Heaven’s Agent Training | Lesson 1

Foundation Verses: 2 Corinthians 5:17 / John 3:3-7 (AMPC)

“Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, AMPC)

Before we go any further, there is something helpful you need to see.

Most people who have given their lives to Christ never find out what actually happened to them. They know something changed. They do not always know how completely. The Father did not touch up the old you. He did not put you on a program to slowly become acceptable. He made someone new — on purpose, with you specifically in mind.

The same word Scripture uses for the making of heaven and earth, it uses for what He did inside you.

So if you have been carrying the old self around like it is still who you are, you can set it down. Not someday. Right now. You do not have to earn this, and you do not have to work your way up to it. It is already finished, already true, and the Father is the One who settled it before you ever showed up asking.

This lesson is simply you getting to see who you already are.

What Paul Actually Said

Start with Paul’s words, because the Greek opens up something the English compresses.

“If any person is in Christ, he is a new creation.” The phrase “if any” carries the force of “since” in the original. This is not hypothetical. This is a declaration about your present reality: since you are in Christ, you are a new creation.

And the word Paul chose for “new” is important. He did not write neos — the everyday Greek word meaning newer, more recent. He wrote kainos (G2537), the word that means new in kind, qualitatively different, unprecedented in nature. The same word appears in “new covenant,” “new commandment,” and “new heavens and new earth.” Every time kainos shows up in Scripture, it describes something categorically different from what came before, not merely a fresher version of it.

Paul could have written neos ktisis and meant a newer model of the old you. He deliberately chose kainos ktisis — a creation that is different in kind from anything that existed before. You are not an improved version of the old. You are a genuinely different kind of being.

Then Paul states two more things. “The old has passed away” — the Greek is parerchomai (G3928), aorist tense, completed past action. The old moral and spiritual condition has ceased to exist. It is not fading gradually. It is not still clinging to you. It passed away. Done. Finished.

“Behold, the fresh and new has come” — the Greek is gegonen, perfect tense, meaning “has come and remains in that state.” Not temporary. Not probationary. The new creation has arrived and it stays.

Three grammatical facts, three settled realities: you are new in kind, the old is gone, and the new is permanent.

Born From Above

Jesus told Nicodemus something that belongs right beside Paul’s declaration.

“Unless a person is born again — anew, from above — he cannot ever see the kingdom of God.” The word “must” in that sentence is dei (G1163), the Greek word for divine necessity. The same weight as the cross. The same weight as the resurrection. Jesus placed the new birth in the category of things that simply have to happen, and they do.

“Born again” carries two layers in the Greek word anothen (G509): again (a fresh start) and from above (divine origin). Nicodemus heard one layer and thought of re-entering the womb. Jesus meant both — a fresh start that originates in heaven. Not self-improvement with a spiritual coat of paint. A birth from above, Spirit-born.

Peter says the permanence of it plainly, and it is worth reading slowly: “You have been regenerated, not from a mortal origin — seed, sperm — but from one that is immortal by the ever living and lasting Word of God” (1 Peter 1:23, AMPC). The seed that produced your new birth is imperishable. A perishable seed produces a perishable plant. An imperishable seed produces an imperishable creation. You cannot undo the new birth because the seed that produced it cannot decay.

Kenneth E. Hagin put the location of it exactly right:

“In the New Birth, our spirits are recreated. Our bodies are not. It is in our spirit where all things have become new. We still have the same bodies we always had. There is a man who lives inside the body. Paul calls him the inward man. It is this inward man who becomes a new man in Christ. A new creation.” — Kenneth E. Hagin, The New Birth

That is the geography of the new creation. Spirit, soul, body — three parts, and the new birth did not hit all three at once. Your spirit was made completely new the instant you were born again. That is where God’s nature lives. That is the real you.

Three Tenses of One Identity

Here is the piece that clears up the confusion most believers carry.

Your spirit was made completely new the moment you were born again. Past tense. Done. Irrevocable. You were justified, declared righteous, placed in Christ, given the very nature of God (2 Peter 1:4). Nothing you do today can undo what happened in your spirit at salvation.

Your soul — your mind, your will, your emotions — was not automatically renewed. The soul is in the process of being transformed through the Word (Romans 12:2). This is where the struggle happens, not in your spirit, which is already complete in Christ, but in your soul, which is being brought into alignment with what your spirit already is.

