“This Side Of Calvary” by Nancy Dufresne

“…As He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). What is Christ now? He is no longer the suffering Lamb at Calvary. He is now the all-conquering, triumphant, victorious, resurrected, and raised Redeemer, seated at the right hand of the Father!

Jesus declared to John, “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and HAVE the keys of hell and of death” (Rev. 1:18). That is the declaration of a Conqueror! Sin, sickness, poverty, and hell are under His feet! He is the worthy Head of this great Body of Christ, and He has given us the keys of authority to walk in the dominion He won for us over sin, sickness, poverty, and over all the power of the enemy.

Much of the religious world is fixed on the suffering Christ of Calvary who died, instead of on the risen Redeemer who is now seated at the right hand of the Father fulfilling His present-day ministry. It is this risen Christ who is the imperial Head of the Church, with a Name above every name, who won back man’s royal position – we, too, are now raised up and seated together with Him at the right hand of God and brought into oneness with the Father!

The religious world has limited their view of Him to the Cross of suffering, instead of looking past the Cross to see our resurrected Redeemer and all He won for us and is presently doing for us. As our great High Priest, He represents believers before God and ministers the benefits of redemption to us (Heb. 4:14, 7:25).

He went to Calvary – but He didn’t stay there! So we don’t stop there! We go on to see what happened after Calvary – He was resurrected, raised, and seated! That’s what we are to focus on! Because He is raised up, we were raised up and brought into union with the Father to move forward as conquerors, laboring together with Him in His great work in the earth (1 Cor. 3:9).

At Calvary, we see the rejection and the suffering, but on this side of the Cross, we see the victory! He became the price of sin so He could redeem humanity and restore to us everything Adam lost. He became the eternal Victor, the exalted One, and His victory is now manifested, demonstrated, and revealed through us, His Body, the Church.

We aren’t to just point the world to His place of suffering, but we are to point the lost to the risen, seated Savior who lives forevermore.

Look at what Romans 10:9 tells us we are to believe in order to be saved: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt BELIEVE in thine heart THAT GOD HATH RAISED HIM FROM THE DEAD, thou shalt be saved” (Rom. 10:9). This verse tells us that it’s not believing Jesus died that saves us – but believing that He was raised! The power that raised Him also raised us! To believe that we have been raised, we must believe that He has been raised! 

This verse doesn’t leave us fixed on the suffering Lamb of Calvary, but it points us to the risen Christ who is now working, moving, and manifesting through His Body as the eternal Head of the Church, through which His authority and dominion is exercised.

We are now filled with the Spirit of God, and the Holy Spirit is the One who unveils this to our heart and makes this a revelation to us; He is the One who makes this a living reality in and through us. He is leading us into this victorious life of union with our Father, where we are living as master over our enemy and ministering His freedom to humanity as we go.

Because Jesus has made us master, we are authorized to live as though we have no enemy. As we walk in our authority that’s born out of our divine union with the Father, “… as He is, so are we in this world” is to be a living reality in our daily life.

We are no longer focused on who He was as the suffering One at Calvary, but we ascend in our thinking, we enlarge our spirit to see Him as He is now – raised and seated at the right hand of God!

When we see Him as He is, only then can we see ourselves as He made us to be! We have been raised and seated together with Christ.

Jesus is at the right hand of the Father as the Head representing the Body, and the Body is in the earth representing the Head. We aren’t trying to get results – we occupy a position of authority – we are IN CHRIST!