a work of God, however, not the product of a Christian's self-effort.



Amen! This is the place from which truly walking with God begins! Submission, yielding, surrendering to God is the key to fellowship with Him and a transformed life. (See: Romans 6:13; Romans 6:22; Romans 8:14; Romans 12:1; James 4:7-10; 1 Peter 5:6)



This is the crucified life to which all disciples of Christ are called. (John 12:25-26; Matthew 10:37-38; Matthew 16:24-25) It's actually the normal Christian life. When's the last time you heard a sermon on the crucified life, though? I haven't heard one since I was teenager nearly forty years ago. Sad. So many milk-fed believers today, living in affluence, complacency and spiritual compromise and failure.

Galatians 2:20
20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Thank you for your comprehensive reply and encouragement.

 

[1watchman]

'Dead in Christ' by Scripture speaks of those who are 'dead' to self and the world, and NOW alive spiritually in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of one's life now. It is the same as being "born again" (John 3:16). As Aika stated: 'alive now unto Christ'.