GLOBAL GRACE - OCTOBER 2014 Do You Have The Belt of Truth? 14. We Believe That We Are Perfect in Christ Before God Hebrews 10:22 “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” Hebrews 10:14 “For by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” No, we do not believe that we are at present morally and ethically perfect and sinless, but we definitely believe that Jesus was the perfect sacrifice on the cross and that He planted the spotlessly pure and holy new man in our hearts. We also believe that our Lord Jesus presents us to God on the basis of what He did on the cross and not according to what we try and do ourselves. Therefore we believe that the reborn Christian has a ‘status’ before God and that is being completely pure and totally without error or sin. We also believe we have a practical ‘standing’ which is not wholly without sin or perfect. But by grace we know that God judges us "in Christ", in our perfected state and not in our secular and inadequate standing. We believe and know too that a Christian who understands his or her perfect, new-man status before God will not become careless and think that he or she can sin as they wish because God has already declared us perfected. Romans 6 teaches us exactly how the Spirit works in us now that we have been perfected and how our sinful bodies should be working in the service of God and how every part of us should be offered to Him as an instrument of righteousness. The old man cannot be restored completely, but by the indwelling of God's Spirit the body will be in service to the glory of God as far as possible and under the authority of the Holy Spirit.