A Romance in Redemption,

by E. W. Kenyon

We are dealing with the almost unknown fact of our Identification with Christ. At once you ask, "What does Identification mean?" It means our complete union with Him in His substitutionary Sacrifice.

I died with Christ.

I was buried with Christ.

I suffered with Christ.

I was made alive with Christ.

Now I am seated with Him.

This little preposition "with" is the key that has unlocked a long-hidden truth that is of vital importance to us.

The first two or three chapters of this little book will lead you into the ante-chamber of God's greatest Revelation with the New Creation.

CHAPTER ONE

THE LAW OF IDENTIFICATION

The teaching of Identification is the legal side of our Redemption.

It reveals to us what God did in Christ for us, from the time He went to the Cross, until He sat down on the right hand of the Father. The vital side of Redemption is what the Holy Spirit, through the Word, is doing in us now.

Several times Paul uses the preposition "with" in connection with His Substitutionary teaching.

Gal. 2: 20 "I have been crucified WITH Christ."

Then he tells us that "he died WITH Christ, that "he was buried WITH Christ."

This gives us the key that unlocks the great teachings of Identification.

He became one with us in death, that we might be one with Him in life.

There is a two-fold oneness; first His oneness with our sin on the cross; second, our oneness with Him in His glory on the throne.

Ept. 2: 6 "And raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus."

He became as we were, so that we might become as He is.

He died to make us live.

He was made sin to make us Righteous.

He became weak to make us strong.

He suffered shame to give us glory.

He went to Hell in order to take us to Heaven.

He was condemned in order to Justify us.

He was made sick in order that healing might be ours.

He was cast out from the presence ofGod in order to make us welcome there.

In the fact of Identification we have one of the richest phases of Redemption.

CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST

When Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ," it meant he had been judged, condemned, cast out, stripped naked, and nailed to the cross.

The very thought of crucifixion to a Jew, and especially to a Pharisee, brought a sense of shame and horror.

When Saul of Tarsus identified himself with the Man, Jesus, accepted Him as his Savior, and confessed Him as his Lord, that moment he became a crucified man to the Jewish people.

He became an outcast.

No wonder he said in Gal. 6: 14 that the world had been crucified unto him, and he had been crucified unto the world.

The world had been stripped naked to Paul.

There was no longer any delusion in regard to it.

He could no longer be deceived.

He knew its cruelty.

He had felt its lash upon his back.

He remembered the stoning that had left him unconscious.

He remembered that in every place he went, he faced the anger, bitterness, and jealousy of men.

He had been stripped naked to the world.

There was nothing in him that the world desired.

That little Jew, with his mighty message, and his tremendous power in prayer, had been crucified to the world.

We understand what crucifizion actually means.

Paul saw his Identification with Christ in His crucifixion.

We understand that crucifixion did not mean death.

It meant union with Christ in His disgrace and suffering.

Rom. 6: 6 "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."

Crucifixion points the way to death.

In the Spirit's great argument of our Indentication with Christ He said that our old man, this hidden man of the heart, our spirit, the real man who was filled with spiritual death, Satanic nature, was nailed to the cross in Christ.

Christ went there, not for Himself, not as a martyr, but as a Substitute.

We were nailed to the cross with Christ.

We were crucified with him.

The object of the crucifixion, in the mind of the mob, was to get rid of this Man whom they hated.

In the mind of Justice it meant His Identification with humanity in its sin and suffering, and our Identification with Him in His crucifixion.

HE WAS MADE SIN

In the great drama of our Redemption, as soon as Christ was nailed to the cross, with His crown of thorns,and with the howling mob that surrounded Him, Justice began to do its awful work behind the scenes.

Sense-Knowledge men and women who surrounded the cross could only see the physical man, Jesus, hanging there.

God could see His spirit.

Angels could see His spirit.

Demons could see the real man, hidden in that body.

Then came the dreadful hour when 2 Corinthians 5:21 was fulfilled.

"Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him."

Isaiah 53:5: "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."

On that awful cross, He not only became sin, but He became a curse, for in Galatians 3:13 it tells us, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everone that hangeth on a tree." (The word "us" there refers to the Jews).

