IN HEAVEN NOW
“For [the old] you have died [with Christ on His cross] and your [new] life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).
Jesus takes our place on earth so that we may share His place in the Father in Heaven (John 15:4-7).
BEING BORN AGAIN
Just how are we born again? We are born again when we not only believe the ministry of the Holy Spirit (who reveals the truth of the scriptures about the Son of God); but also repent of our sins, and ask Christ Jesus to forgive us and to come into our hearts and be our life. Amazing.
Our Heavenly Father hears us and commissions the Holy Spirit to implant the Son’s spirit and His spiritual heart [the seat of character] into the new inner person within the believer on earth. (1 Cor. 3:6-7 & Eph. 3:16-19.)
This implantation of Jesus’ spirit and new heart revives the new believer’s comatose spirit and replaces the believer’s old heart that is dead toward God (Eze. 36:26-27).
The Lord states in Ezekiel what He will do and how He will do it.
Ezekiel 36:25: “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.” 26 Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.
OUR NEW SPIRIT
Why the Son’s spirit? Because the Son died for our sins, in order to take the penalty for those sins – which was death. He was both man and God, thereby fulfilling the requirement for the death of “man.” Not only did He take our place in the punishment of death, but when He rose from that death, He became (what they call) the “step down God.” Like a frequency voltage converter. The spiritual power given to us needed to be stepped down if we were to receive it. We could not contain all the spiritual voltage of the Father. The Lord says in Ezekiel 36:25 that it is His Spirit. Therefore, because He is both Man and God, we may receive it.
OUR NEW HEART
The Lord does not wake up the old hard heart. He replaces it. He gives us a new heart … one that is tender toward our Heavenly Father.
THE NEW INNER PERSON
The new inner person of spirit and heart in the believer is now to live in two places at the same time, since the believer is now joined to Christ who lives both in the believer on earth and in Heaven with the believer within the Father.
“For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).
God, the Holy Trinity, can be both in Heaven and on earth at the same time, and so can the believer’s inner person who is joined to God. Our renewed human spirits indwelt by Christ’s spirit are also able to be in more than one place at a time on earth.
Jesus described this initial gift of being born again in these words:
“Abide in Me, [in Heaven] and I in you [on earth] … he who abides [hidden] in Me [above] and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
If one is truly born again of God, the sure sign of this new life is the believer’s heart’s desire to be hidden, so that Christ alone in the believer will bring forth the character of the Father.
OTHERS
Another glorious ministry the Lord imparts to us is the love of other people just as Jesus loves us. For our renewed spirits abide hidden with Him in God the Father in Heaven, so the Holy Trinity may abide in us on earth. The translation of the believer’s inner person into Heaven is a major reason for the born-again person to display Christ only on earth.
We are to share the oneness between the Father and the Son. Jesus prayed for this four times on the night before He was crucified (John 17:11, 21, 22, 23).
“That they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me” John 17:23.
And, the most important part of sharing the oneness in God is one divine love.
Another reason for self-denial by the believer on earth is that we have no true and righteous soul life in the flesh; only that soul life which comes from the Father through Jesus. Our old soulish nature is not of God but of the flesh which is sin tainted (Rom. 6:6 & John 8:44).
Therefore the old saying in church is true. Full salvation is both completed in Christ and is also a process. When born again your spirit is saved. Your soul (mind, will and emotions) is being saved and your body will be saved. The saying goes:
“I am saved
I am being saved and
I will be saved.”
Your body will not be fully saved until you receive your new body in Heaven. Your spirit is saved when you accept Christ. However, the “flesh” of the soul must be replaced bit by bit with Christ. The “flesh” of the soul life must be replaced by the work of the cross in our lives. That is the reason the Word tells us that we can lose our soul life if we continue living our lives in the flesh (Rom. 8:13). The work of the cross in our lives is a process that begins when we are saved and continues until we finish our lives on earth.
OUR HIDDENNESS WITHIN GOD
The believer’s abiding in Heaven or “hidden with Christ in God” involves not displaying our natural or fleshly selves on earth. God takes our place on earth that we may share His place in Heaven now. God gives no grace for us to exhibit our own soul life, for it has been forever removed from the plan of God since Jesus’ resurrection and ascension into Heaven as the one person of the new human race.
“By abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity” (Eph. 2:15-16).
We are fully satisfied when all is of God within us. Christ Jesus is meant to come forth effortlessly in all circumstances. We do not know at this time what the unique combination of the virtues and personality traits of Christ Jesus that will be implanted into each of us when we are resurrected. But we know that we shall be distinctly like Him forever.
“When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Col. 3:4).
“Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2).
