So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 2 Corinthians 16-17 NLT. There’s a shift here that’s not just cosmetic—it’s ontological, a complete overhaul of how we exist in God’s eyes. And if we’re honest, most of us skim over this like it’s inspirational wallpaper, but Paul is dropping a metaphysical bombshell. The old you? Buried. The new you? Alive in a way that defies human categories.
“If you depend on the righteousness of Christ that has been applied to your account, then when it comes to your standing before God and your boldness before Satan, your own righteousness is irrelevant.” Vincent Cheung, Faith Is good enough. Irrelevant—now that’s a word that should make the faith-fumblers squirm, because it forces us to reckon with a righteousness that’s not earned by our sweaty efforts but imputed by divine decree.
The point of focus is how God sees us in His own mind and definition. Not how we see ourselves, but How God sees us. It is about us agreeing with God, not sensation. Our standing before Him, as defined by His own thoughts.
Consider how God’s mind is the ultimate arbiter of reality. He doesn’t dabble in opinions or probabilities; His thoughts shape existence itself. When He looks at your sinful past—that laundry list of failures, rebellions, and half-hearted attempts at goodness—He sees it as belonging to a person who’s already dead. Not metaphorically dead, but actually, definitively gone. God transferred that record onto Jesus, who bore it as if it were His own, enduring a punishment so severe it led to the cross and the grave. The intensity of that exchange wasn’t some mild rebuke; it was lethal, a divine judgment that extinguished life. This is the profound symbolism in baptism’s immersion: you went under, into death, sharing in Christ’s burial. We don’t grasp this through feelings or empirical evidence—no lab test or emotional high confirms it. We know it because God has revealed it in His Word, and His revelation trumps every sensation or doubt. In the sovereign mind of God, that old version of you is six feet under, decomposed, irrelevant to the present equation. Meditate on that until it sinks in: the old you isn’t lurking in the shadows, waiting to sabotage; it’s obliterated.
If you claim to see your sins, you cannot do this without claiming to see the east from the west. I would consider such a person as too stupid to waste my time talking. As far as the east is from the west, that’s how invisible my human sins are to God; and I agree God is correct. Some try to bridge that gap with a telescope of observation, but knowledge comes by God’s word, not observation.
God’s mind defines reality, not ours. He sees a new Oshea, a new creation, with a list of God’s righteousness baked right into my definition.
Now, flip the script to the new creation. God’s mind, being the only one that counts, has redefined you with a record that’s spotless, infused with His own righteousness. This isn’t a patch job or a fresh coat of paint; it’s a total rewrite of your essence. Your righteousness now mirrors Jesus’—not a diluted human version, but the unblemished, divine standard that God Himself upholds.
This means I’ve died to any notion of human righteousness in my standing before God. Since my old man was human, I’ve died to defining myself that way. To think I’ve produced righteousness by my own actions is to cling to that dead human identity—but that Oshea is history. I’m not human anymore in that sense. My existence is defined as part of Jesus, with His righteousness as mine. My righteousness is God’s, not some DIY human version.
This category shift is huge—like upgrading from bicycle to first-class eternity. If you grasp this distinction, neither your conscience nor Satan can lob accusations at you. The only list of wrongs and rights I have is exclusively in the category of God’s works. Human wrongs or rights? They don’t apply to me anymore—it’s like trying to charge a cloud with murder. A cloud is not a man and so God’s laws do not categorical apply to it. God sees my list as pure divine righteousness. When God thinks about me, He doesn’t slot me into a human category, so it’s logically impossible for human mistakes to stick.
By stripping away my human list of wrongs, killing the old man, and exclusively crediting God’s righteousness to me, my very category of existence got a new definition.
The old self operated in the realm of human effort, where righteousness was something you might scrape together through good deeds or moral striving. But that framework died with the old you. To even entertain the idea of producing your own righteousness now is to resurrect a corpse, to pretend you’re still playing by obsolete rules. You’re not human in that sense anymore; your existence is intertwined with Christ’s, defined by a righteousness that’s categorically divine. It’s like trying to apply the laws of gravity to a spirit being—utterly inapplicable. When God contemplates your standing, it’s through the lens of His own perfection, unmarred and glorious.
