need die; He died for sin and for me.  But what gave His death such power to atone?  It was this:  the spirit in which He died, not the physical suffering, not the external act of death, but the spirit in which He died.  And what was that spirit?  He died unto sin.  Sin had tempted Him, and surrounded Him, and had brought Him very nigh to saying, “I cannot die.”  In Gethsemane He cried:  “Father, is it not possible that the cup pass from me?” But God be praised, He gave up His life rather than yield to sin.  He died to sin, and in dying He conquered.  And now, I can not die for sin like Christ, but I can and I must die to sin like Christ.  Christ died for me.  In that He stands alone.  Christ died to sin, and in that I have fellowship with Him.  I have been crucified, I am dead.

And here is the great subject to which I want to lead you.—­What it is to be dead with Christ, and how it is that I can practically enter into this death with Christ.  We know that the great characteristic of Christ is His death.  From eternity He came with the commandment of the Father that He should lay down His life on earth.  He gave Himself up to it, and He set His face towards Jerusalem.  He chose death, and He lived and walked upon earth to prepare Himself to die.  His death is the power of redemption; death gave Him His victory over sin; death gave Him His resurrection, His new life, His exaltation, and His everlasting glory.  The great mark of Christ is His death.  Even in Heaven, upon the throne, He stands as the Lamb that was slain, and through eternity they ever sing, “Thou art worthy, for Thou wast slain.”  Beloved brother, your Boaz, your Christ, your all-sufficient Saviour, is a Man of whom the chief mark and the greatest glory is this:  He died.  And if the Bride is to live with her husband as His wife, then she must enter into His state, and into His spirit, and into His disposition, and ever be as He is.  If we are to experience the full power of what Christ can do for us, we must learn to die with Christ.  I ought not, perhaps, to use that expression, “We must learn to die with Christ;” I ought, rather, to say, “We must learn that we are dead with Christ.”  That is a glorious thought in the 6th chapter of Romans; to every believer in the Church of Rome—­not to the select ones, or the advanced ones, but to every believer in the Church of Rome, however feeble, Paul writes, “You are dead with Christ.”  On the strength of that he says, “Reckon yourselves dead unto sin.”  What does that mean—­You are dead to sin?  We can not see it more clearly than by referring to Adam.  Christ was the second Adam.  What happened in the first Adam?  I died, in the first Adam; I died to God; I died in sin.  When I was born, I had in me the life of Adam, which had all the characteristics of the life of Adam after he had fallen.  Adam died to God, and Adam died in sin, and I inherit the life of Adam, and so I am dead in sin as he was, and dead unto God.