How are believers reckoned as crucified with Christ if they were not alive at the cross?
God in His omnipotence saw every believer in Christ when Christ hung on the cross and died, so they are reckoned as crucified with Him. It is God's act of reckoning, based on Christ's substitutionary work and faithfulness, not on believers being alive at the cross.
Les explains that when Christ hung on that cross and died, God in His omnipotence saw every believer in Christ. That is how believers are reckoned as crucified: not because they were alive then, but because God saw them in Christ. Old Adam has been put to death, his power over daily behavior broken, though experientially believers still put up with old Adam and the pressures of this world. Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ, yet nevertheless I live; not I, but Christ liveth in me.” The life now lived in the flesh is lived by the faithfulness of Christ, not our own, because of what Christ accomplished on our behalf. It is substitutionary and an act of God.