He came as a Jew under the First Covenant to redeem all those who were under that Covenant from the curse of the Law.

When He was hanging on the cross, He was not only sin, but He became a curse.

Is it any wonder that God turned His back upon Him?

Is it any wonder He cried in His agony, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

He had taken the sinner's place in Judgment.

All the forces of darkness had overwhelmed Him.

He was our sin Substitute.

Sin was not reckoned to Him. Sin was not set to His account. He became sin.

Our Senses reel under the staggering thought of it.

We cannot grasp it.

Only our spirits can fathom the depths of His agony.

You can hear Paul cry, (Philippians 3:10) "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection,a nd the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death."

Paul's prayer amazes me.

He wanted to share in the death-agonies of Christ.

He wanted to fellowship in His sufferings.

But Paul could not do that.

No one could do it.

No angel could do it.

It was God's own work that must be wrought.

When he surrendered His Son to death, He unveiled a love that beggars description.

Chapter Four

HE WAS MADE SICK

The next step in this awful drama is found in Isaiah 53: 3-5. (R.V., marg.)

It was not what the Roman soldiers nor the angry mob did. It was what God did.

It shocks us when we realize that He was stricken, smitten of God with our diseases and our sin [truly it shocks me, as I have accepted somewhat he bore my sin, but all my sicknesses too? But he must have, as this scripture is true!--Ed.]

There was laid upon Him the diseases and sicknesses of the human race.

\ Isaiah 53:10 "Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath made him sick."

He was not only made sin and separated from His Father, until His broken heart cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" but the diseases of the human race fell upon Him.

Isaiah 52:14 (Margin, Cross-Reference Bible) "Just as many were amazed over Him, and princes on His account shuddered, were astonished and appalled, amazed, frightened. His visage was so marred, unlike to a man, and His form unlike to the sons of man, so deformed was His appearance not to be a man, and His figure no longer resembled a man [now we know from this scripture how the artists have gotten the picture of Christ so terribly wrong, in the effort probably to be reverential toward Christ on the Cross they have simply overlooked or painted a completely contrary picture to what Christ really looked like; we also know for sure he was hanging naked, as the it is said the Romans stripped him prior to nailing him to the cross, and no artist would ever portray Christ as naked, and that is quite all right, they shouldn't, only the figure of Christ, his features, even are clearly not depicted as disfigured to the point the Bible describes, as to be no longer human looking!--Ed.]

This was spiritual suffering [the inner disfigurement of mortal diseases he took into himself on our behalf].

This was when the hidden man of the heart became not only sin, but sickness.

This was the spiritual side of the agony of the cross.

This was when our sin and diseases were laid upon His spirit.

His spirit was made sin.

His spirit was made sick.

If the heart could only take it in that He was made sin, and that we were Identified with Him on the cross, then we could grasp the reality of His Substitutionary work [true, true, true! But to this day hardly any of us, including myself, grasps the significance or reality of Christ's Substitutionary Sacrifice our behalf, we think it is just something Christ did because he is constitutionally so merciful and kind and loving--no, no, no! He is merciful, kind, and loving, but Substitution is kind of like this. Your friend is condemned to the firing squad for sure. You choose to take his place so your friend might live and not die. You are shot to death and then thrown into a hole in the ground and buried somewhere. The horror of that death and ignoble burial as a criminal, you take on yourself for your friend. That is Substitutionary Sacrifice, somewhat like Christ's. He took far more suffering than that, so much so it is hardly a comparison, but it may help a little.--Ed.]. The truth has been a doctrine instead of a reality to most of us.

He not only laid our sin on Him, but He laid us on Him.

The whole man was involved in the sacrifice--His spirit, Soul, and His body.

We were nailed to the cross with Him and in Him.

Our diseases were part of Him.

When the heart recognizes this, it will be the end of the dominion of disease.

For if He was made sick with our sickness, Satan has no legal right to put diseases on us, and in the Name of Jesus we can free ourselves from Satan's power.

True, we have mortal bodies, but this mortal body is filled with the life of God.

