"For our citizenship is [present tense] in heaven, from which [present tense] we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body [transfigured upon His return to earth] that it may be conformed to His glorious body according to which He is able to subdue all things to Himself" Phil. 3:20.21.
The Bible makes itself clear we [born again believers] are not a earthly race, either as individual Christians or as a Christian community called the Church. All that we are is heavenly, all that we are is not here in its spiritual essence. This fact is made known to us by the knowledge we gain, then it is lived out by our faith of it's truth. What we are is found wholly in Jesus Christ the New Man who was rejected from the earth and who resides in heaven. This is a biblical fact whether we know it, feel it, or not. "He raised us up together [a present condition] and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus [a present spiritual position]" Eph. 2:6. The Holy Spirits work is to make us realize this.
Just what does this mean and how do I experience it? This is what you should be asking yourself! Most believers after the new birth remain [as their personal identity] in their flesh or Adam personality. This is the very man who Christ died unto [put away forever by death] for God's judicial satisfaction. His sacrifice was in order to obtain us judicially, thereby releasing us from a sentence of death. All for the Fathers judicial satisfaction, since all that is sin must die. He killed the old Adam man on the Cross to obtain us. And obtain us He did, by that event. Therefore we became, or had the choice to become, all new forgiven creatures in Christ. Thereby converting us into His identity, to a brand new creation, only seen in a Resurrected Man who is Christ.
Not becoming justified or displayed [works] by our Adam bodies actions. His fellowship, His identification of us could not in any way be aliened with the old Adam man we are in the flesh, a sinful condition. Not his [Adams] good and godly works or even his biblical/moral fortitude, service or church life nor any attempted change in the Adam personality would ever qualify him. You ask then How can I experience the biblical new creation heavenly order, live it as a active definition of my Christian life? Good question!
In my last two blogs I explained the transition process from the old to the new and that we have two natures. The new is the heavenly man who we are in Christ; the only acceptable man. I explained by the despair of being in the old we may be led to the Word's revelation of the new or heavenly, which is entirely unique and new. This is a Godly ours by grace lived out by faith mental perception of ourselves, our true destiny by God's desire. The Holy Spirit waits patiently for us to gain the awareness of the utter lack of value [toward the things of God] of the dead Adam man we live in as a condition.
However this revelation is not merely academic leading to a performance on our part. It comes by the Holy Spirit who opens our eyes of understanding to a new and renewed mind. We are introduced to our new heavenly identity by studying His Word turning our attitude toward God's life and ways, His Mind. Our purpose now by God's standard is to see ourselves as the new creatures of heaven having power within Christ, not merely earthly Christian workers waiting here gratefully in our weak condition [as identification] to go to heaven.
We will by a new revelation then begin to see ourselves as strangers and sojourners on the earth, not a part of it; we will become aligned with God's very thoughts by this knowlwdge. "But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off [living in the old identity] are made near by the blood of Christ" Eph. 2:13. The object we must now learn to look to is a heavenly image, who is Christ and ourselves as part and parcel of His very being.
We then begin to establish our own true new creature identity to fit the new order which God has already positioned us in as he observes us in His Son in heaven; His own recognition of us seen only in Jesus Christ. By His spiritual and Resurrected Mans representation of us in heaven. This is not a condition of feeling for a emotional experience, but one of knowing our new heavenly nature by biblical revelation and then counted upon in faith! "Now are you children of light" Eph 5:8a.
If we do not gain this understanding as to heavenly positional status, enter it as life by pursuing it with all our hearts effort, we have no choice but to remain in the sinful self centered Adam personality even as a Christian. Grateful for salvation yes, Christians yes, functioning as church members, perhaps even serving, giving etc. But having no victory, not overcoming [by a new self perception] the flesh. Not by a altered behavior, but as to a new identity; God's mandate, His very intention for His Children. Anything else is therefore experiential in the flesh and therefore temporary, of no value. No sense of the total glory we share with Christ in heaven.
We actually remain unidentified when in the Adam nature in God's judgement as this man is dead. Both as to our true self, the new creation heavenly being and to God, as He can have no fellowship with that old man what so ever. Even though His love and blessing is never the less lavished upon us even in our Adam sinful condition all by His by Grace. Also by His Grace through faith do we and He see the real and new creation, the rightful saint clothed in Jesus Christ. That is where His Love and fellowship for us exists! "Walk [live out you life] as children of light" Eph 5:8b. Why do we not join Him there?