Your body is waiting for glorification. One day the full manifestation of what you already are in spirit will become cosmically visible.

Three parts. Three tenses. One identity: new creation in Christ.

The critical point is this. Most believers confuse the present-tense imperfection of their soul-renewal process with their past-tense new creation identity. They feel the failures of sanctification and conclude that their new creation must be incomplete. It is not. The soul’s struggle does not mean the spirit is deficient. Your spirit is already complete. Your soul is catching up. Do not let the process diminish the fact.

Kenneth Copeland names what was placed inside the spirit at the new birth:

“When you are born again, the old sin nature that used to be on the inside of you dies. A new nature created in righteousness and true holiness is born. The very life of God Himself is the substance of that new man. Righteousness — being in right-standing with God — not sin, is now your nature.” — Kenneth Copeland, Our Great Salvation

Righteousness is not a goal. It is your factory setting.

You Were Identified With Him at Every Step

Derek Prince, a Cambridge scholar who walked this out across decades and dozens of nations, laid out the full scope of what happened at the new birth.

Every step of Christ’s redemptive work was simultaneously your experience. You were made sin in Him, died in Him, were buried with Him, made alive with Him, raised with Him, and seated with Him. This is not theology you file away. This is a transaction that happened to you.

Ephesians 2:4-6 records three Greek verbs, each carrying the prefix syn — together with: made alive together with Christ, raised together with Him, seated together with Him. Each is aorist tense, completed action. Each is something God did, not something you achieved. And what started the whole sequence? “But God, so rich is He in His mercy.”

Your new creation did not begin with your performance. It began with God’s mercy. This is why it cannot be earned and cannot be lost by what you do next.

E.W. Kenyon, who systematically built the new creation doctrine in the modern era:

“The moment we know what we are in Christ, what He has done for us, what the Spirit through the Word has wrought in us, what is our position before the Father — that moment spiritual things become a reality and we step out of the realm of the natural into the supernatural.” — E.W. Kenyon, New Creation Realities

Seeing who you are is the step. Everything else follows it.

Three Things You May Be Thinking

Let me answer them directly.

“But I still sin sometimes.” Your behavior does not determine your identity. Your identity determines your behavior. You sin not because you are still the old creation, but because your soul has not yet been fully renewed to match what your spirit already is. The solution is mind renewal, not identity doubt. Romans 12:2 tells you what to do with that: be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That is the soul-renewal process. It is real, it takes time, and it is entirely different from questioning whether the new birth happened.

“I don’t feel like a new creation.” Feelings are soul-level data. Your new creation is a spirit-level reality. You do not feel gravity either, but it holds you to the earth every second. The new creation is a spiritual fact, not a psychological experience. Feelings follow confession. Confess what the Word says you are, and your feelings will come into alignment over time.

“My past keeps coming back.” The enemy’s strategy is identity amnesia — get you to forget what happened at the new birth and go back to measuring yourself by the old creation standard. Every time your past comes up, it is an opportunity to declare: that person no longer exists. I am a new creation in Christ. The old has passed away.

Andrew Wommack puts the practical reality clearly:

“Galatians 4:6 says, ‘And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.’ God literally places His Spirit inside of us, and we now have a new quality of life, a new identity, and are a totally new person in our spirits.” — Andrew Wommack, Identity in Christ – Part 1

That is not a destination you are working toward. That is your present address.

You Were Made for Something

There is one more piece of your identity that belongs here at the start.

Ephesians 2:10 says you are God’s own handiwork — poiema (G4161), the word from which we get “poem.” A crafted masterpiece. And this masterpiece was recreated in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand for you to walk in.

Your purpose was embedded in your new creation before you were even born again. God did not create you and then scramble to find something for you to do. He prepared the assignment first and then created you to walk in it. You are not searching for your purpose. It was woven into who you are the moment you were made new.

Stand Where You Already Stand

Here is where all of this lands.

Every time your past surfaces, every time the accusation starts, you are not arguing about whether you can be good enough. That question is already settled. You get to answer from who you already are: a new creation, made by the Father, complete in Christ, and not going back.

Your spirit is already complete. Your soul is being renewed. Your body is waiting. In the meantime, you live from the most permanent fact about you — not from how far the renewal has come, but from who you already are in Christ.

You are new right now.