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Glorious Things that God Declares about Every Believer

A large part of the New Testament consists of statements designed to comfort and remind believers of their status, and the many blessings that they have, by virtue of their faith in Christ. Therefore, it's worth taking some time to consider the many glorious things that God declares about believers, in the present tense, in Scripture.

We, as believers, are "children of God" (Galatians 3:26), the "sons of God" (1 John 3:1-2, John 1:12), "born of God" (1 John 5:1), begotten of God (James 1:18), "begotten again" (1 Peter 1:3), and born of "incorruptible seed" (1 Peter 1:23). This new birth created in us a "new creature" (1 Corinthians 5:17), which "cannot sin" (1 John 3:9, 5:18) because it has been "created in righteousness and true holiness" (Ephesians 4:24).

As children of God, we are "brethren" of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29, Hebrews 2:11), and therefore "joint-heirs of God" with Him (Romans 8:16-17, Galatians 4:5-7).

You have "obtained an inheritance" (Ephesians 1:11), which is an "eternal inheritance" (Hebrews 9:15), "an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:4), and so have a "hope which is laid up for you in heaven" (Colossians 1:5). You have been made to "sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6), and God has "blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3).

You "are bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 6:20, 7:23), you are one who Christ "purchased with his own blood" (Acts 20:28), you are "not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold" "but with the precious blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:18-19), and Christ "has redeemed us to God by (his) blood" (Revelation 5:9).

The Holy Spirit "dwells" inside us (2 Timothy 1:14), the Holy Ghost is "given unto us" (Romans 5:5), we have "have the firstfruits of the Spirit" (Romans 8:23), God has "sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts" (2 Corinthians 1:22, 5:5), we are "sealed" with the Spirit "unto the day of redemption" (Ephesians 4:30), and are "sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession" (Ephesians 1:13-14), which looks forward to "the redemption of our body" (Romans 8:23), when God "shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body" (Philippians 3:21), and "this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality" (1 Corinthians 15:52-54), because when Christ appears, "we shall be like him" (1 John 3:2), and shall "appear with him in glory" (Colossians 3:4).

Jesus Christ is "in you" (Colossians 1:27), and is "the truth" (John 14:6) "which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever" (2 John 1:2). God the Father, also, is "in you all" (Ephesians 4:6).

You are "the temple of God" (1 Corinthians 3:16), "the temple of the living God" (2 Corinthians 6:16), and "the temple of the Holy Ghost" (1 Corinthians 6:19).

We are "in Christ Jesus" (1 Corinthians 1:30), we "are the body of Christ" (1 Corinthians 12:27), "we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones" (Ephesians 5:30), we "are one body in Christ" (Romans 12:5), our "bodies are the members of Christ" (1 Corinthians 6:15), and since Jesus is God's "beloved Son" (Matthew 3:17), we are "accepted in the beloved" (Ephesians 1:6).

We have been "made nigh by the blood of Christ" (Ephesians 2:13), so we are "fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God" (Ephesians 2:19). We are "partakers of the inheritance of the saints" (Colossians 1:12), we "are now the people of God" (1 Peter 2:10), we are "a spiritual house, an holy priesthood" (1 Peter 2:5), "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people" (1 Peter 2:9), and we are "kings and priests unto God" (Revelation 1:6, 5:10).

You are "a Jew" (Romans 2:28-29), because you have "the circumcision of Christ" (Colossians 2:11, Philippians 3:3). We are "Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3:29), and so are inheritors of all "the promises" made to Abraham (Galatians 3:16).

You are "the elect of God" (Colossians 3:12), have the "election of God" (1 Thessalonians 1:4), because of "the faith of God's elect" (Titus 1:1), and "who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth" (Romans 8:33). You are "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father" (1 Peter 1:2), because "whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son" (Romans 8:29), "moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified" (Romans 8:30).

Jesus "hath loved us, and hath given himself for us" (Ephesians 5:2), "gave himself for our sins" (Galatians 1:4), "gave himself for us" (Titus 2:14), "died for us" (Romans 5:8), and "laid down his life for us" (1 John 3:16), when God "made him to be sin for us" (2 Corinthians 5:21), and He "bore our sins in his own body" (1 Peter 2:24).

Therefore, you have the "forgiveness of sins" (Ephesians 1:7, Colossians 1:14, Acts 26:18), "your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake" (1 John 2:12), you have "the remission of sins" (Romans 3:25, Acts 10:43), you have been "saved" from the penalty of your sins (Matthew 1:21, Ephesians 2:8, Titus 3:5, John 3:17), your "sins are covered" and not "imputed" to you (Romans 4:7-8: 2 Corinthians 5:19), Christ has "purged our sins" (Hebrews 1:3), "is the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 2:2, 4:10), "washed us from our sins in his own blood" (Revelation 1:5), and God has "forgiven you all trespasses" (Colossians 2:13), and "iniquities" (Romans 4:7), so He says "their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more" (Hebrews 8:12, 10:17).

You have "overcome the world" (1 John 5:4-5), and God "has delivered us from the power of darkness" (Colossians 1:13).

You have "passed from death unto life" (John 5:24), you have been "quickened" from the death caused by sin (Ephesians 2:1, 2:5, Colossians 2:13), and you have "risen with him" from the dead (Colossians 2:12).

