Programme 2: Positional Truth

Jesus said: “If you continue in My Word, then you are truly My disciples and you shall know the Truth, and the Truthshall make you free” (John 8:32). What is this Truth that we need to know? It is not the truth of our experiences or feelings or natural circumstances, because He said we would only find it in His Word. Last time, we saw that it is the truth of what God has done for us in the New Birth, as Jesus then said: “If the Son sets you free (from sin), you shall be free indeed” (v36). When we receive Christ the life of God is imparted to our spirit, we receive eternal life and become a new creation. We are born again. Our spirit has been truly set free from sin by Jesus in the New Birth: “If the Son sets you free (from sin), you shall be free indeed” (v36). But we must know what Jesus has done for us in our spirit to experience it.
 
 In this series I am going to share with you the TRUTH that will set you free if you know it. I am going show you how knowing this truth will change you and your self-image forever. 

Proverbs 23:7 says: “as a man thinks in his heart so he is.” 
I want you to have a good look in God’s mirror and see yourself as God sees you, as you really are in your spirit. 

This Truth of what God has done in the New Birth is called POSITIONAL TRUTH. It is the truth of who we really are IN CHRIST and what we have IN CHRIST, through the New-Birth.

There are 2 kinds of truth: 
1. Experiential truth. 
2. Positional truth.

Positional truth (PT) is all about what God has done for you and in you, not what you have done or not done. It is all God’s Grace. We are up and down, but God never changes. The truth of our feelings and circumstances change. But PT depends on God, not us. Therefore it never changes. It is rock solid. You can build your life on it. It’s always true whatever you feel or do, whatever is going on around you. You are the righteousness of God in Christ, whether you have a bad day or a good day, because it does not depend on what you have done, but on what God has done. 

When you are BA, He made you the righteousness of God by God’s grace. He has done it all for you. The truth is now that you are the righteousness of God in Christ. You are no more and no less the R+ of God now than the second you were born again, and in heaven you will not be any more righteous than you are now, because God has given you the righteousness of Christ. It is a done deal- it is PT. It is the grace of God.

We are now under grace not law. Law says: ‘act right or else!’
Grace says: “You are the righteousness of God, now act like it. 
Live worthy of who you are in Christ.” 
 
PT v ET. 
* PT is not an experience or expression. It is beyond our natural senses, we can only know it from the Word of God, illuminated by the Spirit. ET is what is manifested to our senses.

* PT is not progressive, but is perfect at salvation. It is what God has already accomplished in our recreated spirit by the New-Birth. 
It is a perfect work of His grace. It is always true, independant of our feelings and works. It is eternal, and unchanging. But ET changes and depends on many outward factors. Our experience and expression of our salvation should grow. It is a ongoing process in our soul and life. 

*PT is not related to human merit. ET depends on whether we know and do the Word or not.

* All believers are equal in positional truth, but we are all different in ET (our expression and experience of PT). 

*PT is really true. It is accomplished already in our spirit. 

 KNOWING PT is of great importance for it is the foundational truth we need to change our self-image and build a strong Christian life. 
 
 *If we build our faith and christian lives on the solid rock of PT we will have stable fruitful lives, but if we build instead on the shifting sands of our feelings, experiences and circumstances, then the house of our christian life will not survive well through the storms of life.

Examples of PT 
*We have a New Relationship with God: 
Before by our position in Adam we were sinners under the condemation and wrath of God. But now in Christ we are forgiven, justified, made righteous with the righteousness of Christ.

Romans 5:1: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, 
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 
More than that in Christ we are also SONS OF GOD: “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26). 

*New Kingdom: “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption through His blood” (Coloss 1:13).
 
*New Inheritance: “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2:9,10). 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). 

*New Destiny (GLORY): “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). 

*New Life and Nature (2Corinthians 5:17-18). “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!” 

*Let’s explore now what God has done for us in the New Birth. 
 
