THE life which we receive is Christ our life; and this is not to make good our place in the flesh. It makes me own that there is in me, that is in my flesh. in me as a child of Adam, no good thing (Rom. 7:1818For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. (Romans 7:18)). And hence, knowing that Christ has died to put away my sin, so that God's glory is maintained and enhanced as to it, I reckon myself dead, and accept my condemnation as such, but find myself (Christ being in me) in Christ. I have put on the new man, and that is all I am before God. I have given up, died to, owned the just condemnation of (only that condemnation borne on the cross) the old man. (Rom. 6:66Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. (Romans 6:6)). I am not in the condition, status, responsibilities of a child of Adam at all. As such, I have owned myself as wholly lost; I have, through grace, put it off; am dead and risen with Christ. " They that are in the flesh cannot please God;" but I am not in the flesh, because the Spirit of God dwells in me (Rom. 8:8,98So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. 9But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. (Romans 8:8‑9)).
I do not look for any recapitulation of the old man by any performance of its duties. I have given it up as wholly bad and condemned, and take my place, through grace, in Christ. For all that I was in the flesh, Christ died. He has put it away, and I reckon myself dead. I am in Him, with Him as my life, and accepted in Him my righteousness. My righteousness under the law is absolutely null. The contrary is there-sin. There is in God's sight evil, and nothing else. The flesh is thus judged. Then Christ dies for me, because I am such, and I am born again -receive Him as eternal life. Is Christ now, as to righteousness, a maker up of defects, or absolutely my righteousness? Defects of what? Is my righteousness—what I am, as living after the Spirit-made up as patchwork by Christ's acts when I have acted after the flesh? Is that the idea of divine righteousness? of Christ being of God made unto us righteousness? The new man has in himself no defects-it is Christ as my life; and the old man has no good in it. Scripture says we have put it off (Col. 3:99Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; (Colossians 3:9)); we are not seen in it at all; we are not now in the flesh.
If I have the life of Christ in me, I stand before God in Christ's present perfectness. He, in all that He is, is my righteousness; and the workings of the old man, while they have been borne as my sins, and God glorified as to them, do not enter into account at all. I am not seen in the flesh, but in Christ, in His absolute perfectness, apart from flesh altogether. " I have been crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." " If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world," why, its though living (alive) in the world, are ye subject to ordinances? If I am really alive in Christ, I have not a righteousness to be made up at all, since Christ is in the presence of God for me. I have to overcome. If I fail, Jesus Christ the righteous intercedes; God chastens me, if needed; but I am not seen in flesh at all.
Here, then, is the question: Is the old man to have a righteousness made out for it as still responsible under law? or, is the Christian accounted crucified as to that, with Christ, alive only in Him, and having no other standing before God than His abiding perfection, and all his conduct here measured by that? If I am to believe Scripture, the answer is plain-" Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." " Ye are not in the flesh." We are created again in Christ, placed on a wholly new footing; have nothing to do with the old man (save as an enemy, which is no longer I), but are alive, and the righteousness of God in Christ.-Extract.
THE life of Christ is our life. It is not merely life without a personality; but it is the life of a Person; so that the life has, so to speak, only to do in 'me what it has already done in Him.