“You are from beneath: I am from above; you are of this world; I am not of this world.” John 8:23) Jesus said this to the angry Pharisees; however, referring to his disciples, he said: “They are not of this world, just as I am not of this world.” He said this while praying to his Father in Heaven (John 17:14).
You might question: did not the Pharisees, Jesus, and the disciples all live in the same world? How then were the disciples not in it? They were in it physically but they were in a different world spiritually. Every “born again” or “born from above” believer no longer can be spoken of as being “from beneath”!
It takes a while for new believers to reconcile their new “above” origin with their old “below” location. Jesus spoke these words while he was on earth. Do you speak from earth or from Heaven?
Whenever you say, “I’m nobody special and I don’t see myself as going anywhere in life,” you are speaking from your old, below self. But when you say “I am a new creation in Jesus Christ” you are speaking from your new self, from your heavenly status.
You need to learn to speak of yourself not as who you once were but as who you now are. While praying, Jesus said to his Father: “As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them (his disciples) into the world.” (John 17:18) He said, “They are not of this world.” We are in the world but are not of the world. A “new creation” in Jesus has a new origin.
Jesus spoke of believers in anticipation; not as who they were but as who they would be. He called those who were not as though they were because that was how he saw them; as how they would be in him after he rose from the dead and was glorified.
So even in the dirtiest places we are as spiritually clean as Jesus was when on earth. When a repentant prostitute washed his feet with her tears, and then dried them with her hair, no sin was awakened in him because none had been asleep in him.
None of us were born sinners; we were born with the sin prone fallen nature of Adam. We became sinners when we sinned knowingly against God. But when “born again” – “born from above” – we became “partakers of the divine nature” — the sinless nature that Jesus had been born with.
This is why the Apostle John writes: “That which is born of God cannot sin…” We can sin physically but our new spiritual nature itself does not, indeed it cannot. So, when tempted we need to “count ourselves as dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God through Jesus Christ”.
This means that when Jesus died we died with him (Galatians 2:20). Dead people do not sin, nor do those who count themselves as dead to sin and as buried in water baptism as acts of identification with him. We confess to God the sins we commit as believers, and He cleanses from them (1 John 1:9) The living, risen, glorified Jesus is our Great High Priest.
Have you been living “beneath” your status in Christ by thinking of yourself as the sinner you once were rather than the new creation you now are? If so, it’s time to begin living the “above” life that is yours in Jesus Christ. God loved you, Jesus saved you, and the Holy Spirit daily sets you apart for God’s purpose in this sin-sick world, which you are no longer “of” but “in”: the world in which you still live.
It was not possible under the old sacrificial system for those who had sinned to then have no more consciousness of sin. Sacrifices were in fact reminders of sins committed. However, because of the offering of the blood of Jesus on the Cross, God no longer remembers our sins — not one of them. So why then do we?