Most Christians have great difficulty with this biblical fact because they do not believe it of themselves, they see and experience [define themselves] only by the drama of the natural flesh emotions and are held in their sinful condition by their own non-biblical failed self perception. They really are not exercising their mind not receiving the Holy Spirits message. Having refused by ignorance the revelation of His Word as to their true identity.
They have no in-depth understanding of Paul's teachings on the all important aspect of their true Christian being and positional presence with God in glory [the doctrine of a heavenly in Christ identification] because they are mostly busy with worldly affairs which are really centered in themselves. They will only believe what they feel or take comfort in, what they have accomplished on the earth. Paul's main frustration was in dealing with this the Adam mans earthly condition. "My little children of whom I travail [attempting to help them understand their true nature] in birth again until Christ be formed in you" Gal, 4:19. Which is simply a Godly mental perception of their heavenly nature intended for all Christians.
The institutional church of today will never teach this doctrine as a way of life. Because it not only does not know it as a truth, but also this type of institution has become a accepted Christian religious comfort zone, spooning out pabulum, which has become the norm in many churches today. They are steeped in traditions and a worldly image, and this worldly church has a steak in not upsetting their own apple cart or comfort zone. Which would happen if they were to enter into proclaiming and learning just what the new heavenly creation is. As a heavenly biblical teaching would prove very challenging to teach to a chronically biblical immature flock. Which due to the lack of challenge presented them is most common.
The reformers influence of old while accomplishing much [salivation by faith alone and not church affiliation] still carries the burden given it by Rome. A earthly concept of the church improving the world and the individual Christian as needing simply to be remade by constant urging to live the Christian life by his behavior. So the church now prominently teaches the sprucing up of the old Adam so we look and feel more Christian to the world and ourselves. These are not bad or even always un-Christian things but often unknowingly are simply used as substitutes. Not teaching The Fathers true desire for us; a Christ centered heavenly position with only Him as our object and Him known to us as our internal self image; our true conscience as to the reality of the Christian heavenly form of life.
However if we know a heavenly positional identification, one of us "hid in Christ": a new recognition of the true self changes everything. Service, good neighbor teaching, emotional entertainment worship and obedience to a prescribed behavior can be good and even godly. The problem is this is just not a good definition that will led us to Christ's personal self image for our selves as all new heavenly creatures. A all new definition which will end in knowing Christ as life. "Who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" Eph 1:3b. The knowing of a perfect presence of our eternal life as contained in and with Christ in heaven is the all important message or mental perception Paul had received as revelation to pass on to the believer. "The Spirit of truth takes what is mine and will make it known to you" Jn. 16:15.
We must come to realize that training the flesh to respond to salvation in the many man centered traditionalized accustomed ways is found to be entirely useless as a God contact as to a defined life in Christ. Because it is wasted on a dead Adam man. Oh the activities might be good things and even blessed by the Father, often quite enjoyable. But of course even the world can and does take part in this kind of formula called good works. But the natural Adam man in the world or the Christian remaining in Adam's old identification can never live merely by his actions in the God ordained heavenly identification. Much to his great loss of joy and the very life The Father wishes for him.
We may find by faith that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is Himself in His Manhood present in heaven as our complete identification and soul representation. God has found a way that He may manifest Himself and inclusively bring us into a new spiritual creation that qualifies us to be in His presence. Thus God's glorious way has consciously opened heaven by The Spirit; to the man who has hopelessly lost earth and his allegiance to the old man of the it. The blessed truth that heaven is here now comes by the Words revelation of a heavenly new in Christ positional identification only available by faith. A new life for all those who believe and have the faith of it's true reality as revealed by the Word of God. "Walk [actively live in faith dependent upon] the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill [live in the old nature as definition] the lust of the flesh Gal. 5:16.
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
THE FIRST SHALL BE LAST
In my last blog I concentrated on the personality or indwelling presence of the old man the first Adam in us; the permanent sinful condition of our flesh. This first Adam man and flesh is the biblical descriptive term for the inheritance we have, the human condition which is ours from our father Adam the first; who was banished forever from the garden because he chose to go his own way. "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned" Rom. 5:12.
From him we acquired our nature and by him came sin, condemnation and death. Mankind was by Adam's actions sentenced to a dreadful fate by God. This is the fall of man, which is continuous. We established last time and the bible confirms that this is the Adam man [the old] in which we, all of mankind, live in as mortals. "For as in Adam all die" 1 Cor. 15:22 a.