2 Corinthians 5:4 "That what is mortal may be swallowed up of life."

Romans 6:14 "Sin shall not have dominion over you," or literally, "Sin shall not lord it over you."

Neither shall disease and pain lord it over us.

We see now that if Satan has lost his dominion, he cannot put disease on us.

We understand that sickness is spiritual. It is manifested in our physical bodies as a disease. The world sees sickness in our bodies, God sees sickness in our spirits. God heals us through the Word.

it is the Word that heals our spirits.

It is the Word that recreates us.

It is the Word that produces faith.

It is the Word that unveils to us what we really are in Christ--New Creations.

It is the Word, then, that brings healing to these sick spirits of ours.

Sickness is a spiritual condition manifested in the physical body.

If He was made sin, and if He put our sin away, we need not be ruled by it.

If He was made sick with our sickness, and if He put our diseases away, we need not be ruled by sickness and disease [and yet you hear yourself and perhaps other Christians too saying, "My cancer..." "My cancer?" It isn't yours, it is the enemy's, never yours or mine. We ought never accept any sickness as ours, when it isn't. Christ took it all on himself, every sickness, so that what we have is not ours to claim and keep and suffer from, but to send back where it originated--to the Devil! For he has no legal right to afflict us with any disease whatsoever, now that Christ took away all sin and sickness upon Himself on the cross.--Ed.]. We, with our sins and sickneses, were nailed to the cross in Christ.

CHAPTER FIVE

WE DIED WITH HIM

Jesus died twice on the cross.

I knew this for many years, but I had no scriptural evidence of it.

One day I discovered Isaiah 53:9, the answer to my long search.

"And they made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his deaths."

The word "death" is plural in the Hebrew.

Many of you who have Bibles with marginal renderings will notice it.

That is, Jesus died two deaths on the cross. He died spiritually before he died physically.

In John 10:18 He said that no one could take His life from Him.

He could not be killed; He could not die.

Why? BecAuse His body was not mortal.

Jesus had a body like Adam's before he sinned.

It was a perfect, human body, not Mortal, nor Immortal.

It was a body that could not die until sin had taken possession of His spirit.

In other words, Jesus had to die spiritually before He could die physically.

If Jesus' body had been like yours and mine, then He ws not Deity, He was not a Substitute, and He did not die for our sins, He merely died as a martyr.

But if He had a body like the first man Adam's body, that was not Mortal, not subject to death, (that would mean subject to Satan) then He was Deity.

If our last chapter we saw man nailed to the cross with Christ.

In this we see the human race died with the Crucified One.

Paul says,"If we died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him." Romans 6:8 and 2 Timothy 2: 11.

In these scriptures we notice we died with Christ when He died.

He was our Substitute.

We were one with Him on the cross.

We were one with Him in His death.

He died under our Judgment, in our stead.

He died because He was made sin.

If we accept Him, there can be no judgment for us.

Isaiah 53:10-12 "Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him, he hath made him sick: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see His seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand. he shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by the knowledge of himself shall my righteous servant justify many; and he shall bear gtheir iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for transgressors."

That sounds just like the Pauline Revelation, doesn't it?

The Pauline Revelation is an unveiling of what happened from the time that Jesus was made sin on the cross, until He sat down at the right hand of God.

Nowhere else can we find that knowledge.

This is Substitution.

This is absolute Identification.

This is a part of the great Substitutionary truth in prophecy.

He poured out His life into death.

Through that death we were made alive.

It was our sin that slew Him.

He drank the cup of death, that we might drink the cup of life.

In that mighty ministry before He arose from the death, He destroyed death's lordship.

When death slew Him, it slew itself.

He conquered sin when He allowed it to overcome Him.

He conquered Satan when He let Satan gain the mastery over Him.

He became one with Satan in spiritual death, to make us one wih God in spiritual life.

"Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousnes of God in Him." (2 Corinthians 5:21). He became one of us in weakness, in sin, in disease, and in spiritual death, that He might make us one with Himself in Righteousness, in perfect health, and fellowship with the Father.

He became death's prisoner in order to set us free.

In the mind of Justice, we died to sin and its dominion when we died with Christ.

"He that hath died is justified from sin." (Romans 6:7).

