Not merely sin, but sinners also condemned in Christ?

[KGP]

Some scriptures talk of Christ taking our sin and punishment vicariously; the punishment he experienced was on account of and in accord with real sins we commit. So it is for certain right to says that our sins were literally condemned in Christ. In this sense we stand at a distance so to speak while Christ receives our punishment.

I've been considering lately that it is not only sin condemned in Christ but in some sense we as sinners ourselves are condemned in Christ also; not merely our deeds but our persons. Not only was Kaleb Penners sins punished in Christ; but Kaleb Penner himself was condemned in Christ. "You have died..." -Col 3:3

I think (I hope?) many in the broad evangelical world would acknowledge that Jesus died for their sins; but I feel confident that what is very much lacking in the general teaching is that God also condemned believers in Christ; not just the believers sin. This would require them to admit not only that they commit sins but are themselves entirely worthy of condemnation; whereas prevalent teaching might acknowledge Christ as the sin bearer, but not that men are in themselves worthy of condemnation. The reality is that believers are not blessed or holy or spiritual or favored or anointed EXCEPT that they are united to Christ, and even then they had to be condemned in Christ before they could partake in his blessedness. General evangelical teaching would like to admit that we possess at least some of those descriptors by virtue of being created by God in his image. Or in some cases by virtue of being full of ourselves.

Do these thoughts make sense? Is it right to say that not only our sins were condemned but that we ourselves as believers were condemned in Christ?




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[MW]

Do these thoughts make sense? Is it right to say that not only our sins were condemned but that we ourselves as believers were condemned in Christ?

Within a forensic context it makes wonderful sense. We "reckon" ourselves to be dead to sin because God "reckons" us legally dead in Christ, and alive to God through Him. This is the application of justifying faith -- "what shall we say then?" But if we were to take it out of its forensic context it would become mystical and somewhat confusing to speak in this manner, and many false notions of sanctification arise because of this mystifying tendency. E.g., the Antinomian idea that God does not see real sin in the believer, or the perfectionist notion of believers having a perfectly regenerated nature existing side by side with a sinful fallen nature, are the result of applying the forensic language to the actual state of the believer.