Why is the teaching about dying with Christ and rising to new life important?
This teaching is important because it is fundamental to the Christian plan of salvation, yet many people are unaware of it. It shows that believers must identify with Christ’s death so old Adam dies and is separated, then, in the same manner as Christ’s resurrection, come out of deadness and experience new life.
Les teaches that these concepts are fundamental to the Christian plan of salvation, even though too many people are not hearing them or aware of them. In Romans chapter 6, he says we have been engulfed in the very death of Christ Himself, and we have to identify with that. Old Adam has to die, and we have to be separated, just as Christ’s three days and three nights signified that He was really dead. Then verse 4 applies resurrection: as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, in the same way, we come out of a deadness and experience a new life. He also points to 2 Corinthians 5:17 as part of these concepts.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.