This redefinition slams the door on accusations, whether from your own nagging conscience or that slimy accuser, Satan. How can human faults stick to someone who’s no longer classified as merely human? The old you could rack up demerits in that category, but the new you exists in a different ontological bracket altogether. Your record is exclusively filled with God’s works—His faithfulness, His holiness, His victories. Attempting to pin a human sin on you now is a logical absurdity, like accusing a cloud of being too heavy. The faithless might try, whispering doubts or dredging up memories, but they’re arguing against God’s own verdict. And let’s not forget the grafting: God hasn’t just slapped a new label on you; He’s woven you into Christ’s body, making you one with Him in spirit and substance.
For my conscience, Satan, or the faithless to accuse me of sin, they’d have to pretend I’m still human, still capable of churning out human righteousness. But I’m not. I don’t have the ability to produce human righteousness anymore—that guy died ages ago. Think about it: I’m as incapable of producing human works as empiricism is justifying the laws of logic. It’s a category that doesn’t fit me. Even if I tried, I couldn’t whip up my own righteousness. Because God has redefined me in a new category, it’s logically impossible for me to produce human works anymore—which means I can’t even produce human sin. All the sins I did commit were already transferred to Jesus, died, and buried with Him. As Hebrews says, Jesus once and for all removed my sins, even future ones and already perfected me.
Some might say, “But yes, you can still produce human works.” Nah—I’m no more able to do that than Jesus can produce human works. The categories just don’t line up. Even if I attempted it through my own effort, it’d only be “human” in the narrow sense of my mind wandering into a delusional fantasy world that doesn’t exist. This delusion in biblical terms is called unbelief. God’s mind is the sole definer of reality. In this reality, I’m not human in that old way, so I’m incapable of producing mere human works.
One reason the works I do, which are not built upon Christ, will be burned up, is because they were done in the delusion of my mind thinking I was still human, a reality that doesn’t exist in God’s Mind. They are burnt up, because they cannot logically be attributed to me, who isn’t human anymore. God is the law of non-contradiction and Identity. He doesn’t say one thing and then the opposite. He has defined me as not human and so He will not attribute any human works to me, whether good or bad. Can a rock produce human works and earn righteousness? No, because it is not human.
But God didn’t stop at just adding divine righteousness to my record—He grafted me into the body of His beloved Son. That’s another layer of why God doesn’t pin any lawbreaking on me: if He saw a wrong attached to my list, it’d be attached to Jesus too. Since God thinks I’m part of Jesus, He can’t think of me with wrongs without implying Jesus has them—because we’re one body and one Spirit.
Satan can’t accuse me of sin without accusing Jesus of sin, because I’m one body and one Spirit with Him. If I’m, for example the toes of Jesus’ body, and those toes have sin, then Jesus has sin. If Satan tried to accuse me, he’d have to stand before God and point the finger at Jesus.
Satan and the faithless can’t deny that I’m God’s righteousness without denying that Jesus is, because I’m one with Him. Is there any part of Jesus that isn’t perfectly righteous? Any blemishes in Him? Nope—so I’m always the perfect righteousness of Jesus.
When I pray, I can’t approach with human righteousness because that human Oshea is dead. It’s impossible for me to have human merits or faults—that version doesn’t exist. When I pray, I do so as part of Jesus’ body. I pray as His righteousness. God sees Jesus when He looks at me, because He no longer thinks of me as human, but as one with His Son in body and Spirit. Does God think Jesus is righteous? Then He thinks the same of me. This is the Oshea who exists today—the only one that can.
I know when God sees me, He sees His Son, so I can pray as a righteous person. I can pray knowing God views me as Jesus’ righteousness. Thus, I can have effective prayers, because I only exist today as God’s righteousness, and the old human category is dead and buried. I can pray knowing any human notions of wrongs or rights don’t apply to me. Just as “heavy” doesn’t apply to God (who’s pure Spirit), human wrongs or rights don’t stick to me anymore—I’m something new and different. The only righteousness category for me is God’s, as part of Jesus.
Take this doctrine and rock effective prayers, burst with joyful souls, and use it as power to slam Satan’s face in the ground when he tries to accuse you.
Oshea Davis 