Positional Truth
You
can’t apply the Word to your life, unless you understand your position in
Christ.
Rom
6:8; Rom 7:1-6; 2 Tim 2:11
In
union with Christ we share Christ's perfect righteousness and eternal life, in
addition
to
possessing the perfect righteousness and eternal life of the Father by
imputation.
1
Jn 5:11-12; Jn 3:36; Rom 6:23b
John 3:36 “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he
who does
not
obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
1 John 5:11 And the testimony is this, that God has given us
eternal life, and this life is in His Son
12He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the
Son of God does not have the life.
This
means we have no excuse for not building up our souls.
All
things necessary have been provided!!!
You
have a position in Christ made possible by two aspects of Positional Truth;
Retroactive
and Current.
Retroactive Positional Truth
Prior
to your salvation you were bound/married to your sin nature - “the flesh”. Rom 7:1-2
Through
baptism based on the deaths of Christ, God the Father legitimately divorced
you
from your bond to the flesh and placed you in a new life betrothed to Christ.
Baptism
means identification with someone or something.
Through baptism you were identified with Christ’s deaths on the Cross.
Retroactive Positional Truth: Is the backward-looking work of
Christ
on the Cross where He paid the price for every sin.
Our
identification with Christ’s death is broken down into 3 parts although it all
happened simultaneously.
1)
Identification with Christ’s spiritual death means positional rejection of human good and
evil.
2)
Identification with His physical death means positional separation from human good and evil.
3)
Identification with His burial means positional divorce from human good and evil.
Your
resurrection means literal rejection,
separation
and divorce
for
all time from human good and evil.
Rom
6:4-11
While
identification with Christ in His deaths and burial connotes breaking
the
power of the old sin nature, it still doesn't give us anything new.
Current Positional Truth
Identification with Christ in His resurrection, ascension,
and
session as He is seated at the right hand of the Father.
Rom
6:8-11, 14; 7:6
Retroactive P.T.
positionally breaks the power of the old sin nature,
but
Current P.T. provides
"newness of life."
Rom
6:17-18.
When
God takes away the old (by retroactive positional truth),
He
substitutes with the new (by current positional truth).
Oswald Chambers - “Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God
to do for me—
sanctification
is God’s idea of what He wants to do for me.”
Rom
8:1-5