Originally posted by generalissimo
Jesus already died for our sins, why do we have to be crucified as well?
one man (the son of God! for Christ's sake!) being tortured is not enough?, do we all have to have miserable lives as well?
The Christians did to apply the Holy Spirit to
"put to death the practices of the body" as Paul wrote.
This is putting to death habits of the fallen old man based on the fact that Christ's death on His cross is available to us to apply in our lives.
Many things cannot be healed. They must be terminated. They cannot be reformed. They can only be put to death and replaced with the new nature.
To bear the cross in the Christian life is not to suffer. It means to put to death the old habits by applying the Spirit of Jesus to our life.
You may think of it this way - as a drink of rich orange juice contains many nutrients and vitamins for our health, so also the Holy Spirit.
The ingredients of the Holy Spirit consist also of the death of Christ. When we take into us the Holy Spirit and apply Him to various areas of our life, His death on the cross "kills off" many nagative things within us.
In the growth of bones there is anabalism and catabalism. Catabalism breaks down. Anabalism replaces and builds up. The Christian life is a process of the death of Jesus putting to death various bad characteristics of the sinful life. And it is the Holy Spirit recreating and building up the new nature of rughteousness.
There is the constant process of inward death and resurrection. So on the death side, the Christian believers is taught to apply the cross of Jesus to the old nature. This is a matter of faith.
This is a matter of having faith that we have been crucified with Christ. We apply the cross which is in the Holy Spirit because we see the vision that we, like Paul, have also been crucified with Christ.