This condition is not cleared up or made to no effect by God's work in His Son, as a application to our mortal human natural condition upon the earth at least. In other words what Adam did [sin] and the results [death, condemnation and evil] was made true to and in all of his posterity upon the face of the earth and this condition is ours to keep as long as we dwell here. It is however for many a condition maintained throughout all eternity.
Thus the most horrible of fates is forever true for the unbeliever, to be left always in the awareness of death, not in God's presence. But as we know by Grace this is not so for the believer who will be transfigured, become like Christ, and indeed in spirit has His life now, but after physical death sheds any connection with the flesh. "Even so in Christ all [believers] shall be made alive" 1 Cor. 15:22 b. But never the less the results of sin by Adam the first is a active condition in which we all must suffer in our flesh condition together while upon the earth, believer and unbeliever alike.
Since God is love by nature He had the desire to fellowship with man. To give the believer by His grace escape from the natural condition to enable that fellowship. Which for Him, as He is perfect, is only possible in a perfect sin free enviourment. It was therefore necessary for Him to change our very being and make us a perfect new creation or what we could not be in the flesh; because He is perfect so we too must be made perfect. A reworked forgiven old man could not possibly qualify in his natural state.
Therefore He made we who believe to be new creatures, forming a new race of men of new spiritual beings. The new man we were made to be is accessed and made known to the believers mind only by faith in the Son of God as the source and the essence of that new man. And is manifested in us by being knowingly [renewed mind] identified and positioned in Him. Enabling the new creature we are by Spirit to be understood only by the power of faith, all by God's plan.
So we needed.... had to have, one who like Adam the first from mankind's human beginning on earth could provide a new linage, a new DNA of Spirit if you will. We had to have a new Man, a New Adam to inherit this new nature from; this time one of Spirit not flesh, us becoming entirely new by Spirit, now being viewed by the Father within that new Man; applied to us by Grace. "So it is written, the first man Adam became a living being [flesh]. The last Adam [Christ] became a life giving spirit" 1 Cor. 15:45
The Son of God the Last Adam provided that for all of mankind by His death in substitution for us, [all of us] unto sin and the old Adam man. This is called redemption, a strictly judicial event, albeit one of great sacrificial love. However this did not change man in His natural capacity to sin, or go his own way [be self-centered]. But it did give man a opportunity to choose life or death. For God would not interfere with His creations independence as man was made in the very image of God Himself and therefore is inherently granted the right of choice..
Christ's sacrifice did though provided a way of satisfaction for God to be pleased in a judicial sense, regardless of how man would choose. This is called propitiation or satisfaction, which applies directly to those who believe. This gift is afforded [by grace received] to the Christian by his belief. By this judicial event we could be declared not quilty, making available to all of mankind the possibility of a new life of spirit which the bible calls the new creation. "Whom [Christ] God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith" Rom. 3:25
This propitiation made by the Son on our behalf opened the door for a completely new reassignment for the human man of faith, who trusts in the Son of God by that faith. God now became able to view us in totality as new men, inheritors of a new nature formed and residing in heaven in His Son, not upon the earth in a restored old Adam flesh. Yet the new creation life is able by the Holy Spirit to occupy [in the mind] this same mortal body here on earth; changing us, not in condition but in capacity by the renewing of the mind.
Our new status is derived from and held [who we are in God's eye's] in the possession of and in the very person of a New Man. A Man of a different order all together than us. The bible refers to Him as the Last Adam, who is Christ Jesus, who was rejected from the earth, who is now in heaven. We were not remade or given a capacity to be holy or good in our old condition. Jesus Christ is the soul individual representing us, becoming our newness, a new Man before God for God's judicial satisfaction and for all those who trust Him in representation, regardless of our behavior in the flesh, good or bad. "As we bore the image of the man of dust [flesh Adam] so shall we also bear the image [by representation in God's judgment of Christ] the image of the heavenly Man" 1 Cor. 15: 49.
The key to discovery of our heavenly new creation position in Christ is, as I pointed out in my last blog, to first despair of the old man we are by condition. The new man who we have become in Him, "hid [positioned] in Christ" is found and lived in, in the realm of the spirit, known to the renewed mind only by faith; then applied by the mind to our mortal souls. By this factual biblical revelation of the mind we may find we are in God's estimation absolutely separate from the old or the flesh man whom we move about the earth in. We may live in this New Man by faith and only by faith. "The spiritual is not first, but the natural and afterward the spiritual" 1 Cor. 15:46.
