Aluther22 said:
God looks at Christ and sees His Righteousness and imputes It to us. We are Holy because He is Holy. Vicarious Atonement. We are not Holy because of our current sinful state. You and I are both miserable sinners, truely. No illusion. You and I are guilty and deserving of torment and death, truely. Christ in our place stands, and we are pardoned according to His works and Sacrifice. His deeds are accredited to us as our own. If this was not true, neither you nor I, nor any other man who has ever been would be saved.
Exactly. We are not righteous because of our own works. I never said we were. We are righteous only because Christ's righteousness is imputed to us. But that doesn't make us any less righteous. In fact, it's the opposite. We are now righteous because we are joined with Christ, and his righteousness is become our own. Now, how can anyone say that what God has declared holy and righteous is sinful?
Maybe we would both agree if we worded it in the following way:
1)As nonChristians, we were unholy and had a sinful nature.
2)When we become Christians, the sin nature (the old nature, the old self) is crucified, and we are given a new nature. Our spirits are regenerated. We have become new creations. Christ declares us holy and righteous.
3)Who we really are (the spirit within us) is now perfect because of the regenarating power in Christ's blood. The spirit is stained by sin no longer.
4)However, the spirit still resides in a corrupted body (the vessel, the house), and along with that corrupted body comes all the temporary things that combine to form the "flesh system" - reasoning, attitude, knowledge, personality, emotions, etc. These things are what Satan's demons target when they tempt you. Even though you are a new creation with a new nature (which is to serve God), the demons still tempt. If we are deceived by the demons in our minds and emotions (which are not part of the spirit but part of the "flesh system"), and in our will (part of the "flesh system") we choose to do that which the demons tempt us to do, we sin, using the members of our body as "weapons of unrighteousness". However, this has no effect on who we are. God has already made our spirits and nature perfect. That is a one time thing that will not change. Our new identity is in Christ. Who we really are (spirit) is righteous. The body and its "flesh system" are temporary and is not what God bases his judgment (on who we are) upon.
Another way to look at is this:
A man gets married. The law recognizes him as a husband. If he takes off his wedding ring at a bar and plays the part of an unmarried man, that does not change the fact that legally, he is still a husband. That is who he is.
In the same manner of speaking, we may not always act righteously in our flesh, but we are still righteous - because God has declared us righteous.