What is the position that as believers we have been brought into, the vocation wherewith we have been called? Is it not that which was according to God's purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began (2 Tim. 1:9)? Are not those who compose the assembly a heavenly people, united to Christ the Head in heaven (Heb. 3:1; John 17:16; Col. 2:10)? Have they not been reconciled to God in one body where they have "access by one Spirit unto the Father" (Col. 1:12-27; Eph. 2:18)? Are they not a called-out fellowship, a divine organism, "builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit" (Eph. 2:22; 1 Cor. 12:2; 2 Cor. 6:16)?
Such a testimony makes nothing of us here; it does not give us a place in this world, but it connects us with Christ the second Man in heaven (1 Cor. 15:57, 58) and makes us strangers and pilgrims on earth (1 Pet. 2:11). We know our connection with Jesus Christ risen from the dead, according to Paul's gospel (2 Tim. 2:8), and we do not belong to anything here. Our links are broken with everything earthly of a religious nature, and we have "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus" (Heb. 10:19). It is a heavenly testimony now of which we are to be the representatives.