The old is the man who works, worries, struggles and tries to be obedient, attempts to not sin, sees his participation in a social and active service church life as his primary Christian experience, perhaps even satisfied there. The new is he who rests in freedom knowing by the Holy Spirit who he is and the place he holds forever in Christ as his life and by faith is completed by his identification in glory in Jesus Christ. But willing still to suffer in and acknowledge his natural condition here on earth. Separating the role of the first Adam to death [he died on the cross with Christ] in order to live in the First Man for life.
In Heaven he [the believer] is seen by the Holy Creator God directly in Christ. As the bible says, we as born again believer's are heavenly/spiritual. "It is sown a natural body, it is raised [co-resurrection with Christ in representation of us] a spiritual body" 1 Cor. 15:46. It is of the utmost importance we come to see this positional status as the definition of just who we are and no longer remain sanctified to the old nature which God needed to suffer and die unto because of mans sin. Shall we remain in that old condition, not learn to redefine ourselves as new in Christ? Heaven and God has in fact forbidden it! "As was the man of dust so are those of dust and as is the hevenely man so also are those of the heavenly" 1 Cor. 15:48.
This new man identification does not require us to perform in any special moral way by legal obedience. Nor is it necessary to follow a formula some call churcheanity or a prescription fostered upon us by other men. All of our change as to conduct, worship, prayer and Church will flow naturally from the love of Christ by His Holy Spirit naturally and with ease as we become more and more aware of the lofty heavenly position we hold in Christ as life! In fact just as God says in His Word; we will no longer even have a conscience which defines us under any quilt as to any sin at all, at least as it is applied to our Christian existence in the heavenly new man we are. "Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies" Rom. 8:33.
"Of Him are you in Christ Jesus, whom of God is made unto us.....sanctification" 1 Cor. 1:30. This verse tell us about the new man or new creature we are. Its says Christ by His actions on earth [death burial, resurrection and ascension] took us into Himself spiritually, identified us in/as Him. It further tells us that Jesus Christ Himself is the actual sanctification or separation of the believer, not our behavior, our works or our life style. He is displaying us before God in heaven in His person, at God's right hand. A position we hold from the moment we first believe whether we choose to remain in the immaturity of the first Adam man or not.
The reason this fact is so hard for us to understand is because we are held mentally [until relieved by the Word's revelation] within the boundaries of our old nature by the fact we live and indeed are alive on earth in the flesh; who demands feelings, experience and law or works/service to justify just who he is. This flesh man is left by his own heritage only and always in a state of sin of which he constantly struggles to escape from. Whereas the new creation grace nature is only to be experienced by Faith. God's Grace is given and made known to us as those of a new nature by revelation and that very faith. By the Word we are told we are a brand new race of men, sin free because we are only viewed and judged in Christ Jesus..... as God looks upon His Son. "Having predestined us unto [contained within] the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to Himself [positioned and seen within] according to the good pleasure of His will" Eph. 1:5
Faith is described in Hebrews as invisible but as substance and evidence it is the revelation of the Word of a spiritual reality. The only principal God has set forth for us to live in His Son by. True of us whether we know it or not.
The Christian life in the New Man is nothing short of the life of the Lord Jesus, it is a heavenly new life. "Set you mind on thing above for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears [comes into our life] then you will also appear with Him in glory" Col. 3:2,3,4. It is His life reproduced in us, a new life that's not to be confused with the flesh life. But a life held lived and represented as a heavenly life, us as one in Spirit with the Savior of the world. "For we are His workmanship, created [the new man] in Christ Jesus" Eph. 2:10. We may see this and rest there by faith of it as true, no need for any other proof by action.
This is the true conversion that all Christians have been made into in and by the Son of God. The first man of death has been made new by his all inclusive death on the Cross with the Lord Jesus. We have been made eternal, perfect, all new, by the Last Man the giver of Life. Who is in fact our very life in heaven and by faith upon the earth. This truth by faith, our faith, will then be manifest in our mortal bodies despite its sin nature. Thus the first Adam man of sin soul is changed, becoming the last new man of life, even while he dwells upon the earth.
