There were giants in the earth in those days. (Genesis 6:4)
How the imagination plays with a statement like that. They were physical giants.
We have mental giants in our day, but the world’s greatest giants are spiritual giants, giants in the realm of faith. They belong to the new order.
In Arthur S. Way’s translation of Philippians 1:17, he tells us, “Those who are animated by love do it [herald the Messiah’s coming] because they know that I am the appointed champion of the glad-tidings.”
How my heart thrilled over that: “the appointed champion of the glad-tidings” of Christ.
If we could get together all the statements that the Father made through Paul, John, and James about the new creation, I think it would stagger you.
He opens the drama with Colossians 1:13–14. Let me give you Way’s translation of it: “He hath rescued us from the tyranny of darkness, and hath transferred us into the Kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have our ransoming, the remission of our sins.”
Notice what we are. We have been translated out of the thralldom of satanic dominion. We have been born of God by the Spirit. We have been born into the family of God. We have received remission of everything that we ever did in our past lives. We have been made new creations, created in Christ Jesus.
It is our spirit, our real self, the hidden man of the heart, that has been recreated. We have become a new spirit, a new self, a new creation.
Our theologians have never grasped this. They have never understood that we had anything beyond forgiveness of sins. If that is all we have, then the sin nature that required a substitute has never been removed. It is still dominant in us.
The Word declares, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Did you notice that strange word, behold? That is an exclamation of surprise and wonder. Have you taken it in? Something has happened in us.
We have become partakers of the divine nature, and our past has stopped being. We are new creation people.
In the first creation, recorded in the first chapter of Genesis, it took six days to make the first creation. It took three days and three nights to perfect the new creation.
I want you to notice carefully that everything in that first creation was the work of God. Everything in this new creation is of God and man had no part in it, only that he accepts it.
I wonder if you have ever noticed Way’s translation of Colossians 1:9–12. It is so striking and literally true that I want to quote it:
For this reason I too, ever since the day I heard of you, have not ceased to pray for you. I ask God that you may have in full measure that perfect knowledge of His will which is an essential of all true wisdom, of all spiritual intelligence. I ask Him that you may pass through life in a manner worthy of our Lord, so as to please Him entirely. I ask that in every good work you may, as trees of His planting, still be bearing fruit, still growing higher, in the perfect knowledge of God. I ask Him that with all His strength you may be strengthened, even to the measure of the might of His divine majesty, till you attain to all-enduring patience and forbearance, which exults under suffering, I ask that you may ever render thanksgiving to the Father, who has made us fit to have a share in the inheritance of His consecrated ones who walk in light.
The Spirit knew that some of the new creation folk would doubt the reality of the new creation, and so through Paul’s lips, He prays this remarkable prayer, that we new creation people may be filled with the exact perfect knowledge of His will, and it was to be in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
You understand, knowledge is gained through study and observation, but wisdom is a thing that only God can give to us; it comes with eternal life. It is part of the equipment, or accessories, of the divine life.
We would never know how to use the ability that belongs to us, nor enter into our inheritance, nor enjoy the riches of His grace, without special wisdom.
Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. (Ephesians 3:20)
He has given us the ability to enjoy all that belongs to us in that remarkable redemptive work.
Now with joy I realize that I am delivered out of the authority of Satan as Israel was delivered out of Egypt.
I have been born out of Satan’s family into God’s family. I am as much a child of the Father as was Jesus during His earth walk.
I have the nature of the Father, I have the love that dominated the life of the Master, and I have the wisdom of God in Christ.
He is now the strength of my life. He has given to me His own ability. I have a legal right to the use of the name of Jesus, and all authority in heaven and on earth is in that name.
I am fully equipped. The living Word is on my lips and in my heart. He is now building Himself into me through the living Word.
A confession like this instantly separates you from the old life of failure and weakness.
When I have been thoroughly instructed that the old things of weakness are passed away, I can now walk in the reality of the new creation life. When I am made to know that I am a branch of the vine, that the very vine life of Jesus is flowing through me, and I possess certain rights and privileges in Christ, then I will rise to the level of it.
If I have only been taught that my sins are forgiven, that I have been justified, and I will only remain justified if I walk carefully, and have never been taught that I have the nature and substance of God in my spirit and am actually a new self, a new creation, then sin and Satan will continue to reign over me.
In Philippians 1:11, Paul was unveiling himself to that little group of believers at Philippi. Way’s translation is striking. He says he “has the heart cry of his Messiah.”
He says, “This is my prayer, that your love may rise higher and higher to its fullest development in the recognition of the truth and in comprehensive grasp of its application, thus furnishing you with a sure test of what is true excellence, so that you may remain untainted by error, unstumbling amidst obstacles, till the Day of Messiah’s Appearing.” It is the next sentence that gripped my heart: “Bearing the while a full harvest of righteousness attained through Jesus our Messiah.”
How few of us have ever really realized what righteousness has meant to us? The word righteousness means the ability to stand in the Father’s presence without the sense of guilt or condemnation, to be able to stand in the presence of Satan and his works without the sense of inferiority or fear.
Romans 3:26 shows us that God Himself becomes the righteousness of the man who has faith in Jesus.
