So far, these lessons have focused on the reality of us being one, of me living in you, through you, as you. Having spent time discussing that reality, I want to turn to some issues that it’s easy to be confused about, but which are vital for you to understand. The truth of our being one will clarify most of these.
The first reality is this: when you placed your faith in me, you became a completely new person. The old person that you were ceased to exist. You are now a righteous new creation.
How is that possible? This is how.
There are mysteries in the realm of spirit that will never be apparent to the natural eye. My living in you is one of them. To the natural eye, it looks like only you are living in you, not me. Just as, two thousand years ago, it looked like only I was living in me on earth, not the Father.
In the same way, at the cross, much happened in the realm of spirit that you can only accept by faith. I tell you it is true, and you can only affirm it. As you do, your life will bear witness to it.
One significant thing that happened at the cross is that your sins were forgiven. Nothing in the material realm tells you that. It is a spirit reality. You receive me by faith, and my Spirit and the Scriptures confirm to you that, at the cross, all of your sins were forgiven. You live based on that spirit reality.
Something else vital happened on the cross as well. Your old man—your old, independent spirit, at war with me—was crucified with me. This death wasn’t something metaphorical, as if you are simply to think of yourself as leaving the old life behind. It actually happened. It was as real as my own death. In the same way I was crucified on the cross, your old man was crucified there. When I died on the cross, your old man died as well.
How did this happen? Because we are one spirit, what happens to me, happens to you. You are joined to me. And because God exists outside of time, your union with me exists outside of time. That’s why you are chosen in me before the foundation of the world. That’s why I am the Lamb slain for you from before the foundation of the world. And that’s why, being one with me, when I went to the cross, you went to the cross, and there your old man died.
I didn’t stay in the grave after I was crucified, and because you are one with me, neither did you. When I was raised from the dead, you were raised with me. Only, it wasn’t your old man who was raised. It was your new man, “created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”
This is the heart transplant I told the Hebrews would one day become a reality. This is the new birth in you from my Spirit. I take out your heart of stone; I give you a new heart. It’s all describing the same thing. The old you died and was taken out. The new you was born of my Spirit. You were raised with me. You were made alive with me.
Who you were in the depths of your being had to change. I couldn’t join myself to your old man—your old, rebellious, sinful spirit that you were humanly born with. Have you read who the Scriptures say your old man was? You were:
dead in your trespasses and sins, conducting your life according to the way of the world, living in the lusts of your flesh, indulging the lusts of the flesh and of the mind. You were darkened in your understanding, having a futile mind, excluded from my life because of the ignorance that was in you, because of the hardness of your heart. You were darkness, a son or daughter of the night, a son or daughter of disobedience. You didn’t know me and were separated from me. You were disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending your life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. You were ungodly, unrighteous, unclean, a slave of sin. You were my enemy.
How could I join eternally myself to that person? It was impossible. So I took that person to the cross with me. He died. He no longer exists. When I rose from the dead, I raised a completely new person, a new man, in his place. This new person is a
partaker of the divine nature, a saint, light in the Lord, a son or daughter of light, the righteousness of God, holy, blameless, made complete, perfected for all time, a slave of righteousness, sanctified, glorified, washed, created in righteousness and holiness, my own possession, alive to God, a fragrance of me to God, a fellow heir with me, God’s elect, redeemed, God’s child, my friend, God’s temple, reconciled to God, a partaker of me, chosen, dearly loved, a fellow citizen of heaven with all of God’s saints, joined to me, one spirit with me, a part of my body, born of God.
Do you see? Your identity didn’t just change “positionally.” I don’t just pretend you are a new person. In the depths of your being, you are a completely new person. The old sinner ceased to exist. A new, righteous saint was raised in his place. You are a completely new creation. “The old has passed away; the new has come.” Now, in you, “all things are from God.”
So why do you still sin? We will get to that. But first, I want you to fully embrace who you are in me. Stop thinking of yourself as a sinner. You aren’t. Stop calling yourself a sinner. You’re not. You’re a saint, a holy one.
Nor are you part saint, part sinner, as if there are two of “you,” fighting it out. You aren’t still part old man. I couldn’t have joined myself to you if you were! Your old man was killed on the cross. You are the new man. You are born of my Spirit. You are born of God. God doesn’t give birth to part-sinner, part-saint. You are the righteousness of God. You are completely acceptable. I made you that way.
You are a righteous new creation. In the depths of your heart, you are one hundred percent on my side. That’s who I became one spirit with. Fully embrace who you are. I have. And having embraced who you now are, I joined myself to you, forever.
I’ve said all of this before:
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.Now all things are from God … (2 Corinthians 5:17-18)
Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him … (Romans 6:6)
“I have been crucified with Christ …” (Galatians 2:20)
For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died … (2 Corinthians 5:14)
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
The new self … in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. (Ephesians 4:24)
As those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved … (Colossians 3:12)
… in Him you have been made complete … (Colossians 2:10)
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13)
For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. (Hebrews 10:14)
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