 We have seen that the reborn spirit is a brand new creation of God.
God has put eternal life into our spirit, which means our spirit is made alive with the life of of God. 

Jesus described the New Birth in John 3:6,7 as the supernatural rebirth of our human spirit: “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.”When Nicodemus asked, “How can these things be?” (v9), Jesus told him how the New Birth happens, summarising it in v16: 

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes (trusts) in Him should not perish (in spiritual death) but have (possess in himself) everlasting (eternal) life.” In other words when we believe and recieve Christ as God’s Son, God infuses our spirit with eternal life, which removes all spiritual death from us. This is how it happens. In other words being born again is the same as receiving eternal life (zoe) into our spirit.

Jesus said: John 6:47: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has (now, not will have when he goes to heaven) everlasting (eternal) life.” He possesses eternal life, the God-kind of life in himself, that is in his spirit.

*What is this reborn spirit like?
“God has not given us (believers) a spirit of fear, butof love, power and a sound mind” (2Timothy 1:7). 

This reborn spirit is perfect in righteousness and holiness:
Colossians 2:9,10: “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him (nothing lacking).” 
 
2Corinthians 5:21: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become (in very nature) the righteousness of God in Him.” We are not just declared righteous by God (justification), we have been made righteous by nature, in our spirit. This explains why 1Corinthians 6:17 is possible which says we are one spirit with the Lord: “he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.”

The old spirit is called the Old-Man, which has been crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6) and our new reborn spirit is the New Man.

Colossians 3:9,10 says: “you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the New Man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.” 

Ephesians 4:24 says we are now: “the New Man which was created according to God (in His image), in true righteousness and holiness.” Our spirit has been recreated according to the blueprint of Christ, so that it is now in the perfect image of Christ. 
 
1John 3:9 says our reborn spirit does not sin: “Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and cannot sin, because he has been born of God.” 

1John 5:18: “We know that whatsoever is born of God 
 (the reborn spirit) does not sin (we may sin, but it does not come from our spirit which is perfect); but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him (the armour of God protects the New-Man from all evil).” 

2Peter 3:4 calls our reborn spirit: “the hidden man of the heart” and describes it as an incorruptible beautiful, gentle, peaceful spirit that is precious to God: “rather let it be the hidden man of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.” 
 
Love. Our reborn spirit is born of God, therefore it contains His DNA His life and nature. We are a love-child of a love-God! Through the New-Birth the Holy-Spirit has put the nature of love in our spirit. 

Romans 5:5: “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us.” If we know God has poured out His love into our hearts then we can walk in love and express it. 

Through the New-Birth the fruit of the spirit (LOVE) is already in your spirit with all its flavours love, joy, peace, goodness, etc.

Galatians 5:22-25: “The fruit (produce) of the spirit is LOVE, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” This is a description of the nature of our reborn spirit. This describes the life-forces being produced from our spirit, by the power of the Holy-Spirit. This is what issues from our spirit. 
 
 1John 4:7: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” The reborn spirit contains God’s love. He who is reborn has a spirit of love in him. He therefore has the ability to love God and people. If we know this truth of who we really are in our spirit, that we have a spirit of love, then we can express that love and walk in God’s love.

*You can love, you can forgive whether you feel like it or not, because God has poured out His love into your spirit by the Holy-Spirit. You are a love child of a love God. You have a spirit of love. You have the life of God in you. You have the love of God in you. 

You are a life-giving spirit! Let’s see that in 1Corinthians 15. 
v45 it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam (Christ) became a life-giving spirit. 
 v47 The first man was of the earth, made of dust; 
the second Man is the Lord from heaven. 
 v48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are thosewho are heavenly (born-again) v49 And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.”
 
 In Adam we were in the image of Adam, but in Christ, the New Man, we became like Christ, a life-giving spirit. thus: “The last Adam (Christ and all those in Him) became a life-giving spirit.” - v45.

*Pray for Salvation - Confession. (He has given us a spirit)