"Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge by us in every place” (2 Cor. 2:14).
"But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:57).
"For if by one man 's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:17).
"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us” (Rom. 8:37).
"...His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Pet. 1:3-4).
"...This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4).
For those who, conscious of their need, are seeking and would enter the way of perennial victory, it will be a great help to realize that they are not seeking something which they do not already have. That is to say, if they have named the name of Jesus in true faith and have surrendered to Him crowning Him Lord of their lives, as Christians they have been made kings and priests unto God (Rev. 1:6), and as such they have a right to reign. If they fail to reign, they are simply not exercising their rights.
Complete in Christ
It cannot be too earnestly stressed that all Christians come into the same glorious inheritance. They have received Christ, and all things are theirs for they are Christ's. In Him they are complete. With Him they have been raised up, and with Him they have been made to sit together in heavenly places (Eph. 2:5-6). In Him they died unto sin and were made alive unto God (Rom. 6:11). Christ has been made unto them, of God, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption (1 Cot 1:30). These things cannot, in a sense, be made more truly theirs than they already are. When God gives us Christ, His holy Son, to be our life, and this unspeakable gift is for all who will receive it by faith acknowledging themselves lost sinners in need of the gift, He does not do so with reservations. The whole gift is ours, not simply a part. Paul, in a sense, had no more of Christ than the poor drunkard who only yesterday in some mission hall heard the Gospel, repented, believed, received Christ as his Savior, and was born again.
That is to say, there is no difference in the judicial standing of Christians before God. By their judicial standing, I mean the position God says is theirs by virtue of the fact that they have received His wondrous gift which is Christ and are found in Him. He says that their position and judicial standing is the very same as that of His Son, Jesus, whose identification with humanity was so real and of such an absolute nature that what befell Him as Son of Man, befell Him as Representative Man and therefore, befell all who are united to Him by faith. He was crucified, therefore man was crucified ("our old man is crucified with [Christ],” Rom. 6:6). He died, therefore man died ("...ye are dead,” Col. 3:3). He was buried, therefore man was buried ("... we are buried with Him ... into death, "Rom. 6:4). He was raised up; man is raised up ("God ...hath quickened us together with Christ and hath raised us up together”; Eph. 2:5-6). He ascended, man ascended ("... and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” Eph. 2:6). This is the believer's judicial position before God, his by an inalienable right; a right which, in a sense, is no different than that of Christ's Himself. A right which is no different because Christ and believers are one. "For he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17).
Lack of Appropriation
The trouble lies in the fact that not all believers realize what their judicial standing is in Christ. They are not possessing their possessions. They are not exercising their rights. They are not cashing their checks. The deposit of spiritual riches is in Christ at the believer's disposal in the bank of heaven. They are not actuated by a bold faith which, refusing to take into account the unworthiness of the creature, casts itself upon the mercy of God in Christ and makes copious demands upon the bank of heaven. They are wont to measure their moral and spiritual capacity by their own ability and effort, giving Christ a place, of course, but yet a scanty one. They have not yet learned to say with Paul, "I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me” (Phil. 4:13). They move too much in the realm of the natural. They have not realized that the natural is of no avail in this great conflict with evil. They have not fully grasped the meaning of the Savior's Word where He says that the flesh profiteth nothing. They have not yet stood where Paul stood when he cried, "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing” (Rom. 7:18). They have not realized that it is their "good self” not yet denied which causes them to stumble. They are willing for their "bad self” to be crucified, not aware of the fact that the "good self” is just as mischievous, for it is still "self” and victory cannot be ours until all of "self” has been assigned to the Cross according to Romans 6.
Believe What God Says
The Christian, I repeat, who hungers and thirsts after righteousness, the righteousness of a perennial victory, full-orbed, the more-than-conqueror type, is not seeking something that is not already his. In a sense God cannot make it more his than it already is. On the divine side it is a consummated thing. We get nowhere by looking at ourselves. God expects nothing of self but that it be crucified, which judicially it already is. We are not called upon as Christians to die to sin; but to recognize the fact that we have died to sin in the death of Him who, on Calvary's Cross, put an end to the old creation, that in the power of His resurrection He might bring forth the new Our old man was crucified with Christ, and in view of this fact we reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive unto God (Rom. 6:11). The reckoning does not produce the fact; it simply springs from the fact.
God's standard of victory ("thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph”) appears to be altogether unattainable for unnumbered Christians, a goal never to be reached here upon earth, however great the longings for such a thing might be, or however earnestly one might strive to achieve such a position, for the very simple reason that they are not willing to believe what God says about the matter nor to do what He says must be done. How can they reckon themselves dead to sin and alive unto God according to Romans 6:11 (the Christian basis of a victorious position), when it simply is not yet a fact? They feel that they must be honest. To state such a thing would be a lie. How can they reckon themselves dead to sin and alive unto God when it seems as though every atom of their being still responds to sin, when the world still seems to master them, and the devil, in many respects, is still king?
But they are wrong. God does not ask them to affirm something which they can believe to be true because they feel it and see it. It is not a fact in themselves. It is a fact in the eternal council of God. It is a fact in the divine economy of redemption. It is a fact in the consummation wrought by the Son of God on Calvary's Cross. It is as true as its twin fact; namely, that Christ the Lord bore our sins in His body on the Cross. Feeling this latter does not make it a fact nor does believing it. It is a fact because, when the blessed Redeemer died the shameful death of a slave and a criminal on Golgotha's cursed Tree, God tells us in His holy Word that it was to put away the sin of the world. When the sinner believes and is saved, he does not create the fact, he simply rests in the fact established since the foundation of the world when, as we read in Revelation, the Lamb of God was slain. Calvary was the visible expression of a fact already established by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.
Accept the Victory
So it is with this twin-fact of the Cross so insistently proclaimed in all of Paul's Epistles. "Our old man is crucified with [Christ]”. "Ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God” "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20). We are told that it was a fact when on the Cross the Savior cried with a loud voice, "It is finished” (John 19:30). Not only was guilt dealt with; sin as a principle was condemned (see Romans 8.3) The sin principle in you and me was crucified. You get nowhere in this question of victory until you believe it. You do not try to deceive yourself into believing you are dead to sin and alive unto God, when experience says something quite different. You are asked to reckon yourself dead to sin through Christ, because God says He dealt with the sin-principle that is in you (our old man was crucified) when the Redeemer died on Calvary's Cross. Victory is already yours if you are a Christian, but you must accept it in God's way and according to His terms.
Taken from Forever Triumphant by F.J. Huegel. Copyright ©1955 by Zondervan Publishing House.