Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Pictures | Part 3: More Pictures | Part 4: Even More Pictures | Part 5: Outcomes

What else results from our being in Christ?

Stability

When Jesus introduced the metaphor of the vine and the branches, he was emphasizing the concept of nourishment: the vine feeds the branches, because it is the conduit of the branches’ lifeblood (to use a decidedly non-botanical term). The branch cannot survive unless it is attached to the vine.

On the positive side, then, the vine brings life and stability. Paul speaks of our being “rooted and … established in the faith, as you have been taught” (Co 2.7).

Since my church is halfway between my city’s rescue mission and one of its soup kitchens, we get a fair amount of foot traffic between the two, with consequent opportunity to interact with a variety of homeless people. The stories I hear from them, and the obstacles in their lives, will break your heart. Most of them have no sense of stability because they have no job, no income, no place to live, no way to get around. Everything’s just up in the air. I can buy them a meal or a few bags of groceries—and I have—but that’s not really a solution. And when you start looking for solutions, as those with extensive experience dealing with the homeless will tell you, the obstacles are often insurmountable. Sometimes they come from the homeless person himself; sometimes from the civic structure; sometimes from family; sometimes from somewhere else.

That level of instability is a deeply frightening and frustrating thing.

In Christ, Paul says, we’re rooted; we’re built up; we’re established.

Solid. Firm. Confident.

We don’t always feel that way. Most often that’s because we forget the Source of our stability and look to ourselves, or someone else, to solve our problem.

That’s a shaky foundation.

But the more you know—and practice—about your union with Christ, the fewer times those earthquakes in your soul will happen.

Growth

There’s more to this concept.

In the verse I quoted above, there’s a set of ellipsis marks. Whenever you see those in a quotation, you should ask yourself, “What did he leave out? and why? What’s he up to?” Bowdlerizing is a thing, more these days than ever before. Did I leave something out because it weakened my point?

Well, not this time. :-)

I left something out because I was saving it for later. Between “rooted” and “established,” which are closely similar concepts, Paul places the phrase “built up in him.” That’s a step beyond the other two; it speaks of not only surviving, but growing.

Prospering. Thriving.

We shouldn’t be surprised that Jesus includes this same idea in his original metaphor of the vine and the branches. He speaks of the branches “bearing fruit” and “bring[ing] forth more fruit” (Jn 15.2) and “bring[ing] forth much fruit” (Jn 15.5, cf 8).

Jesus doesn’t unite us with himself just so that we’ll be safe—though indeed we will be. As he left, Jesus promised that he would always be with us (Mt 28.20), and he promised that he would send his Spirit, who “dwells with you, and shall be in you” (Jn 14.17)—and who has been in us, since Pentecost. And Jesus also told us, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Lk 12.32).

Yes, we are safe, but as the old saying goes, “A ship in a harbor is safe; but that is not what ships are for.” (I don’t know whether John A. Shedd or Grace Hopper originally said that, but it’s true regardless.)

Jesus unites us with himself so that we will thrive through our intimate connection with him.

Is your connection with him like that? You can’t thrive—really thrive—without it.

Part 7: Even More Outcomes | Part 8: And More | Part 9: Corollaries

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Pictures | Part 3: More Pictures | Part 4: Even More Pictures

With the broader understanding of our union with Christ that these metaphors give us, we’re in a position to understand and appreciate the results that this union brings to our spiritual life and health. The New Testament mentions several.

What things result from our being in Christ?

Well, to begin with, there’s a whole bunch of stuff that doesn’t happen—or rather, stops happening. Let me present two of them as pairs—what stops happening, and what starts happening.

Condemnation Becomes Acquittal

We started out life in serious trouble. We had received a sentence of guilt—of condemnation—from our first father, Adam. (You think that’s not fair? Well, there are some things to consider about that.) And shortly we had confirmed that guilt by demonstrating our own sinfulness—selfishness, rebellion, and eventually all the rest of it. As time went on, our guilt just kept on accumulating—even among the best of us. And as Jesus noted in his metaphor of the vine and the branches, the fate of unattached branches is to be gathered up and burned (Jn 15.6).

But with our grafting into the vine that is Christ, all that changes dramatically. Where there was condemnation,

¹ There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. ² For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death (Ro 8.1-2).

You have been declared not guilty in God’s courtroom because the penalty for your crimes has been paid—completely—by Christ, and you are in him.

But that’s only half of it. If you’re a bajillion dollars in debt, and some rich person pays that debt off completely, that’s great—you’re debt-free!—but the truth is that you’re still broke; your net worth is precisely zero.

What you need is some assets.

Bankruptcy Becomes Wealth

Our standing as “in Christ” doesn’t stop with paying off the old debt, forgiving our accumulated sins. It goes infinitely beyond that.

