It is all-important that the believer should be clear as to his standing before God. As long as I make it in any way depend upon my practical condition and ways, it is reversing the order of the truth, and is not possible for me to apprehend it. As a sinner, I am in Adam, under judgment; as a believer, I am in Christ, delivered from judgment, and Christ glorified is the measure of my standing before God.
Now His standing, as the accepted man, can never change, and the Christian is in Him, where He is, a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). God has made us accepted in Him, the Beloved (Eph. 1:6). As we have already seen, we are quickened, raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:5, 6). And therefore neither our standing nor acceptance before God can ever change.
Further, in 1 John 4:17, we read, “Herein is our love made perfect” (or, has love been perfected with us), “that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world.”
Knowing these things, what manner of persons ought we to be?
“O!” responds the soul, who is living in the enjoyment of this wondrous portion, “I want to be like Christ now.” This is the natural result. The more simple our faith, and the firmer our grasp of these things, the more earnest will be the soul’s desire that our practical condition and ways should correspond to them. The assurance of them does not lead to license, but rather to purify ourselves, even as Christ is pure.
“We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 3:18.