He is free from the lordship of spiritual death.

There was in God'smind at the Crucifixion, a perfect oneness of Christ with us, and in the Resurrection and New Birth, a perfect oneness of us in Christ.

Just as Jesus conquered death by submitting to it, we in the New Creation conquer Satan by submitting to the Lordship of Jesus.

We and our diseases were laid on Him, and became a part of Him when He was made sin with our sin.

We were healed by becoming partakers of His divine nature.

Disease and sickness do not belong to the New Creation.

It is an abnormal thing in the mind of the Father for a child of God to be sick.

We died with Him.

We died to the dominion of sin.

We died to the dominion of circumstances and habits.

I Peter 2:24 becomes a reality.

"Who his own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed."

This is Identification, our utter onness with Him in sin and Judment on the cross.

"That we, having died unto sins." His death and our death are identical.

This is not His physical death.

This is spiritual.

He died twice there.

He partook of our spiritual death. We were utterly one with Him in that Judgment.

"That we might live unto "Righteousness." Or, that we might partake of His Righteousness as he partook of our sins, that we might be Righteous as He became sin with our sins.

Then the next marvelous statement: "By whose stripes ye were healed."

He not only had our sin nature, but He had our diseases.

He took over our diseases; He put them away when He put our sin away.

"By His stripes we are healed."

This is thrilling. As He put our sin and diseases away by becoming sin and disease for us, so we partake of His Righteousness and healing when we accept His work for us.

Christ has died once for all as our Sin Substitute.

He, in judgment, met the demands of Justice for us.

He took them with Him when He went to the place of Substitution, the place of Judgment, the place of suffering.

I am convinced that the Father sees us in Christ as perfect, as the finished work of Christ is perfect.

He saw that our union with Satan was a perfect union.

We were once with the devil.

He laid our spiritual death on Christ.

Ephesians 2:10 "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus."

That work was wrought by the great master workman, Christ, before He arose from the dead.

The Father sees us now in all our beauty and perfection in Christ.

This beauty is all His own. He made us to please His own heart.

We died to sin once for all in Christ.

We died to Satan's dominion.

We died to the old habits that held us in bondage.

We do not need to die again.

The theory of our dying daily with Christ comes from the old version, "I am crucified," which is an incorrect translation.

The passage in 1 Corinthians 15:31 is speaking of Paul's living in the presence of physical death, the expectation of being thrown to the lions in the arena.

We died once with Christ.

Now we live with Him, we reign with Him.

His perfect Redemption is ours.

His perfect Righteousness is ours.

All He is and did is ours.

All we are is His.

The Father made us one with Himself in Christ.

We have seen Him under the absolute dominion and power of the adversary on the cross.

We saw Him leave the cross, bearing our diseases and sins away as He was conveyed to our place of confinement.

WSe can see Satan's gratification.

We can see that great celebration in Hell when Satan brought Jesus, a captive, into the prisonhouse.

Read Acts 2:24, 27, 31-32.

[Now most of us do not, or cannot, conceive of Christ being bound by Satan a captive in this way. We think of Him as victorious. Yes, Christ was victorious, but He also submitted to the very things that destroyed and condemned us to hell. He submitted so that he might know all we are enslaved to as sinners in order to know it and then set us free by breaking the bonds that bound him, the bonds of sin, death, and hell. It must have been the greatest dramatic scene down there in hell, when Christ was led a captive by Satan to be presented to the rejoicing evil legions of hell along with all those condemned to hell by their unforgiven sins--the damned. At that time there were two compartments too, the compartment holding the damned souls, and the one holding the saints who awaited deliverance, in the place called Abraham's Bosum. It must have been a terrible scene for the saints to see the Messiah/Christ their Hope come in bound by Satan as one condemned to hell forever.--Ed.]

You remember how the Philistines rejoiced over Samson, and with what joy they put out his eyes and bound him in helplessness [no doubt the demons intended to do worse now to the captive Christ!--Ed].

What a gala day it must have been in Hell when He who had raised Lazarus from the dead, had destroyed the power of death and disease, had ruled the winds and the waves, had fed the hungry, cast out demons, and defeated Satan in open combat, was conquered and made one with the devil.

