Identification - Chambers, Oswald
Identification is not experience able; it is infinitely more fundamental than experience. Identification is a revelation, the exposition of the experience. We must get out of the way of bringing everything to the bar of personal experience. Remember two things: first, experience is not its own cause; and second, there must be a standard revelation whereby to account for our experiences. The standard revelation with regard to identification is our lord Jesus Christ, and the phases of our experience must always be traced back to this revelation. Jesus Christ must always be infinitely greater than any experience of him.
Incarnation. The word made weak. God-man ( john 1:14)
Jesus Christ was not a being who became divine, he was the godhead incarnated; he emptied himself of his glory in becoming incarnate. Never separate the incarnation from the atonement. The incarnation was not meant to enable god to realise himself, but that man might realise god and gain readjustment to him. Jesus Christ became man for one purpose, that he might put away sin and bring the whole human race back into the oneness of identification. Jesus Christ is not an individual iota of a man; he is the whole of the human race centered before god in one person: he is god and man in one. Man is lifted up to god in Christ, and god is brought down to man in Christ. Jesus Christ nowhere said, he that hath seen man hath seen the father; but he did say that god was manifest in human flesh in his own person ( john 14:9) that he might become the generating center for the same manifestation in every human being, and the place of his travail pangs is the incarnation, Calvary, and the resurrection.
Identification. The son made sin. God and man (2 Corinthians 5:21)
What these verses express is beyond the possibility of human experience; they refer only to the experience Of our lord. The revelation is not that Jesus Christ was punished for our sins, but that, he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that by his identification with it and removal of it, we might be made the righteousness of god in him. God made his own son to be sin that he might make the sinner a saint. The bible reveals all through that Jesus Christ bore the sin of the world by identification, not by sympathy. He deliberately took upon himself and bore in his own person the whole massed sin of the human race, and by so doing he rehabilitated the human race, that is, put it back to where god designed it to be, and anyone can enter into union with god on the ground of what our lord did on the cross.
Invasion. The sinner made saint. God in man (Galatians 2:20)
Galatians 2:20 is the scriptural expression of identification with Jesus Christ in such a way that the whole life is changed. Paul says that his destiny is no longer self-realisation, but christidentity, i live; yet not i, but christ liveth in me. The revelation of identification means that we are one with god in his son, not by obedience, obedience is nothing more than the human approach to this mightiest of revelations. We enter into identification by the door of obedience and faith, but the oneness is a revelation. When we do touch god we lose all consciousness of being in conscious touch with him, we are so absorbed with his peace and power that language cannot convey the assurance of the oneness. The experience of sanctification is sim- ply the entrance into this relationship. The self-realisation of Jesus christian entrancing subject to every christian is our redemption; and the way in which we are to be identified experimentally with Jesus Christ is revealed in his self- realisation. Partakers of Christs sufferings; as he is, so are we in this world; . . . And fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ. The one absorbing passion of the life is for him. Oh, but i dont feel worthy. Of course you are not worthy! Not all your praying or obedience can ever make you worthy. Leave yourself absolutely in his hands, and see that you plunge yourself deep down in faith on the revelation that you are made one with god through the redemption of Jesus Christ.