Jesus Christ: Jesus Was Not Alone
On a small hill near Jerusalem, a controversial teacher was killed on a cross. But he was not the only one killed in Jerusalem that spring day.
“I have been crucified with Christ,” the apostle Paul wrote (Galatians 2:19), but Paul wasn’t the only one there. “With Christ you died,” he told other Christians (Colossians 2:20). “We were buried with him,” he wrote in Romans 6:4. We were with him when he died, and when he was buried.
What’s going on here? Those people weren’t really on that hill near Jerusalem; they weren’t really in the tomb. What is Paul saying? He is trying to describe a spiritual reality by using language that normally refers to physical things. His point is that all Christians, whether they know it or not, share in the cross of Christ.
Were you there when they crucified the Lord? Yes, you were. We were with him, even though we didn’t know it. In modern language, we might say that we were represented by Jesus. His death was payment for our sins. It’s as if we were there.
But there is even better news. We are also represented — and share in — his resurrection! Paul also wrote, “He raised us up with him [Christ]” (Ephesians 2:6). “God made you alive together with him” (Colossians 2:13). “You have been raised with Christ” (Colossians 3:1).
Christ’s story is our story, if we have faith in the crucified Lord. Our lives are attached to his life, not only the glory of his resurrection, but also the pain and sorrow of his crucifixion.
Are we willing to be with Christ in his death, to accept his death as the death that we deserve? If so, we can be with him in his glory.
A new identity
Jesus did much more than die and rise. He had a life of righteousness, and we share in that life, too. His righteousness is shared with us; we are counted as righteous through faith in him. We are not perfect, but we are called to share in the abundant, new life of Christ.
Paul ties it all together when he writes, “We were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Buried with him, raised with him, and living with him.
What is this new life supposed to be like? Paul explains:
Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies, so that you obey their desires.… Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. (Romans 6:11-13)
When we agree to join our lives with Christ, he is in charge. Our lives are his. “One has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for the one who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). We live for him, as those who follow him and do what he says.
Just as Jesus was not alone, neither are we. If we identify with Christ, then our old identity is buried with him, and we rise to a new identity with him, and he lives with us. In our trials and in our successes, he is with us, because our lives belong to him. He carries the burden, and he gets the credit, and we get the joy of living with him.
Paul described it in these terms: “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:19-20).
Take up the cross, Jesus told his disciples, and follow me (Matthew 16:24). Identify with me. Accept that your life is connected with mine. Let the old way of life be crucified, and let the new life grow in your body. Let me live in you, and you will live forever with me.
Various ways to describe salvation
The New Testament uses several figures of speech to describe what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross. These are analogies, models or metaphors. Each gives part of the picture:
- Ransom: a price paid to achieve someone’s freedom. The emphasis falls on the idea of being freed, not the nature of the price.
- Redemption: “buying back,” or for a slave, buying freedom. Again, with salvation, no one is paid.
- Justification: being put right with God, as if declared by a court to be in the right.
- Salvation: deliverance or rescue from a dangerous situation. The word can also suggest restoration to wholeness, a healing.
- Reconciliation: the repair of a broken relationship. God reconciles us to him. He acts to restore a friendship, and we respond to him.
- Adoption: making us legal children of God. Faith brings about a change in our status, from outsider to family member. The phrase “born again” suggests a different way to enter the family.
- Forgiveness: This can be seen in two ways. In legal or financial terms, forgiveness is like the cancellation of a debt. In terms of personal relationship, forgiveness means the setting aside of personal hurt or injury.
- Sacrifice: Jesus’ death is also described as a sacrifice. This uses the imagery of Old Testament sacrifices.
- Isaiah 53:10 calls our Savior “an offering for sin.”
- John the Baptist calls Jesus “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).
- Paul calls him a “sacrifice of atonement,” a “pascal lamb…sacrificed,” a “fragrant offering and sacrifice” (Romans 3:25; 8:3; 1 Corinthians 5:7; Ephesians 5:2).
- Hebrews 10:12 calls him a “sacrifice for sins.”
- John calls him “the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 2:2; 4:10).
Different New Testament authors use different words to express the idea. What is important is that we are saved through the death of Jesus. Jesus died to set us free, to remove our sins, to suffer our punishment, to buy our salvation.
How should we respond? We respond in faith and loyalty to him, but our response also includes our relationship with other people: “Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).
Author: Joseph Tkach, edited by Michael Morrison in 2026