He was made sick.

They could see in Him all the diseases of the age.

What an hour it must have been [truly, it must have appeared as if Jesus's Heavenly Father had abandoned him, just as was indicated when Jesus cried out on the Cross with utmost anguish, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"--Ed.]

When the disciples took His body from the cross, embalmed it, and laid it in Joseph's tomb, how little they appreciated what He was going through, and what His sufferings were.

How little the world appreciated where Jesus was and what He was doing [while in Hell--Ed.]

They laid His body in the tomb, and the Roman Government sealed it and set guards to keep watch to see that the body of Jesus was not stolen.

They had heard Him cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

God had forsaken Him whom they loved [so it appeared!--Ed.].

They had lost all hope. They had thought that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.

For three days and three nights the Lamb of God was our Substitute in Hell.

He was there for us.

He had our pains and our diseases, our sins and iniquities.

He was there waiting until the claims of Justice were fully met.

Such an hour had never been, never can be again.

There had to be an adequate meeting of the penalty of the transgressions of the human race, and He met them.

He became one with Satan when He became sin, as we now become one with Him when we are Recreated.

He endured all that humanity could suffer. It was Deity suffering for humanity.

The eighty-eighth Psalm reads in the margin of the Cross-Reference Bible: "He laid Him in the lowest pit, the pit of the underworld, in the dark places, in dense darkness."

7th verse, "Thy wrath lieth hard upon me." Thy wrath presseth, thou hast laid thy fury upon me. All thy breakers thou has brought upon me. Thou hast let all thy waves strike me. Thou hast let come all thy breakers upon me.

"I have called upon thee my God, day and night; and thou hearest me not."

3rd verse, "Full of trouble, weighted with evils, Thou has brought me to Sheol, the kingdom of death. I am become a man without God."

The heart cannot take it in.

The mind stands dumb in the presence of truth like this.

15th verse, "While distracted--I endure, I am brought low, I am turned backward. I have borne thy terrors so that I am distracted--helpless. The outbursts of Thy wrath, thy streams of wrath have cut me off.

"Thou hast removed from me mine acquaintances, even lover and friend, in the Place of Darkness.

FOUR DIVINE ATTRIBUTES SEEN IN HELL

Then we come to the most remarkable part of the suffering of Christ.

He cried, "Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall they that are deceased arise and praise thee?"

Down there in that awful place, God showed His wonders to the dead.

HIS POWER WAS DISPLAYED

He let them see the awfulness of Sin, and the absolute Justice of God.

HIS LOVE WAS DISPLAYED

More than that, He showed the loving kindness of God. He said, "Shall thy loving kindness be shown in the grave?"

HIS ETERNAL FAITHFULNESS DISPLAYED

"Or thy faithfulness in Destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark?"

HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS DISPLAYED

"And thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?"

They saw Jesus, who had been made sin with our sin, made as Righteous as He was before He was made sin.

In seeing Him made Righteous, Satan witnessed the fact that Righteousness was made possible for the human in the New Creation [this is an absolute and most stupendous miracle and wonder of God, a Holy Father wiping out sin completely in His Son, forgiving all that sin his Son carried in himself, and making his Son completely righteous!--Ed.]

Christ was made alive right there in the realm of death.

He was called, "the firstborn out of death."

God said to Him, "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee."

The hosts of Hell saw Him born out of death [indeed, a greater prior resurrection, a rising forth from sin and death and hell!--Ed.]. They witnessed the triumph of God, and the glory of our matchless Christ.

Wasn't it good of Him to give us this graphic picture not only of His death and suffering, but of His triumph and glory?

Throughout Eternity, in the archives of the Supreme Court of the Universe, there will be recorfds of the Son's visit to Hell, of Satan's defeat, and of man's legal Redemption [no one will be able to deny these facts or doubt them, or claim they are a mere story--Ed.].

They saw Him put off from Himself the principalities and the powers.

They saw Him paralyze the death-dealing ability of Satan.

They saw Him conquer the hosts of the Black Leader.

They saw Him strip Satan of the authority and dominion of which he had robbed Adam in the Garden.