From him we acquired our nature and by him came sin, condemnation and death. Mankind was by Adam's actions sentenced to a dreadful fate by God. This is the fall of man, which is continuous. We established last time and the bible confirms that this is the Adam man [the old] in which we, all of mankind, live in as mortals. "For as in Adam all die" 1 Cor. 15:22 a.
This condition is not cleared up or made to no effect by God's work in His Son, as a application to our mortal human natural condition upon the earth at least. In other words what Adam did [sin] and the results [death, condemnation and evil] was made true to and in all of his posterity upon the face of the earth and this condition is ours to keep as long as we dwell here. It is however for many a condition maintained throughout all eternity.
Thus the most horrible of fates is forever true for the unbeliever, to be left always in the awareness of death, not in God's presence. But as we know by Grace this is not so for the believer who will be transfigured, become like Christ, and indeed in spirit has His life now, but after physical death sheds any connection with the flesh. "Even so in Christ all [believers] shall be made alive" 1 Cor. 15:22 b. But never the less the results of sin by Adam the first is a active condition in which we all must suffer in our flesh condition together while upon the earth, believer and unbeliever alike.
Since God is love by nature He had the desire to fellowship with man. To give the believer by His grace escape from the natural condition to enable that fellowship. Which for Him, as He is perfect, is only possible in a perfect sin free enviourment. It was therefore necessary for Him to change our very being and make us a perfect new creation or what we could not be in the flesh; because He is perfect so we too must be made perfect. A reworked forgiven old man could not possibly qualify in his natural state.
Therefore He made we who believe to be new creatures, forming a new race of men of new spiritual beings. The new man we were made to be is accessed and made known to the believers mind only by faith in the Son of God as the source and the essence of that new man. And is manifested in us by being knowingly [renewed mind] identified and positioned in Him. Enabling the new creature we are by Spirit to be understood only by the power of faith, all by God's plan.
So we needed.... had to have, one who like Adam the first from mankind's human beginning on earth could provide a new linage, a new DNA of Spirit if you will. We had to have a new Man, a New Adam to inherit this new nature from; this time one of Spirit not flesh, us becoming entirely new by Spirit, now being viewed by the Father within that new Man; applied to us by Grace. "So it is written, the first man Adam became a living being [flesh]. The last Adam [Christ] became a life giving spirit" 1 Cor. 15:45
The Son of God the Last Adam provided that for all of mankind by His death in substitution for us, [all of us] unto sin and the old Adam man. This is called redemption, a strictly judicial event, albeit one of great sacrificial love. However this did not change man in His natural capacity to sin, or go his own way [be self-centered]. But it did give man a opportunity to choose life or death. For God would not interfere with His creations independence as man was made in the very image of God Himself and therefore is inherently granted the right of choice..
Christ's sacrifice did though provided a way of satisfaction for God to be pleased in a judicial sense, regardless of how man would choose. This is called propitiation or satisfaction, which applies directly to those who believe. This gift is afforded [by grace received] to the Christian by his belief. By this judicial event we could be declared not quilty, making available to all of mankind the possibility of a new life of spirit which the bible calls the new creation. "Whom [Christ] God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith" Rom. 3:25
This propitiation made by the Son on our behalf opened the door for a completely new reassignment for the human man of faith, who trusts in the Son of God by that faith. God now became able to view us in totality as new men, inheritors of a new nature formed and residing in heaven in His Son, not upon the earth in a restored old Adam flesh. Yet the new creation life is able by the Holy Spirit to occupy [in the mind] this same mortal body here on earth; changing us, not in condition but in capacity by the renewing of the mind.
Our new status is derived from and held [who we are in God's eye's] in the possession of and in the very person of a New Man. A Man of a different order all together than us. The bible refers to Him as the Last Adam, who is Christ Jesus, who was rejected from the earth, who is now in heaven. We were not remade or given a capacity to be holy or good in our old condition. Jesus Christ is the soul individual representing us, becoming our newness, a new Man before God for God's judicial satisfaction and for all those who trust Him in representation, regardless of our behavior in the flesh, good or bad. "As we bore the image of the man of dust [flesh Adam] so shall we also bear the image [by representation in God's judgment of Christ] the image of the heavenly Man" 1 Cor. 15: 49.
