How does God see me in Christ?

Now his standing is in the new and not in the old. God sees him only in the new. He is not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. He is not under law, but under grace. He is in Christ. God sees him as such. This is his perfect and unalterable standing; his sins gone; his person accepted; all complete. His practical state can never touch his standing. It can very seriously affect his communion, his worship, his testimony, his usefulness, his spiritual enjoyment, his mental repose, the glory of Christ as involved in his practical career. These are grave consequences in the estimation of every sensitive conscience and well-regulated mind; but the standing of the true believer remains — ever remains intact and unalterable. The feeblest member of the family of God has this place of security, and is perfect in Christ. To deny this is to remove the true basis of self-judgement and practical holiness.

All believers, then, are accepted — perfectly and forever accepted — in the Beloved. God sees them in Christ and as Christ. He thinks of them as He thinks of Him; loves them as He loves Him. They are ever before Him in perfect acceptance in the blessed Son of His love, nor can anything or anyone ever interfere with this their high and glorious position which rests on the eternal stability of the grace of God, the accomplished work of His Son, and attested by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven.

In the cross of Christ our old standing before God as children of Adam's lost race came to an end. There we died under the judgment of God executed upon Christ our substitute. As believers in the Savior who died for us, we are now associated with the risen and glorified Christ and have a new position before God in Him. God no longer sees us as standing before Him in our sinful nature. He no longer sees us in connection with the condemned life of the first Adam, but in the risen life of Christ the last Adam. He is not looking at our sinful nature which the young convert is some times occupied with and so distressed about. God sees the believer IN CHRIST, "accepted in the beloved" and "complete in Him" (Eph. 1:6; Col. 2:10). "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:1). This is the Christian's new standing before God and the realization of this is a great comfort to one troubled by the discovery of his sinful nature and occupation with it. Knowing that God is done with our old man and does not see us as such anymore, helps us to be done with the old nature too and not to be further occupied with it.

God of His own sovereign will has sanctified, set apart for Himself through the sacrifice of His Son every believer in Christ. Therefore, in the New Testament, believers are uniformly called saints and holy, regardless of their moral or spiritual condition or walk. Every one who hears the call of God and puts faith in Christ then and there becomes a saint sanctified by the will of God through the offering of the body of Christ, and perfected forever by His one offering. This is the position or standing of all believers in Christ. God has set them apart for Himself through the offering of the body of Christ and henceforth ever sees them in Christ, clothed in all the value and perfection of that sacrifice that has for the eye of God purged away, once and for all when offered, all sin and defilement that ever attached or could attach itself to His saints. Therefore, believers in virtue of their sanctification through the blood of Jesus can boldly enter at all times into the very presence of their holy God. They cannot be made more holy as to their standing before God in Christ than His blood has already made them. Their standing in holiness is perfect, as perfect as the sacrifice of Christ, as perfect as Christ is; "as He is so are we" though we are still in this defiled and defiling world (1 John 4:17).

Where, naturally, would our souls rest? It is quite a natural feeling, if we have been convinced of sin, that we should want to get at peace to know there is nothing against us, but the apostle here, is looking at those whom God has "taken up," and He has "made us accepted in the Beloved." That is God's thought about us; He has shewn us this grace in a particular way, and in a particular person - Christ. It is not merely a negative thing; He takes as positive delight in us, as He does in Jesus. He is no double-measure God.

Applying this, God does not testify of the believer, save in relation to Christ and His work and its effects. He testifies of Christ. It is Christ’s sacrifice, Christ’s perfection, “Christ made righteousness to us” that God has to say to. The moment a sinner puts his simple faith in Him, God is “just and the Justifier of him which believes IN JESUS”—the believer is “accepted IN THE BELOVED.”

More, we are personally taken into the favour of God, and seen "in Christ Jesus," both now and for evermore. "As He," Christ, "is, so are we in this world," 1 John 4:17. Could even divine love do more than this? Overlaying us with the preciousness of Christ, so that God's eye sees us even as it sees Christ Himself.

Beloved friends, the soul that believes in Christ is as Christ is before God. What Christ is, he is: as righteous, unchangeably righteous; "righteous as He is righteous." We are accepted in the Beloved, before God as He is, with all His perfection; with all that God sees in Him for us, and the value of His work is ours with God.

Accepted — “Accepted in the Beloved.” Mark these wonderful words, and behold how we have mounted upwards! All that the beloved One of God is to God as the Accepted One on high, so is the humblest believer in Him. Christ is personally accepted, and as such He is the object of God's delight — we, too, being in Him, are accepted even as Christ. Christ is the measure of our acceptance before God. We are graced in the Beloved, robed in His beauty, adorned with His perfections.

God in His perfect wisdom has found a way whereby He can justify the ungodly, and yet maintain His own inflexible righteousness. The cross has made possible what otherwise would have been morally impossible. Christ's redemptive work has so perfectly satisfied the claims of divine righteousness that God now proclaims Him as a mercy-seat to which all who feel their need may with confidence approach. God has publicly signified His acceptance of the work of Jesus by raising Him from among the dead, and glorifying Him in Himself above. The moment a man turns from himself to God, pleading the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, he is divinely cleared from all charge of guilt, and henceforward stands before God in all the efficacy of Christ's atoning sacrifice. It is righteousness without works, celebrated by David in his thirty-second Psalm, and illustrated long before in Abraham the believer (Rom. 4:1-8).