You "have everlasting life" (John 3:16, 3:36, 5:24, 6:40, 6:47: 1 Timothy 1:16), you "have eternal life" (John 3:15, 6:54), you "shall live forever" (John 6:51, 6:58), you have the "promise" of "eternal life" (1 John 2:25, Titus 1:2), "the promise of eternal inheritance" (Hebrews 9:15), you have been given an "everlasting consolation" (2 Thessalonians 2:16), and an "eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:12).

You will "never hunger" and "never thirst" (John 6:35, 4:14), "shall never die" (John 11:26, 6:50), will "not perish" (John 3:15-16), "shall never perish" (John 10:28), are "not condemned" (John 3:18), "shall not come into condemnation" (John 5:24), are "saved from wrath" (Romans 5:9), are "delivered" "from the wrath to come" (1 Thessalonians 1:10), because "God hath not appointed us to wrath" (1 Thessalonians 5:9).

You have the "righteousness of God without the Law" (Romans 3:21, 4:13, 10:3-4), the "righteousness of God which is by faith" (Romans 3:22, 9:30, Philippians 3:9, Galatians 5:5, Romans 10:10), and "the gift of righteousness" (Romans 5:17-21) "imputed" to you (Romans 4:11, 4:22-25) "without works" (Romans 4:6), because your "faith is counted for righteousness" (Romans 4:5).

We are "justified by faith" (Romans 3:28, 3:30, 5:1, Galatians 3:24), "justified by the faith of Christ" (Galatians 2:16), "justified by his blood" (Romans 5:9), "justified by his grace" (Titus 3:7), "justified freely by his grace" (Romans 3:24), and "justified from all things" (Acts 13:39), because God is "the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Romans 3:26).

We are "sanctified by faith" (Acts 26:18), "sanctified by the Holy Ghost" (Romans 15:16), we have the "sanctification of the Spirit" (2 Thessalonians 2:13: 1 Peter 1:2), we "are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ" (Jude 1:1), "we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ" (Hebrews 10:10, 13:12), and "by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified" (Hebrews 10:14).

You have been "received" by Christ (Romans 15:7), you have "returned unto the Shepherd" (1 Peter 2:25), and Christ says "him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37).

You have "peace with God" (Romans 5:1), you are "reconciled to God" (Romans 5:10: 2 Corinthians 5:18, Ephesians 2:16, Colossians 1:21), are "known of God" (Galatians 4:9), and have the "love of God", permanently (Romans 8:38-39).

You have Jesus Christ praying for you by "making intercession" on your behalf (Romans 8:34, Hebrews 7:25), you have the Holy Spirit praying for you by "making intercession" on your behalf (Romans 8:26-27), Jesus Christ is your "advocate with the Father" (1 John 2:1), and you have angels "sent forth to minister" to you (Hebrews 1:14).

God "cares for you" (1 Peter 5:7), "will never leave you, nor forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5), and Christ is "with you always, even unto the end of the world" (Matthew 28:20).

Disregard for the Promises of God

In most of professing Christianity, all of these declarations are rendered inert by making them so precarious that they are almost not worth mentioning. They would be so transitory that they wouldn't apply to hardly anyone reading the letter - and if God's actual standard of perfection was used, nobody whatsoever.

Recall that the greatest Christian to ever live said "we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that I do" (Romans 7:14-15). If these declarations were contingent upon behavior, they wouldn't apply to the Apostle Paul who wrote most of them, and certainly not you, or I, or any Christian today, who fall well short of the Apostle Paul by any metric, and infinitely short of God's perfection (Romans 3:23), on a constant basis (1 John 1:8, Ecclesiastes 7:20).

If these declarations were as transitory and uncertain as most of Christianity teaches that they are, they couldn't be directed towards believers in the indiscriminate way that they are in Scripture, and certainly not in the present tense. These statements would have to be loaded with caveats, with constant reference to the person's behavior, and reminders of how shaky and uncertain these statuses are, which is the exact opposite of what we see, and imparts the exact opposite impression as the actual statements do.

Instead, we see exhortations to live righteously in light of the fact that all of these things apply to us, simply by virtue of our faith in Christ. They are encouragements based on the fact that we are exalted in hundreds of ways by virtue of our faith, not inconsequential "hope-so's" only to be obtained by the subset of the audience consisting of the few that break the Law slightly less, and walk in the flesh slightly less often, and fail to obey Christ slightly less, than their brothers and sisters.

Such a view of these declarations renders them impotent, reads hundreds of vague caveats into Scripture where none are found in the text, and diminishes Christ's work by replacing it, and all that it brings us that believe, with a synergistic system where our imperfect, tainted efforts at holiness can somehow be mixed with Christ's work to bring about all of these glorious declarations for us personally, based on ours works as the sole determining factor, as obviously, none deny that Christ has already done His part.

Conclusion

In summary, the hundreds of glorious declarations given to all believers in the present tense in Scripture are designed to set our minds at ease, comfort us, and encourage us in light of our status, which we have by virtue of our faith in Jesus Christ. They are given for all believers to revel in, rejoice in (Philippians 3:1, 4:4: 1 Thessalonians 5:16), and glory in (1 Corinthians 1:31: 2 Corinthians 10:17), to inspire us to live lives pleasing to Christ in light of our exalted status, our Eternal Security, and our wonderful present reality.