In Christ
ANOTHER OUTSTANDING REMINDER FOR THE NEW YEAR from the great book of Ephesians. Recently, we looked at Paul’s exhortation, “Children of Light,” a study that, among other things, called to our minds our privilege and responsibility of being thus related to Christ. In the broadest sense, the entire Bible is a book defining and emphasizing the believer’s privilege and responsibility. I intend for this week’s study to be no different…
NAS Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
AS PROMISED IN THAT PREVIOUS BLOG, BUT DELAYED BY THE HOLIDAYS, a study to naturally follow the study of “Blessed by God” from Ephesians 1:3 would be “In Christ”…
THE BIBLE SAYS THAT ALL CHRISTIANS HAVE A SPECIFIC SPIRITUAL POSITION in relationship to God… Paul, the human author of Ephesians, terms this specific position mainly by two simple words; he says we are “in Christ”…
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE “IN CHRIST”?… Paul says in the opening words of his introduction (vv. 3-14), that we are “in Christ.” What exactly does that mean…?
NOW, TO EXPLAIN THIS CORRECTLY I MUST GET A LITTLE technical, so please stay with me… This little phrase, “in Christ,” is what is grammatically referred to as a “locative of sphere”…
WHAT IS A “LOCATIVE OF SPHERE”?… When I teach the biblical languages at seminary, grammatical terms are necessary to convey the various nuances and concepts of a sentence. Aside from the subject and the verb, there are other words that contribute to our understanding of what the writer has written. The students are asked to study the terms applied to these words so that they may most accurately comprehend the meaning. One of these terms is “locative of sphere”…
“LOCATIVE” SIMPLY MEANS “LOCATION”… Aside from its obvious meaning of something round – a ball is a sphere – sphere means “a specified field or environment.” We say “that man or woman has a particular sphere of knowledge.” In Greek grammar there is both a locative of sphere and a locative of place. A locative of place is simply what it sounds like: a physical location. Our church is in San Diego; that’s a locative of place, not a locative of sphere. This morning, you are in church. If I am speaking of the building you are seated in, I am speaking of a locative of place. If, on the other hand, I say “you are in church” and I am relating to the universal church, the Body of Christ, I am using a locative of sphere. When Paul says believers are “in Christ,” he is not, of course, saying that you and I are physically inside of the Lord Jesus; he is speaking spherically…
UNIVERSALLY, COLLECTIVELY, CHRISTIANS ARE in the spiritual sphere of Christ…
NOW, WITH THAT UNDERSTANDING OF THE TERM, ALLOW ME TO ASK, “Are you personally in Christ?… You are physically in church, but more importantly, are you in church spherically? Are you in the spiritual sphere of Christ? Think about that question for a moment. Are you in Christ?… That’s a serious question. Without exaggeration, it is most serious question I could ask…
CAN YOU SAY WITH CERTAINTY that you are “in Christ”?…
THE APOSTLE PETER, IN CLOSING HIS FIRST LETTER, USES THE TERM “in Christ”…
NAS 1 Peter 5:14 Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace be to you all who are in Christ.
I DID A SEARCH ON MY COMPUTER AND apart from a couple of other verses in the N.T. where it may be argued that the term is used, I believe that “in Christ” is a particularly Pauline phrase. I did not count every one, but as I studied the term this week in its several variations it was obvious to me that Paul used the term some two hundred times in his 13 letters of the N.T.…
NAS Romans 6:11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
NAS Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
NAS 1 Corinthians 16:24 My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.
NAS 2 Corinthians 1:21 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God,
NAS Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
NAS Colossians 1:28 And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ.
NAS 2 Timothy 3:12 And indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
BUT IT IS IN THE BOOK OF EPHESIANS – and especially in the first chapter of the book of Ephesians, Paul most prominently and repeatedly uses the term “in Christ”…
“IN THE FIRST 14 VERSES OF THIS LETTER THE PHRASE ‘IN CHRIST’ (or its equivalent or a personal pronoun, e.g., ‘in Him’) occurs no fewer than 11 times. It is in Christ, that is, because of our salvational incorporation in Him, that God has blessed us. It is in Him that both Jewish believers, who have become God’s people in the Church (vv. 11-12), and Gentile Christians, who have been sealed as belonging to God (vv. 13-14), now belong to the redeemed humanity. In Christ it is God’s intention to bring everything back into unity under His rule (1:9, 10).” – O’Brien…
LISTEN TO A FEW OF THE VERSES FROM CHAPTER 1 in which Paul uses the term “in Christ”…
NAS Ephesians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus, and who are faithful in Christ Jesus:
NAS Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
NAS Ephesians 1:7-13 In Him (that is, “in Christ”) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, 8 which He lavished upon us. In all wisdom and insight 9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him 10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fulness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth. In Him 11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, 12 to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. 13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation– having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise,
YOU CAN EASILY SEE HOW IMPORTANT A TERM “IN CHRIST” IS… And I think you can also easily determine that “in Christ” is a good place to be…
