Such the believer is. He was simply a child of Adam, involved in total ruin and guilt, under sin, death, and judgment—far from God, and unable to please Him. But now he is in Christ Jesus—a new creation—made nigh by the blood of Jesus (Eph. 2:13), having fruit unto holiness. What an amazing difference! How wonderful the transition! It is really having passed from death unto life. But how very few seem to know this blessed standing in Christ Jesus, and to rejoice in this new creation position; yet it is frequently brought before us in scripture. It could not have been set forth in Old Testament teaching (except in type), because then God for the most part was dealing with people under law, which addressed itself to man in the flesh, and recognized him as of the world. But the death of Jesus the Son of God has made all the difference; for it proved the dire enmity of man's heart to God, and that he so hated His beloved Son, without a cause, as to crucify and slay Him. In the death of the cross God judged sin, and so set aside man in the flesh as to pronounce him unfit for anything in His sight but judgment. God is no longer then demanding claims from men, but carrying out the eternal purposes of His loving heart in bringing blessings to men, and calling those who believe into fellowship with His Son in the heavenlies, giving life in Him, and uniting to Him by the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is therefore in Christ that all our blessings are, and in Him we stand before God—"in Christ," and., as scripture says, "not in the flesh." (Rom. 8:9.) Our old man having been crucified with Christ, we have died with Christ, and are made alive in Christ risen, raised up together, and made sit together in heavenly places in Christ, in whom we are blessed with all spiritual blessings. Can anything be more comforting or rejoicing to our hearts!
It is unaccountable how this precious truth has been lost, notwithstanding its frequent mention in scripture. To refer only to a few quotations, we have in Rom. 8, "Ye are not in the flesh," and there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." In 1 Cor. 1:30: "Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." In 2 Cor. 12: "A man in Christ." In Galatians: "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but a new creature" (new creation). In Ephesians, chosen in Christ, blessed in Christ, seated in heavenly places in Christ, etc. In Philippians the saints are addressed as "in Christ Jesus." In Colossians, "Ye are complete in Him," "who is Head of all principality and power," etc. It is impossible that any doctrine can be more plainly taught in scripture than the believer's present standing in Christ in heavenly places. But if the thorough ruin of man in the flesh as connected with the first Adam be not apprehended, there will of necessity be the effort to improve it, and the vain attempt to make it fit for God; and consequently there can neither be true peace with God, nor liberty of soul to serve and follow Christ.
The vital question for an anxious soul is not, Am I getting better? or, Is my old Adam nature improving? but am I in Christ Jesus? For; if you have received Jesus, the Son of God, as your Savior, you are in Christ: for "he that hath the Son of God hath life." And not only life, but liberty: for "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." (Rom. 8:2.) The blood-shedding and death of Christ the foundation of all, of course.
How many true souls are in bondage because they do not enter by faith into this liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free, and being what they call "at the foot of the cross," instead of knowing Christ risen and ascended, and rejoicing that God has given them life and righteousness in Him. A beloved servant of Christ says, "How was it that I was for seventeen years kept in the seventh of Romans? I always sat under what was called evangelical ministry. Why, then, was I crying continually, in the first place separately to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and then, as though that were not enough, to them as the Trinity," Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners," and at last, when I got delivered, how was it? Need I tell, you? Surely not; it is a common story—the story of most of us. We crossed the path of a Christian, who told us that there was now, at this present time, something to be had in virtue of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.' In my own case it further happened that about the time I was hearing of my present interest & resurrection, the Lord was taking home a young man who was in communion. I called on him by request, and took my clergyman with me. He began to talk to the young man about his dying. "Oh, sir," he replied," I have died," and yet there he was alive and speaking. This was a greater wonder to me than my getting, something in resurrection. I noted it, and by reading the Word soon found what it all meant, and found myself to be a dead, risen, and ascended man in the glorified Christ. Now, of all the clergymen and other ministers that I have ever known (and I have known a goodly number) not one has ever told me of my present death and resurrection in Christ. For seventeen years was I interested in the things of God, and yet never did I hear of such a thing. Of course, one heard of Christ's resurrection, but it was a mere historical fact that was spoken of, and that only once a year.”
No doubt, as I have said, the cross of Christ is the foundation of all our blessings, but we now know Jesus risen, Jesus exalted and glorified, at the right hand of God. It is thus, I repeat, we now know Him, on the other side of death, and crowned with glory and honor. A.s another has well said according to the teaching of Scripture, “If we are alive, we are alive now on a new footing, before God, alive in Christ. The old things are passed away; we are created again in Christ Jesus.
Our place, our standing, before God is no longer in flesh. It is in Christ. Christ, as man, has taken quite a new place that neither Adam innocent, or Adam sinner, had anything to say to. The best robe formed no part of the prodigal's first inheritance at all; it was in the father's possession—quite a new thing. Christ has taken this place consequent upon putting away our sins, on having glorified God as to them, and finishing the work. He has taken it in righteousness, and man in Him has got a new place in righteousness with God. When quickened, he is quickened with the life in which Christ lives, the second Adam, and submitting to God's righteousness.
Knowing that he is totally lost in the first and old man, and having bowed to this solemn truth as shown and learned in the cross, he is sealed with the Holy Ghost, and livingly united to the Lord, one spirit: he is a man in Christ—not in the flesh, or in the first Adam. All that is closed for him in the cross, when Christ made Himself responsible for him in respect of it and died unto sin once, and he is alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He belongs to a new creation, having the life of the Head of it as his life. Where he learned the utter total condemnation of what he was, he learned its total and eternal putting away. The cross is for him, that impassable Red Sea, that Jordan, which he has now gone through, and is his deliverance from Egypt forever, and now he has realized it, his entrance into Canaan in Christ. If Jordan and the power of death overflowed all his banks, for him the Ark of the Covenant passed in. It is just his way into Canaan. That which, if he had himself assayed to go through as the Egyptians, would have been his destruction, has been a wall on the right hand and the left, and only destroyed all that was against him. He was a man in the flesh; he is a man in Christ. Amazing and total change from the whole condition and standing of the first Adam, responsible for his own sins, into that of Christ, who, having borne the whole consequence of that responsibility in his place, has given him, in the power of that, to us, new life in which He rose from the dead, a place in and with Himself, as He now is as man before God. It is to this position the apostle refers, only that he was given in a very extraordinary manner to enjoy the full fruit and glory of it during the period of his existence here below. His language as to this truth is remarkably plain, and therefore powerful. "When we were in the flesh," he says. Thus it is we speak when we refer to a clearly bygone state of things in which we are no longer. “When we were in the flesh," that is, we are no longer in that position at all." But," he says," ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you." We are now alive in Christ. "If ye be dead," says he elsewhere, "to the rudiments of the world, why as though living (i.e, alive) in the world are ye subject to ordinances?" "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.”
Because many Christians have not seized the force of this truth, nor of the expressions of the apostle, they use Christ's death as a remedy for the old man, or at least only learn forgiveness of past sins by it, instead of learning that they have by it passed out of the old man as to their place before God, and into the new in the power of that life which is in Christ.