They saw Him arise from the death, a victor.

They knew it was the victory of the New Creation.

They saw us made alive with Him, Justified with Him,Raised with Him,made victors with Him.

Revelation 1:17-18 was His song of victory.

"I am the first and the last, and the Living one, and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades."

[We should note that Satan did not give up his authority and powers in Hell willingly; he was forced to give them up; Christ, who defeated Satan, tore from Satan's hands the keys of death and hell. Because of Christ's victory on our behalf, we are no longer Satan's condemned subjects and slaves, we are free in Christ forever, and are made New Creations. Satan now has really no power at all over us, unless we give it to him.--Ed.]

Chapter Eight

MADE ALIVE WITH HIM

Colossians 2:13 "And you, being dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you I say, did he make alive together with Him."

Ephesians 2:5 "Even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ."

This is the heart of Redemption.

en thee."

Romans 6:5 "For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection."

Here we witness the miracle of the Eternities. It took place in that subterranean prisonhouse of death. Jesus was made alive.

Acts 13:33 "God hath fulfilled the same unto our children, in that he raised up Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten thee."

Paul, by the Spirit, gave us Colossians 1:18.

"And he is the head of the body,t he church: who is the beginning, THE FIRSTBORN FROM THE DEAD; that in all things he might have the preeminence."

He was dead with our death. He had died twice: spiritually and physically.

I Peter 3:18 "Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the (or His) spirit."

[I wonder how much of this we humanly can grasp or believe--it has to be by the Spirit that we receive this revelation, it cannot come into us any other way, as it is not of this world, these realities that Christ knew and experienced and then shared with us!--Ed.]

This was not the Holy Spirit; this was His Spirit.

What a transformation must have taken place.

How it must have shaken the foundation of that awful place when they saw Him made alive, break the bonds of spiritual death, and hurl back the forces of death that had overwhelmed Him on the cross [and this was no pretty scene either, as the artists like to portray--it had to be the most ghastly but triumphal scene, as Christ conquered death and the powers of death and hell and utterly defeated and subdued them, every one of them!--Ed.].

Now we can understand Ephesians 2:10 "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus."

When were we created? In the mind of Justice it was when Jesus was recreated down there.

That is when the Church was really born of God.

GOD'S FAITH IN HIS SON'S WORK

God is a faith God. He counted the things that were not [non-existent thing yet] as though they were [existent things].

Down there in Hell He counted us Righteous, counted us alive.

He counted us New Creations. His sons and daughters before the day of Pentecost came and the first contingent of the body of Christ came into being.

He counted the things that were not as though they were, and they became.

The moment we accepted Him as our Savior and Lord, this New Birth is made a reality in us.

[Now this may seem like theological jargon to us, language that we seldom if ever use to convey meaning to each other, but it is the Bible language we must deal with, as it is. We can use whatever translation, thankfully, that conveys most meaning to us in the terms we understand better. But we should keep in mind that these Realities are not theology, they are actual existing things. We are New Creations, that is, actual living beings in Christ. Our flesh is going to die and vanish, but not so our spirit beings, which are everlasting in Christ! Would you want to keep your body alive forever? Of course not. But the real lasting you is your spirit being, and that is perfect and wonderful and forever blessed in Christ--that is what you wish to be for all eternity, not this dying, sickness-prone, imperfect, sin-riddled old body of flesh. As for the other Realities, the triumph over death and hell--that too is part of our legacy and inheritance in Christ Jesus--so very important. We have a place in heaven forever with Him, since we have immortality he gained for us, heavenly residence in His presence guaranteed us, that will never lapse or run out. Death and hell are not going to be realities for us-- they will pass away from us completely--we shall not be touched by them, it is impossible that they would ever touch us, as Christ conquered them completely, once and for all, and then swept them away from us. We shall never have to be afraid again of anything that could harm us. All things that could do that were defeated by Christ and swept away forever into a place reserved for them--the lake of fire. Christ has given us these Realities and more, they are ours to enjoy and experience forever with Him, in joy and fellowship with Him and the other saints forever. Yes, we see very little of these Realities now, but they are ours, nevertheless, if we are his true children.].