In 1 Corinthians 1:30, Jesus is made unto us righteousness.
In 2 Corinthians 5:21, “Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (ASV).
In verses 17 and 20, he shows us how we have become the righteousness of God in Him. It is by receiving the nature of God. All the attributes of that wonderful nature of love and grace have been imparted to us in the new birth. Is it any wonder that he says, “Of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16)?
For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him. (Colossians 2:9–10)
This new man is no ordinary product of modern educational facilities or modem civilization. He comes out of the womb of God. He is born of God. He is a new creation, created in Christ Jesus. But that is not all. As soon as he is born again, recreated, and becomes a new creation, he may become indwelt by the great mighty Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead.
Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. (1 Corinthians 6:19–20)
We have a legal right to invite Him to come and take possession of us.
Remember, Jesus said in Luke 11:13, “How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”
You see, it is His children to whom the promise is made. It is His children who will ask the Holy Spirit to come into their bodies.
We are born of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has imparted to us the nature and life of the Father, which makes us new creations, gives us a new self. Then we are indwelt when we invite Him to come into our bodies and make His permanent home there.
There is no need to tarry for the Holy Spirit, for He is already here. They tarried on the day of Pentecost for His coming; He had not yet made His appearance, but He is here now.
You could not be recreated without Him. You are born of the Holy Spirit and now you have a right to ask His indwelling. He will come in now and make His home in you.
You first had to become a child of God, a new creation. He did that by imparting the nature of the Father to you. Now He wants to make His home in you. Can you imagine what it would mean?
Turn to 1 John 4:4 and notice this Scripture carefully: “Ye are of God, little children.” You see, you have been born of God, you came out of Him, and are part of Him, and “greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”
Who has come into you? The great, mighty Holy Spirit.
Remember Romans 8:11? “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies.”
You cannot be a failure with Him in you. You may not always take advantage of His presence, you may not always remember that He is there, but He is there, and He is the one whom Jesus promised.
He said, “When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak” (John 16:13).
John 16:13 says, “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak.”
“The Spirit of truth” is the Spirit of reality. He will guide you into all reality. The reality of the new birth, the reality of your redemption, the reality of your relationship to the Father, and the reality of the living Word.
What a wonderful thing it would be if the Word would become a living thing on your lips. It will be if you will let it be, and you will let it be because that is joy and victory!
I should not have said, “If you let it be,” for that savors of our modern preaching. They tell us what we could do “if we had faith,” and if we would live right, we could have this and we must give up this to be that. I preached that way for years, until one day I saw what God had made me to be in Christ. I saw what He had given me in Christ.
I will never forget the hour when I sat at my desk and wrote some of the things I am in Christ: “I am indwelt of God; I have His nature and life.” And then I wrote this, “I am what He says I am. He is in me what He says He is. He can do through me what He says He can do.” I trembled as I read it.
Then I saw this glorious fact: I did not need to have faith for what already belonged to me, what had already been given to me, and for the things into which the Holy Spirit was ready to guide me.
I did not need faith for these things because they were already mine.
I did not need faith to use the name of Jesus; all I needed was courage to use what belonged to me.
The Master said, “In my name shall they cast out devils…they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” (Mark 16:17–18).
Then I remembered Colossians 1:12. He had given me ability to enjoy all that belonged to me in Christ.
Let us go back to 1 John 4:4, “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”
Who is in me? Love is in me and God is love. Jesus was love manifested in His earth walk. The Holy Spirit is love. Greater is love in me than the hatred, bitterness, and jealousy that is in the world.
This new creation man is the righteousness of God. He has the ability of God. He can dominate the forces of darkness. He reigns as a king in the realm of life, through Jesus Christ.
Who is he that has overcome the world? He that is born of God.
For if the trespass of one man allowed death to reign through that one man, much more shall those who receive the overflowing grace and free gift of righteousness reign in life through One, through Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:17 MOFF)
You see, spiritual death is the nature of the devil, and spiritual life is the nature of the Father God.
Jesus came that we might receive eternal life and be taken out of the thrall of Satan and into the family of God.
Jesus said, “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30).
I wonder if you have ever realized that since you are a new creation and have come into the family of God, Satan has nothing in you. He has no ground to enter the sacred precinct of the new creation. If he does enter, it is because you have permitted him to do so.
We have had a limited picture of the new man with God’s life, wisdom, love, and grace in Christ.
No man can be a success who is not governed by love, the Jesus kind of love.
Faith, love, and wisdom are born of the recreated human spirit.
When the human spirit becomes a partaker of the nature of God, you can see the limitlessness of it.
If it were developed, it would make this recreated man a superman.
It links him up with omnipotence.
And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (Mark 16:17–18)
These words, filled with faith and born of your spirit, now are spoken with your lips, and the same kind of results follow that Jesus promised.
God-filled words, faith-filled words, but words spoken by common human lips, produce miracles.
Man was not created for slavery or bondage. To be weak is to be a slave. To be in want is to be in bondage.
E. W. Kenyon, The Hidden Man: The Secret to Living in the Spirit Realm (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2025).