Before a person believes in Jesus, he/she is in the flesh as a sinner who is unable to be righteous by his own works of the flesh. A human being no matter how good, will always fall short of God’s glory. The glory of God is displayed in Jesus Christ who never sinned but is the perfect image of the Father. The only way to be saved is to be as righteous as Jesus Himself. This is only received by grace through faith and not works.

The Christian is someone who does not trust in his flesh or works but has believed in Jesus Christ for salvation. The believer acknowledges that he cannot save himself or justify himself by the flesh but has been made righteous by Jesus Christ’s obedience!

If you are a believer, then you are no longer a sinner. You are not in the flesh anymore. It is because you died on the cross with Jesus Christ. We were crucified on the cross with Jesus Christ and we died. We do not exist anymore – because it is Christ who lives in us! The life we now live as believers is by faith in Jesus! This is the life of GRACE!

Galatians 2 “”a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.”….²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹ I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

The believer’s flesh has died on the cross. Your sins do not exist. Your flesh does not exist. You are perfect and righteous because Christ is alive in you!

God has included the believer in Christ. Our position, identity, and reality are only found in the person of Jesus Christ. We were dead in sin but God loved us so much that He made us alive with Christ when He rose from the dead. Jesus came and died with us on the cross and He raised us up with Himself. Today we are seated in Christ in heavenly places! All of this is purely by GRACE and not our efforts! All of this is His unconditional LOVE!

Ephesians 2 “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ² in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³ All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. ⁴ But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

God does not judge our flesh or our sins anymore because those things have died on the cross. He sees us in Christ, seated at His right hand in heaven! It is because we are not in our own sins anymore but it is Christ who lives in us. Our true identity is in Jesus Christ as Sons of God! Jesus died on the cross for our sins and we died with Him. Jesus rose from the dead in perfect righteousness and so have we. Jesus is seated in heaven and so are we. In this life, we have been spiritually seated with Christ, but in the age to come when Jesus returns in glory from heaven, we will receive the same glory of the immortal body and live on this earth with Him! So you see, that God has given EVERY spiritual blessing in Christ freely by grace – as described below in the 1st chapter of Ephesians.

Ephesians 1 “³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. ⁴ For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love ⁵ he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace ⁸ that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, ⁹ he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, ¹⁰ to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.”

¹³ And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”

Every believer is not a sinner but is righteous, holy and blameless in Jesus Christ. It is because Jesus is holy, blameless and righteous and therefore so are we! As Jesus is righteous, so are we righteous! Our identity is completely and solely found in Christ. We were predestined by God because He knew that one day we would believe in Jesus and receive this glorious grace of righteousness by faith in Christ.

2nd Corinthians 5 “¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

The believer in Christ is not a sinner because the old creation has gone! We are new creations in Christ. God judged all our sins on the cross in Jesus’ body and He made us the Righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. The believer is not righteous because of his own works but only because of Christ’s death and resurrection! He became sin so that we became His righteousness! We can confidently say that we are as righteous as Jesus Christ because we are new creations – we are IN CHRIST.

1 Corinthians 1 “³⁰ It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. ³¹ Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

We have no righteousness or wisdom in our flesh – there is nothing to boast in our human abilities or morality. But we died and were raised with Christ so that Jesus alone is our righteousness, wisdom, holiness and redemption. It is ALL ABOUT JESUS! In Christ ALONE do we have everything – so we boast in JESUS!

Colossians 2 “⁹ For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, ¹⁰ and in Christ you have been brought to fullness.”

No man had seen God, but when Jesus came to earth, He told the disciples that he who saw Jesus had seen the Father! It is because the fullness of God’s glory was found in Christ alone…..and the great news is that we have been made FULL and COMPLETE in Jesus Christ.

Colossians 2 ” ¹¹ In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, ¹² having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. ¹³ When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, ¹⁴ having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”

Our flesh was put away on the cross, where our sins were forgiven, making us ALIVE! So you and I as believers are COMPLETE in Christ, not lacking any spiritual blessing! He will come again and glorify us as blameless and righteous – He is faithful!

1 Corinthians 1 “⁴ I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. ⁵ For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge— ⁶ God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. ⁷ Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. ⁸ He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

We were in the flesh before we believed in Jesus. Our flesh died on the cross and we are now in the Holy Spirit! The same Holy Spirit who lived in Christ and raised Him from the dead will resurrect us too!

Romans 8 “⁹ You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. ¹⁰ But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. ¹¹ And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.”

Paul tells believers to see themselves in Christ and therefore live Godly lives.

Romans 6 “⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. ¹⁰ The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹ In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ¹³ Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.”

1 John 3 “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ² Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. ³ All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.”

Colossians 1 “God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Our glory is that Jesus Christ lives in us today and He alone is our reality and true identity. As believers, we are not sinners but we are righteous sons of God because Christ, the Son of God lives in us.