Such is the position and unalterable standing of the feeblest believer in Christ. There is absolutely no other standing for any Christian. I must either be in the first man or in the Second. There is no _third_ man, for the Second Man is the last Adam. There is no middle ground. I am either _in Christ_, or I am _in my sins_. But if I am in Christ, I am as He is before God. "As _He is so are we_, in this world." He does not say, "As He _was_" but "as He _is_." That is, the Christian is viewed by God as one with Christ--the Second Man, in whom He delights. We do not speak of His Deity, of course, which is incommunicable. That blessed One stood in the believer's stead--bore his sins, died his death, paid his penalty, represented him in every respect; took all his guilt, all his liabilities, all that pertained to him as a man in nature, stood as his substitute, in all the verity and reality of that word, and having divinely met his case, and borne his judgment, He rose from the dead, and is now the Head, the Representative, and the only true definition of the believer before God. To this most glorious and enfranchising truth, Scripture bears the amplest testimony. The passage which we have just quoted from Galatians is a most vivid, powerful, and condensed statement of it. And if the reader will turn to Rom. vi. he will find further evidence. We shall quote some of the weighty sentences. "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Far be the thought. How shall _we that are dead_ to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized to Jesus Christ were baptized to His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism unto death; that _like as Christ_ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, _even so we also_ should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also of resurrection. Knowing this that _our old man is crucified with Him_, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we _be dead with Christ_, we believe that we shall also live with Him. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He liveth He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. vi. I-11).