The Bible says if you have joined yourself to Christ you are dead. You have been crucified with Christ. You have a new life and it is Christ. Your new life is hidden with Christ in God. Your new life will not appear until it appears together with Him at His coming.

So you exist in two forms of life. Your first life still breathes on the earth. It is a corrupt, rebellious nature. Your new nature has been raised with Christ far above all other authority, far above every other title that can be given.

Each day you decide by your thinking, speaking, and actions which life is the real you.

The above concept is central to our understanding of the new covenant.

"You have been raised with Christ." Notice this is past tense. You already have been raised with Christ. You already are seated with Christ at the right hand of God.

Perhaps we tend to think of such statements as being figurative, or "nice," or something we say in church. But the fact that we have been crucified with Christ and raised with Christ is the very essence of the new covenant.

Obviously (from the Scripture) we no longer are alive on the earth. Our true life is at the right hand of God. Yet we know we indeed are alive on the earth (or in the spirit realm with the rest of the dead, because the truth we are teaching here has no relationship to whether we are alive in our old nature on the earth, or deceased and conscious somewhere in the heavens).888

We are alive in that we think, we speak, we act, we plan, we remember, we choose. Although by faith we testify we have been crucified with Christ and are risen with Him, yet in another sense our original personality is living and moving about on the earth. How we behave in our original personality is of the greatest importance in the Kingdom of God, in nourishing and establishing our new life at the right hand of God in the heavens.

We Already Are There

And his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. (Ephesians 1:19-21—NIV)

The Lord Jesus is seated forever at the right hand of God in the heavenly realms. The Lord Jesus will never leave the right hand of God, even though today He comes among us on earth when we are gathered in His name. Also He is here on earth wherever the true saints are, for we are the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

To be continued.