What does God say I am?

There we have the two great leading motives and springs of conduct which the apostle sets before us here as to our faith and conduct; namely, that our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which we have of God; and that we are bought with a price, and belong to God. The power, intelligence, and all, is that which we have of God; it is the Holy Ghost, of which our body is made the temple; and when I look at the body in itself, it now, through the work of Christ, belongs to God. The Holy Ghost dwells in me in power and intelligence; my body is made His temple, and I must use it according to that presence which I thus have of God. I am not my own at all - I am bought with a price - I belong to God.

Are you in Christ? Do you believe in His name? Have you given Him the confidence of your heart? If so, you have "eternal life" — you are "a new creature" — "old things are passed away." God does not see a single shred of the old thing remaining for you. "All things are become new, and all things are of God." You may say you do not feel that old things are all passed away. We reply, God says they are, and it is your happy privilege to believe what He says, and "reckon" yourself to be what He declares you are. God speaks according to that which is true of you in Christ. He does not see you in the flesh, but in Christ. There is absolutely nothing before the eye of God but Christ: and the very weakest believer is viewed as part of Christ, just as your hand is a part of your body. You have no existence before God apart from Christ — no life — no righteousness — no holiness — no wisdom — no power. Apart from Him, you have nothing, and can be nothing. In Him you have all and are all; you are thoroughly identified with Christ. Marvellous fact! Profound mystery! Most glorious truth! It is not a question of attainment or of progress. It is the settled and absolute standing of the feeblest member of the Church of God. True, there are various measures of intelligence, experience, and devotedness; but there is only one life, one standing, one position before God, and that is Christ. There is no such thing as a higher or lower Christian life. Christ is the believer's life, and you cannot speak of a higher or a lower Christ. We can understand the higher stages of Christian life; but there is no spiritual intelligence in speaking of a higher Christian life.

As to the remaining queries, it is of all-importance to distinguish between the natural relation we all sustain to God, as creatures, and those new, blessed relations to Him on which we enter, the moment it can be truly said of us that we are believers in Christ. As creatures, we are responsible to God, the holy, righteous Judge of all. As fallen creatures, we are utterly and hopelessly condemned. "Enter not into judgement with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified" (Ps. 143:2). Such was the confession of the psalmist, prior to the accomplishment of redemption, and the full triumph of grace in the death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord. It was because of our total inability to stand thus in judgement before God that Christ took our place, and bare our sins in his own body on the tree. If grace has drawn our hearts to that blessed Saviour, we have God's word to assure us that in His death on the cross, our whole standing as condemned, sinful creatures before God came to an end. Believing in Him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins" (Eph. 1:7). The believer is himself a justified, accepted person. "Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 3:24). "Accepted in the beloved" (Eph. 1:6). The believer enters thus, the moment he is a believer, on entirely new relations to God. He is no longer condemned and under wrath, but a pardoned, justified, accepted person, through the boundless grace of God, and the infinite efficacy of Christ's precious work. He is adopted, moreover, into God's family; yea, born of God, and thus really His child. He is one with Christ, as a member of His body, — "for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones" (Eph. 5:30).

Adopted into God's family is the common lot of all God's people. God has destined that His people should be His children. Angels are His servants. Sinners saved by grace, forgiven, redeemed, accepted, are nearest to His heart. And thus it is given to us, before it is manifested what we shall be, to rest in the love of God in the affectionate intelligence of His dear children; “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God!” We are already made partakers of the divine nature and have the spirit of adoption given to us whereby we cry Abba! Father!

"Dead in trespasses and sins,'' "Sons of disobedience," "Children of wrath," such is the solemn record of God concerning man!

The first verse tells us that we are by nature in the state of death--"dead in trespasses and sins." Man is dead spiritually; he is dead towards God (John 5:24-25). This fact that the unregenerated man is dead is much denied in our days. We hear of "the better self," or "the good spark" which is in everybody, and the truth God has revealed concerning man, that he is dead in trespasses and sins is but little believed. The next verse states the walk of the natural man. It fully shows the awful place in which man is as dead in trespasses and sins. The walk is according to his fallen nature; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life are the governing principles of this walk. We are enemies of God by wicked works. And behind all there stands the prince of the power of the air, Satan. He works in the children of disobedience, which here means the Jews. Of this our Lord spake when He said, "Ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do" (John 8:44). And again it is written, "He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. (1 John 3:8). It is a solemn truth, which God has revealed concerning our condition as fallen beings, that we are in the grasp of the prince of the power of the air; that man is under this mighty being of darkness. To what a place of degradation man has been brought by sin! This likewise is disbelieved by the great majority of professing Christians. A personal devil is ridiculed and his existence is denied.

Man was treated in both the image and the likeness of God. The former word seems to be used in Scripture for that which represents unseen realities. The images of the heathen world represented their gods, without necessarily being like them, for indeed they had never seen the demons they worshipped by means of the images that represented them to their eyes. Man was made, then, to represent God to the lower creation over which he was set. But he was also made after the likeness of God; that is, he was really like God in certain important respects. Not in all respects of course, for God is infinitely holy and man was merely innocent. Still man was God's "offspring" (Acts 17:28-29), a spirit being, though clothed in a body of flesh and blood, and hence with intelligence and moral sensibilities, which are a reflection of that which subsists on an infinite scale in God Himself.

The Authorized Version speaks of "adoption of children." This hardly expresses it correctly. Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are not adopted into the family of God; they are born into the family. The Greek has only one word "Son-place." We are placed into the position of Sons. Not alone hath God given to us His own nature, but He gives us, because we have that nature in and through His Son, the place as Sons. Think of what God might have done for those, who by wicked works are His enemies. He might have given us the place of unfallen angels, the wonderful ministers of heaven. What mercy that would have been! Or He might have lifted us to the dignity of an archangel, full of beauty and power. But even that would not have been the very best He could have done in the riches of His grace and love. He has made us Sons, like the Son, whom He raised from the dead and seated at His own right hand.

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.

Against so dark a background how beautiful is the contrast of verse 9, "Ye are a chosen generation." Here is the true election of God, those chosen by Him whose knowledge brought Into consideration every circumstance long before creation. Precious, wonderful truth!--much higher than that of Israel's being God's chosen earthly people. "A royal priesthood" is the counterpart of "a holy priesthood." (v.5), the latter toward God, the former toward men, for it is royal character to bear God's witness toward the world (Cf.In.18:37). Precious is such dignity conferred Upon sinners saved by grace! "An holy nation" is in contrast to Israel in the flesh, In her unholy disobedience. It speaks of a vital sanctification for the glory of God, a setting apart to Himself. "A peculiar people" has the sense of being peculiar to Himself, that is, virtually bondslaves rather than hired servants, as Jews under law considered themselves.