Programme 1: Positional Truth and the New Birth

Jesus said (John 8:36,32): “If the Son sets you fr ee, you shall be free indeed.” And: “If you continue in My Word, then you are truly My disciples and you shall know the Truth, and the Truth (you know) shall make you free (it is not just the truth that sets you free, but knowing it!).” There is TRUTH that we must know in order to experience freedom from sin and enjoy all the blessings of God. What is this Truth and where do we find it? Do we find it in the world, in our natural circumstances, in our feelings and experiences? No! Jesus said it is only found in one place: In His Word! He said: “If you continue in My Word, then you are truly My disciples and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”(John 8:32). This truth is in His unchanging Word and so it is independant of what we see, feel or experience. Jesus is saying that we can’t find freedom apart from knowing the truth in His Word. There is no magical short-cut. Special spiritual experiences are great, but to experience God’s life and blessing, to be free and stay free, you have to know the Word and do it. 

In this series I am going to share with you the TRUTH that will set you free. I am going show you how knowing this truth will change you and your self-image forever. This Truth is called POSITIONAL TRUTH. It is what is true for us because of our position in Christ. There are many ‘In Christ’ scriptures that tell us what we have and who we are in Christ. We should look out for scriptures with ‘in Christ’, ‘in Him’, ‘in whom’, ‘through Christ’ as these all tell us vital PT we need to know.

There are 2 kinds of truth: 
1. Experiential truth (ET) is the truth of things that are seen, felt and experienced by our senses. It is the natural facts. It is also called Temporal truth because it is subject to change. 

2. Positional truth (PT) on the other hand is not subject to change.
It is what is true about us, by virtue of our position from our birth, whatever our feelings or performance may be. It is unchanging and independant of how we feel, or whether we have had a good day or not. For example, I am ‘Walker’, by being born ‘in Walker’, whether I feel like ‘Walker’ or not. There are certain things about me (like looks and natural abilities) that are automatically true because of my birth, and that I cannot change. There is a position and a nature that I inherited from my birth. Certain characteristics (like being male) are defined from birth. These things don’t depend on my works, 
but on my birth. The outward manifestion of these things may change as I grow up, but they were already in me by birth.

In Adam, we have some very bad PT, and nothing we can do can change that. Only if God gives us a new-Birth! Just by being born in Adam we are a sinner, death-doomed, under the curse, belonging to the kingdom of darkness, with a future destiny of judgement and condemnation in hell. This was true simply by virtue of our position in Adam from birth, and nothing we could do could change that. We were automatically in Adam, and that determined our nature and destiny.What we needed was another birth, a second birth, a new-birth giving us a new position and nature. That is why 3 times Jesus said in John 3: “You must be born-again.” v3 “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” v5 “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. v7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 
 
 When we accepted Christ we were spiritually taken out of Adam and put IN CHRIST (and He came into our spirits by the Holy-Spirit). Now Christ is our spiritual Representative and Head, not Adam. Now IN CHRIST, we have a completely new Positional Truth, not because of what we do or don’t do, but simply because of who we are in Christ through the new-birth. 

Romans 5:12-21 is the classic passage that describes the change in PT from being in Adam to being in Christ. Notice how everything depends on our position - whether it is in Adam or in Christ. Just as we were automatically under the power of sin and death in Adam, so we are under the power of righteousness and life in Christ. 

v12: “Therefore, just as through one man (ADAM) sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned (in Adam).” 

Simply by being in Adam, we were in a state of sin and death. If the UK declares war on another country then we are automatically at war, simply because we are in the UK. Likewise when Adam turned His back (declared war) on God, we (though unborn) were in Adam and therefore were also automatically in a state of sin (war) and death (separation from God) simply by being in Adam. 

v18 Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgement came to all men (in Adam), resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s (Christ’s) righteous act the free gift came to all men (in Christ), resulting in justification of life.v19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners (through being in Adam), so also by one Man’s(Christ’s) obedience many will be made righteous (through being in Christ). v21...so that just as sin reigned in death (in Adam), even so (in Christ) grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” 
 
If we are in Adam, united to Adam, then we automatically share in His sin,condemnation, curse and death. But if our position is in Christ we automatically share in His righteouness, blessing and life, through our union with Him. His grace does not just cancel out our evil inheritance from Adam, but gives us eternal life in Christ. 1Corinthians 15:22 sums it up: “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” 

Thus our PT in Christ is all GRACE, because it is what God has done for us and in us through Christ, independant of our works.It is ours simply by virtue of our new birth and new position in Christ. We can take no credit for it and it is not affected by our works. It is the truth of who we really are IN CHRIST and what we have IN CHRIST, through the New-Birth.

*Let’s explore now what God has done for us in the New Birth.

Man (like God) is trinitarian: he is a spirit, he has a soul (mind, will, emotions) and lives in a body. In the New-Birth it is our spirit (inner-man) that is reborn (regenerated) as a New-Man: “that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you ‘You must be born again” (John 3:6-7). Therefore a big part of our Positional Truth of who we are in Christ, which we must know in order to experience the true freedom and blessing God has promised us, is the truth of what has happened in our spirit through the New Birth. The truth of God’s word tells us what is now true in our spirit. This PT is unseen. It is beyond our senses. We can only know about it through the Word of God, which opens our eyes of faith to see and know what is true in the spirit, even though we may not feel it in the natural. 

This truth about our inner spirit-man, the reborn human spiritis eternal, unchanging truth, that is independant of our feelings, our performance, our ups and downs, our successes, or our failures. Therefore it is a rock that we can build our self-image and life upon. 

*New-Life and Nature: “Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh (who we are in Adam) Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a New Creation (a brand New-Man in his spirit); old things (the Old-Man with all its old PT) have passed away; behold, all things (in the spirit and in our PT) have become new. Now all things (in the reborn New-Creation spirit) are of God!” (2Corinthians 5:16-18). We are a New-Creation, belonging to a new-species of mankind made after the image of our new head Christ (the 2nd Adam), just as we were originally made after the image of our first head, Adam. 

 We possessed Eternal Life in our spirits from the moment we trusted in Christ: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have (possess) eternal life (in our spirit)”(John 3:16).

“This is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1John 5:11,12).We possess this eternal (zoe) life of God now in our spirits! 

“God has not given us (believers) a spirit of fear, butof love, power and a sound mind” (2Timothy 1:7). That’s what we are really like in our spirit. It has no fear, but it is filled with love and power and right-thinking because it is Christ-like!

*Testimony-knowing the truth of who I am set me free.

Jesus said: “If (and only if) you continue in My Word, then you are truly My disciples, and you shall know the Truth,and the Truth (you know) shall make you free” (John 8:32).  What is the truth we must know to experience this freedom?

v36: “If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” It is that Jesus has set our spirits free from sin and curse in the New Birth! If we know this is true, if we know who we are in Christ, that we are New Creations, then we can live free. If we know and act on this truth, then we will experience it in our lives. That is why it is so important to know PT, because even if we are born-again and God has indeed set our spirit free from sin, if we don’t know this truth, we can’t walk in it by faith and thus enjoy the benefit of it.
 
*Prayer of Salvation/Confession.
(He has given us a spirit)