“IN CHRIST” IS A POSITION OF SECURITY…
IF YOU ARE A BORN AGAIN BELIEVER, YOU ARE “IN CHRIST”… Listen to what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:17…
NAS 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
AND IF YOU ARE TRULY BORN AGAIN, YOU WILL ALWAYS BE “in Christ”…
“IN CHRIST” IS YOUR SPIRITUAL POSITION…
NAS Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, IN CHRIST EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING that it is possible for men and women to have is found…
“WITH EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING” suggests that from Him comes one continuous flow of blessing, and this is to be conceived, not chiefly in terms of the material gifts of which we think most readily, but in terms of the spiritual blessings that transcend but include the material, for the true appreciation of the things we see is dependent on our apprehension of the things of the Spirit.” – Francis Foulkes
CHRISTIANS ARE SPIRITUAL PEOPLE…
BELIEVERS ARE “IN CHRIST” AS MEMBERS OF HIS SPIRITUAL BODY the Church…
THE BIBLE SAYS WE HAVE BEEN BAPTIZED “INTO CHRIST”:
NAS Galatians 3:26-27 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
NAS Romans 6:3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
POSITION… MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE, “IN CHRIST” IS A POSITION, a spiritual position, a spiritual sphere that is permanent…
A POSITION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS… This positional righteousness (spiritual, not physical) was given to us when we were saved by grace apart from works through faith in Christ Jesus alone. If you are a true believer you are right this moment clothed spiritually in a robe of righteousness…
RIGHTEOUSNESS IS RIGHT STANDING WITH GOD…
“UNCLEAN IN THE SIGHT OF GOD IS ANYONE WHO IS UNRIGHTEOUSNESS; clean therefore is everyone who is righteous, if not in the sight of men, yet in the sight of God, who judges without error.” – Augustine…
NAS 2 Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
THAT VERSE NEVER FAILS TO STOP MY HEART FOR A MOMENT…
THE BASIS FOR THIS POSITION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS is the unspeakable fact that the Lord Jesus took all our sins – past, present, future– upon Himself as the perfect sacrifice God the Father’s holiness demanded…
SPIRITUALLY SPEAKING, EACH BELIEVER WENT TO THE CROSS WITH CHRIST. He carried us; we did nothing to merit our salvation…
NAS Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.
THAT IS THE RESURRECTION LIFE WE NOW LIVE!…
GOD LOOKS UPON EACH BELIEVER as having been on that cross “in Christ,” and thus He is able to count us as being righteous, justified (made right) in His sight. When God the Father looks at you and me He does not see our sins because we have been clothed in Christ’s righteousness, When God the Father looks at us, He does not see us in the world; He sees us “in Christ”…
A POSITION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS; NOW LET’S CLOSE BY CONSIDERING a position of responsibility…
IN CHRIST IS A POSITION OF PRIVILEGE AND RESPONSIBILITY…
A POSITION OF RESPONSIBILITY… Some synonyms of responsibility are accountability and dependability. Can you say this morning that, yes, I am accountable to God for my thoughts and actions? And I am dependable in the sense that I may be depended upon to act like a Christian who has been blessed with all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realms. I hope you can say that…
GOD WANTS US TO LIVE RESPONSIBLE LIVES…
WHEN WE COME TO BE “IN CHRIST,” we become Christ’s representatives on earth… We have been entrusted with an incomparable responsibility; we carry Christ’s name; we are an image to the world. It is through us that Christ displays Himself. Consider that heavy thought for a moment…
NKJ 2 Corinthians 5:20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.
NAS Romans 6:12-14 Therefore (that is, because we have been mercifully placed in Christ) do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.
THAT IS THE CHRISTIAN LIFE, THE RESURRECTION LIFE that we are to be living on earth in America today in the midst of all this ungodliness…
“CHRIST’S RICHES ARE OUR RICHES, HIS RESOURCES ARE OUR RESOURCES, His righteousness is our righteousness, and His power is our power. His position is our position: where He is spiritually is where we are spiritually. His privilege is our privilege: what He is spiritually is what we are spiritually. His possession is our possession: what He has spiritually, is what we have spiritually. And His practice is our practice: what He does, we do.” – MacArthur…
NAS Romans 8:16-17 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
WE ARE “IN CHRIST”… Therefore, we are dead to sin; we are not of the world. We have been crucified in Christ. We have been baptized into Christ. It is our privilege, joy, and great responsibility to live this earthly life according to our spiritual position, our “locative of sphere”…
IT IS A POSITION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND RESPONSIBILITY…
“IN CHRIST” IS A POSITION OF PRIVILEGE AND RESPONSIBILITY. It is spiritual in nature, but it is practical in manifestation; the spiritual is to be materialized in practice…
NAS Ephesians 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
NAS Ephesians 4:1-2 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love,
AND AS I WROTE THIS BLOG I WAS STRUCK WITH ANOTHER DIMENSION of the term “In Christ,” and that is comfort. I’ll end with this…
“IN CHRIST” IS THE PREEMINENT POSITION OF COMFORT… reassurance, confidence, peace…
KNOWING THAT WE ARE “IN CHRIST” SHOULD BRING US GREAT JOY!… THANK YOU, LORD, THAT I AM “IN CHRIST”…
– Professor Thomas A. Rohm
