The death of Christ has annulled my existence before God in the flesh, by faith. Suppose there is a man who is a thief, and he is put into prison to be punished, and he dies in prison; what is to be done with him? The life that sinned is no longer there to be punished―the man must be buried and be put out of sight. So, speaking of Christ as taking, in grace, the sinner’s place, it is said, “In that he died, he died unto sin once.” There is an end of the whole thing. And now, the very principle I get, the thought of being dead and alive again, is this perfect law of liberty, in which the flesh has no kind of title in any shape or way. You are not alive in the world; you are dead with Christ. How then can you go on as if you were still alive in the world?
It is never right for believers when met together for worship to speak of themselves as sinners. We worship, not as sinners, but as saints. We cannot be at home, as sinners, in God’s presence; whereas, worship supposes drawing near to God. If, as individuals, we are confessing sin, or if the whole Church is confessing sin, that is a different thing; but where it is a question of worship, we do not worship as sinners. “God be merciful to me a sinner,” was a man wanting justification, not worshipping. You cannot worship as a sinner―you ought not; because all that a sinner ought to do, is to prostrate himself before God and cry for mercy―and that is not worship.
From the Bible Treasury, Vol. 2, p. 208