Our Testator

We know that the Lord Jesus Christ is "the Word [who] became flesh" (John 1.14). He is the sum total of all holy virtues. He is the finisher of all great things. His life is the life of God, for He himself is God. On the cross He has accomplished the work of redemption. All who accept in heart Jesus as Savior and Lord are accepted by God, at the very moment of faith, and in the same manner as He has accepted the Lord Jesus. At that time all the holy virtues and perfections of the Lord Jesus come upon the believer. In God’s eye the believer’s position before Him is the same as that of the Lord Jesus. For God looks at each Christian as Christ. All that is of Christ is reckoned as belonging to the Christian for the sake of his union with Christ. This, then, is the "fact" which the believer inherits before God as a Christian. This fact is what Christ has accomplished for the Christian. Due to the believer’s union with Him, all which belongs to Christ belongs in fact to His believer. This is the fact prepared by God, in which the believer himself has absolutely no input.
The Scriptures speak clearly about this fact. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews uses a distinctively plain illustration to tell us of the fact accomplished for us by God. In 9.15-17 he equates what the Lord Jesus has accomplished for us with a person who makes a will. In this will and testament, the testator promises to give the "inheritance" to the beneficiary. But the testament in question is not in force as long as the testator lives. But as soon as he dies, the beneficiary can inherit what the testator has promised to give. The Lord Jesus is the Testator. He has died, and therefore all His promises come immediately to us. This is the fact which we receive from Him. Even though it is true that we are not able to possess and enjoy at once all the benefits and supplies of our inheritance, such inheritance is nonetheless ours. It belongs to us, and it is now under our name. It is a fact which cannot be altered. To have the inheritance is one thing; to enjoy it is another. The former is "fact," the latter is "experience." The fact of our inheritance comes from the Testator, not from ourselves. Fact comes first, then comes enjoyment or experience.

The teaching of this illustration is quite clear. In His death the Lord Jesus gives all His righteous deeds, holy virtues, perfection and victory to us that we might be before God as He himself is and that God might accept us as accepting Him. This is what He has given us. The moment we become Christians all this becomes fact to us. We are in truth as perfect as the Lord Jesus, though in experience we may not be so. Fact means nothing less than all the graces which God has done and given us through the Lord Jesus. Because of our union with the Son of God, all these graces come to us. We may have the fact of our inheritance but may not have the experience of enjoying our inheritance. Fact and experience are vastly different from each other. Today many believers are rich in fact, because everything which is of God is theirs; yet they are poor in experience since, practically speaking, they have not enjoyed their riches. The elder son mentioned in Luke 15 is a good example. So far as fact is concerned, the father in the Lord’s parable speaks on this wise: "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that is mine is thine." But in experience the elder son complains to his father, saying, "Thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends." He is the son of the rich—such is his position (which is fact); yet it is possible that he has never enjoyed a kid—such is his condition (which is experience).