Did you know if you are a Christian, you are a “Has Been”? Look at what Ephesians 5:22-24 says about you. I will give it to you with the proper Greek grammar emphasis. “… That, in reference to your former manner of life, you laid aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the deceit of lust, and that you being renewed in the spirit of your mind, having sunk into the new self which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and true holiness.”
Notice what Paul says about the new self that you are in Christ. He says that you have already put on, sunk into, the new self, and that new self HAS BEEN, in the likeness of God, created in righteousness and true holiness. Righteousness and holiness are things that have already been accomplished for you by God in Christ Jesus. As a matter of fact, according to 2 Corinthians 5, you have been made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Romans 10:4 says that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
If you are a believer, you are no longer under the burden of religious self-effort that tries to please God by keeping the law. At the cross, you were placed into Christ, and the serial sinner was crucified and buried with him. On the third day, you rose with him in union with his resurrection life, and his righteousness and his holiness. Romans 10:3 says that our role as believers is to subject ourselves to the righteousness of God. Of course, we grow in our manifestation of righteousness and holiness as we grow in surrender and faith, but it is not because we get more holiness or get more righteousness, because holiness and righteousness HAVE BEEN accomplished for us by our union with Jesus and his finished work at the CROSS. Being renewed in the spirit of our mind is simply a continual remembrance that it is no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in you, and he lives in you in righteousness and true holiness, not the phony holiness of religious self-effort. So, let us celebrate that each of us in Christ are all HAS BEEN’s. Victory has been already accomplished, not by you, but for you, at the Cross, and realized in you step-by-step by the indwelling Christ who is your life.