What Would Jesus Do?
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2: 20).
The church, the Body and Bride of Christ, is universal and its membership is made up of every skin color, nationality, tongue, and language, who through faith in Jesus Christ alone have been redeemed, born-again, regenerated, saved by His marvelous grace (Rev. 5: 9, 10). Only the redeemed, the regenerate, the born-again, the saved are true members of the Bride, the Body of Christ, while lost men and women may be members of a local church assembly. Only true believers will leave this world at the Rapture while all the make-believers will be left behind.
The work and function of the church are spiritual. The church must therefore be a spiritual body made up of regenerate people, those who are spiritually alive in Christ and are no longer dead in their trespasses and sin (Eph.2: 1-10). Only those who are animated by the life of Christ are actual members of the Body of Christ (Rom. 12: 4, 5; 1 Cor. 12: 12ff).
The church is peculiar because the Christian is holy in an unholy world. When the sinner gets saved, they are to die to the world, make null and void all allegiance to the world and make clear their new identity with Christ.
When a sinner gets saved, they become a new creature in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 5: 17), and get a new identity. They receive a new life which is both quantitative, eternal, and qualitative, holy. By new life we mean a new heart, a new force or principle of spiritual life, which is the Christ-life.
When the Apostle Paul got saved, he turned his back on his previous identity and all the things that defined him, and made him popular and prosperous with his former crowd, and counted those things as “dung,” and identified himself with Jesus Christ (Phil. 3), and the people of God, whom he before persecuted. Paul forgot those things from his past, his old identity, and sought publicly to identify with Christ alone (Phil. 3: 13).
Christianity has fallen on hard times as the Christian now is being coerced to use their new identity with Christ to promote their old identity which they should abhor. The Christian is told, often for political reasons, to remember his roots and to put his old identity before his new identity. To do so is to put our hope in our race rather than in Jesus Christ.
The reason Christians in other countries are being persecuted is because they are peculiar and living godly and are therefore publicly giving up their former identity and identifying themselves with Christ alone.
When the Christian faces any situation, they should not ask, What would my race do in this situation? But instead what would Jesus do? It is only by doing what Jesus would do, regardless of our race, that we lift up the Name that is above every name and put the character of Jesus into our world.
It’s easy to identify with things we can see. It’s often difficult to identify with Christ because its by faith and through obedience to His Word.
James H. Cagle
