Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by teh glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.
—Romans 6:4-5
The likeness of His death is followed by the likeness of His resurrection. To speak alone of the likeness of His death gives a one-sided view of following Christ. It is only the power of His resurrection that gives us strength to go on from that likeness of His death. Being dead with Christ refers more to the death of the old life to sin that we abandon. Being risen with Christ refers to the new life through which the Holy Spirit expels the old.
We have already seen how our Lord’s life, before His death, was a life of weakness. Sin had power over Him and over His disciples. But with the resurrection, all was changed. His resurrection life was full of the power of eternity. He had conquered death and sin not only for Himself, but also for His disciples, so that He could make them partakers of His Spirit and His heavenly power.
When the Lord Jesus now makes us partakers of His life, it is not the life that He had before His death, but the resurrection life that He won through death, a life that has already conquered hell, the Devil, the world, and the flesh.
To most Christians this is a mystery; therefore, their lives are full of sin, weakness, and defeat. They believe in Christ’s resurrection as the sufficient proof of their justification. They think that He had to rise again to continue His work in heaven as Mediator. But they have no idea that He rose again so that His resurrection life might now be the very power of their daily lives.
Your calling is to live like Christ. You have already been made one with Himin the likeness of His resurrection. The only question now is whether or not you are willing to surrender your whole life so that He may manifest resurrection power in every part of it. I beg you, offer yourself unreservedly to Him, with all your weakness and unfaithfulness. Believe that, as His resurrection was a wonder above all expectation, so He as the Risen One will still work in you exceeding abundantly above all you could think or desire. (See Ephesians 3:20.)