How Many Were Crucified with Christ?

Today is Good Friday, the day that Christians around the world commemorate Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and death at Calvary over 2000 years ago.

I plan to pull out my DVD, The Passion of the Christ, and watch it once again in order to remember the horrific price my Savior paid so that I could enjoy eternal life in union with Him forever.

I would have answered “two” to this post’s title question up until the year 2003.

That is when God caused my view of the Christian life to go from that of rabbit-ear reception to high definition.

And just like I wouldn’t even consider the thought of going back to rabbit-ear viewing after several years with my  HDTV, I won’t give my old, rudimentary view of what happened at Calvary the time of day.

In the following excerpt from my Bible study, His Banner Over Me Is Pursuing Love, you will find the answer (which may surprise you) to my post’s title question:

We hear again and again of the believer’s forgiveness through the shed blood of Jesus, but how often do we hear that we become a brand-new person at salvation?

I must admit that we hear of our new identity in Christ more often now than we did while I was growing up.

But still, the meaning of our newness is vague and hardly ever elaborated.

In this section, we are going to look at the spiritual principles of substitution and identification in order to gain a greater understanding of what actually (not theoretically) happened to us when we believed in Christ.

In substitution, Christ died for us—as a substitute in our place—on the cross.

Let’s look at some scriptures that illustrate this truth.

•  “He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed” (Isa. 53:5).

• “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him” (Isa. 53:6).

• “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

• “The love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died” (2 Cor. 5:14).

• “God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him” (1 Thess. 5:9–10).

• “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed” (1 Pet. 2:24).

All of the above scriptures show that Christ—in His fleshly body—underwent a horrifying, excruciating death in our place, so that our physical bodies (where we live) wouldn’t have to be subjected to an actual crucifixion.

When we say that we identify with another person, we are saying that we share something in common with that person.

In identification, we (our spirit man—who we are) literally shared the entire experience of Christ’s crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and ascension with Him.

Our old self (our sin nature) died with Him on the cross and was buried with Him (burial shows the finality of death).

Then, we were born again in His resurrection (a pure, righteous, and holy nature) and are now seated with Him in heaven.

Let’s look at some scriptures that illustrate this truth.

• “Our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin for he who has died is freed from sin” (Rom. 6:6–7).

• “The love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died” (2 Cor. 5:14).

• “I have been crucified with Christ; 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 for me” (Gal. 2:20 NKJV).

• “God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:4–6).

• “He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach” (Col. 1:22).

• “Having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions” (Col. 2:12–13).

• “If you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Col. 3:1–4).

• “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3).

• “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed” (1 Pet. 2:24).

Please notice that 2 Corinthians 5:14 and 1 Peter 2:24 illustrate both principles of substitution and identification.

Although the spiritual principle of identification is rarely taught, the abundance of scriptures provided in support of it cannot be denied.

If I would have experienced the revelation as a nine-year-old “newbie” in Christ that not only did He die for me, but the bad me died with Him and the good me was born again in His resurrection, I believe my life would have gone down an entirely different path.

If we fully understood the truth of our complete forgiveness and identification with Christ in His crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and ascension, Easter (Resurrection Sunday) would mean much, much more to us.

It wasn’t just two people who were crucified with Christ that day at Calvary; every believer in Christ was crucified with Him.

And three days later, when He was resurrected from the tomb, everyone who died with Him was reborn in His resurrection.

This post is an excerpt from my first book—my six-week study on the first two chapters of the Song of Songs, His Banner over Me Is Pursuing Love.

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To learn more about what it means to be crucified and resurrected with Christ, I invite you to check out my books and my video series based on my first devotional.