The key to discovery of our heavenly new creation position in Christ is, as I pointed out in my last blog, to first despair of the old man we are by condition. The new man who we have become in Him, "hid [positioned] in Christ" is found and lived in, in the realm of the spirit, known to the renewed mind only by faith; then applied by the mind to our mortal souls. By this factual biblical revelation of the mind we may find we are in God's estimation absolutely separate from the old or the flesh man whom we move about the earth in. We may live in this New Man by faith and only by faith. "The spiritual is not first, but the natural and afterward the spiritual" 1 Cor. 15:46.
The old is the man who works, worries, struggles and tries to be obedient, attempts to not sin, sees his participation in a social and active service church life as his primary Christian experience, perhaps even satisfied there. The new is he who rests in freedom knowing by the Holy Spirit who he is and the place he holds forever in Christ as his life and by faith is completed by his identification in glory in Jesus Christ. But willing still to suffer in and acknowledge his natural condition here on earth. Separating the role of the first Adam to death [he died on the cross with Christ] in order to live in the First Man for life.
In Heaven he [the believer] is seen by the Holy Creator God directly in Christ. As the bible says, we as born again believer's are heavenly/spiritual. "It is sown a natural body, it is raised [co-resurrection with Christ in representation of us] a spiritual body" 1 Cor. 15:46. It is of the utmost importance we come to see this positional status as the definition of just who we are and no longer remain sanctified to the old nature which God needed to suffer and die unto because of mans sin. Shall we remain in that old condition, not learn to redefine ourselves as new in Christ? Heaven and God has in fact forbidden it! "As was the man of dust so are those of dust and as is the hevenely man so also are those of the heavenly" 1 Cor. 15:48.
This new man identification does not require us to perform in any special moral way by legal obedience. Nor is it necessary to follow a formula some call churcheanity or a prescription fostered upon us by other men. All of our change as to conduct, worship, prayer and Church will flow naturally from the love of Christ by His Holy Spirit naturally and with ease as we become more and more aware of the lofty heavenly position we hold in Christ as life! In fact just as God says in His Word; we will no longer even have a conscience which defines us under any quilt as to any sin at all, at least as it is applied to our Christian existence in the heavenly new man we are. "Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies" Rom. 8:33.
"Of Him are you in Christ Jesus, whom of God is made unto us.....sanctification" 1 Cor. 1:30. This verse tell us about the new man or new creature we are. Its says Christ by His actions on earth [death burial, resurrection and ascension] took us into Himself spiritually, identified us in/as Him. It further tells us that Jesus Christ Himself is the actual sanctification or separation of the believer, not our behavior, our works or our life style. He is displaying us before God in heaven in His person, at God's right hand. A position we hold from the moment we first believe whether we choose to remain in the immaturity of the first Adam man or not.
The reason this fact is so hard for us to understand is because we are held mentally [until relieved by the Word's revelation] within the boundaries of our old nature by the fact we live and indeed are alive on earth in the flesh; who demands feelings, experience and law or works/service to justify just who he is. This flesh man is left by his own heritage only and always in a state of sin of which he constantly struggles to escape from. Whereas the new creation grace nature is only to be experienced by Faith. God's Grace is given and made known to us as those of a new nature by revelation and that very faith. By the Word we are told we are a brand new race of men, sin free because we are only viewed and judged in Christ Jesus..... as God looks upon His Son. "Having predestined us unto [contained within] the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to Himself [positioned and seen within] according to the good pleasure of His will" Eph. 1:5
Faith is described in Hebrews as invisible but as substance and evidence it is the revelation of the Word of a spiritual reality. The only principal God has set forth for us to live in His Son by. True of us whether we know it or not.
The Christian life in the New Man is nothing short of the life of the Lord Jesus, it is a heavenly new life. "Set you mind on thing above for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears [comes into our life] then you will also appear with Him in glory" Col. 3:2,3,4. It is His life reproduced in us, a new life that's not to be confused with the flesh life. But a life held lived and represented as a heavenly life, us as one in Spirit with the Savior of the world. "For we are His workmanship, created [the new man] in Christ Jesus" Eph. 2:10. We may see this and rest there by faith of it as true, no need for any other proof by action.
This is the true conversion that all Christians have been made into in and by the Son of God. The first man of death has been made new by his all inclusive death on the Cross with the Lord Jesus. We have been made eternal, perfect, all new, by the Last Man the giver of Life. Who is in fact our very life in heaven and by faith upon the earth. This truth by faith, our faith, will then be manifest in our mortal bodies despite its sin nature. Thus the first Adam man of sin soul is changed, becoming the last new man of life, even while he dwells upon the earth.
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