"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has crowned us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ; even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." Ephesians 1:3-6. (Weys translation.)

Sin Consciousness has given us a wrong picture of God and a wrong picture of the New Creation. It has made us see God as a holy, just, austere, and unapproachable Being who is ever on the alert to discover sin in us and condemn us. That conception has made us afraid and caused us to shrink from Him.

The conception is wrong: He is a Father God. John 14.23 says that He will make His home with us. "If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." John 16:27, "For the Father himself loveth you." John 17:23, "That the world may know that thou didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou lovedst me." This is a complete repudiation of the modern theological view of the Father God. When we know Him as a loving, tender Father who longs for our fellowship and longs to live with us, the whole picture is changed.

Relationship teaching has never been given its place. We have never thought of ourselves as the very sons and daughters of God. Most of the hymns written on this subject tell us that we are adopted into the family of God. We know that an adopted child is not a real child and never can be.

The child of God is not only recreated and born of the Spirit of God, but he is also legally adopted. Romans 8:15, "For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." He has a double relationship-a legal relationship and a vital relationship with the Father God.

The New Creation fact has never been brought to the front. The Word declares that we are New Creations; that the old things connected with the "fallen nature" are passed away. The old things of doubt, fear, and bondage to sickness and want have passed away.

Romans 6:5-11, "For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness (or united with) of His resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; for he that hath died is justified from sin.

But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him; knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death no more hath dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died unto sin once: but the life that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus."

The New Creation is complete in Christ, perfectly cared for, perfectly loved. In the presence of such great Scriptures, as 2 Cor. 5:21, we should repudiate every thought of weakness and Sin consciousness, rise to the level of our place in Christ, and declare our freedom.

Two Kinds of Righteousness

E.W. Kenyon