Since we’re “in Christ,” we are identified with him—and that means that his righteousness becomes ours.

He has made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2Co 5.21).

Wow. That “some rich person” not only paid off our debt, but he made us cosigners on his own bank account. We have access to all the riches of righteousness available there.

That’s astonishing.

And now we have access to all kinds of other things that were infinitely out of reach before. We have what Paul calls “newness of life”—and his description of that life is radically different from how we used to live:

⁴ But as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, ⁵ beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; ⁶ by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; ⁷ by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; ⁸ through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; ⁹ as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; ¹⁰ as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything (2Co 6.4-10).

More briefly, he says that we’re a “new creation”:

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come (2Co 5.17).

Paul summarizes all this up in a simple statement:

If Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness (Ro 8.10).

Yes, we continue to sin, because there are stumbling blocks along the way of life, and because our fallen nature has not yet been eradicated (Ro 7.18-25). But there is a simple path to forgiveness and a promise of restoration (1J 1.9).

So we ought to walk—and we can walk—even as Jesus himself walked (1J 2.6)—because we are in him.

Part 6: More Outcomes | Part 7: Even More Outcomes | Part 8: And More | Part 9: Corollaries

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Pictures | Part 3: More Pictures

A metaphor of union with Christ that we saw briefly in the previous post is one we should develop further here.

We are, Paul says, a building, specifically a temple, a building where God lives (Ep 2.20-22). In its simplest sense this means that because we live in God’s house, we’re members of his family, his “household” (Ep 2.19); we belong, we have access to the house. We’re keyholders. That’s a mark of great privilege.

But this isn’t just an ordinary house; it’s God’s house, a temple, a place of worship. It’s a place that should inspire us to worship God, and a place where we should serve as agents to inspire others to worship God. We’re “a priesthood” that should “show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1P 2.9). Here, too, is a picture that urges us to be about our responsibilities, not just to enjoy our privileges.

And this is a temple like no other.

It’s alive.

We are “living stones” (1P 2.5), making up a building that “grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (Ep 2.21). This is not a cold, dank, dusty place whose glory days are long past—a tomb, in effect. This is a vital, vibrant, active temple, where God currently resides and where the business of worship is at its highest point in history—and will continue to increase forever, every day a new record, an unprecedented, joyous celebration.

I can’t even imagine.

What a picture.

And if this is the metaphor, what must be the reality?

There’s one more picture to consider, probably the one most widely known, because it’s in the passage most frequently preached.

At pretty much every wedding you’ve ever attended, the officiant at some point has referred to Ephesians 5.25-33. He has probably commented that the union of husband and wife illustrates the church’s union with Christ.

My colleague Dr. Gary Reimers has convinced me that the passage is not that simple. He notes that husbands are told “to love their wives as their own bodies” (Ep 5.28), which is “even as Christ also loved the church” (Ep 5.25). And as we’ve seen earlier in this series, the church that Christ loves is indeed his body. So this is perhaps more a further discussion of Paul’s key theme in this epistle—the church as the body of Christ—than the introduction of a new metaphor per se.

But that said, the Scripture does use nuptial language of the relationship between God and his people. Paul says that he wants to present the Corinthian church “as a pure virgin to Christ” (2Co 11.2), and the New Jerusalem is described as “the bride, the Lamb’s wife” (Re 21.2, 9). Now, the New Jerusalem is not the church, in my opinion, but I suspect that it represents all the people of God, which includes the church (yep, there’s my dispensationalist premillennialism rearing its head again), so I think it’s legitimate to consider the metaphor here.

Marriage is the most intimate of earthly relationships. A married couple is a team, a partnership, and a permanent one at that, at least for earthly life. The couple works together, cares for each other, supports each other, loves each other, “till death us do part.”

Like all of these pictures, it’s deficient, because no earthly relationship captures the eternal relationship between Christ and his church. But for the time it lasts, it has the potential to illustrate the key features of that relationship: its commitment, its love, its fierce endurance through all sorts of attacks from the enemy, its sense of stability, hope, and trust.

In union with Christ, we have all this, and more.

Part 5: Outcomes | Part 6: More Outcomes | Part 7: Even More Outcomes | Part 8: And More | Part 9: Corollaries

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Pictures

A picture of our union with Christ that illustrates the concept richly—and, I suppose is for that reason the most often-repeated metaphor of the concept—is that of a head and a body.

Paul particularly likes this image. He builds his key ecclesiological work, Ephesians, around it; from the very beginning, he climaxes his description of “all [the] spiritual blessings” (Ep 1.3) God has bestowed on his people with the observation that since Christ has been resurrected and exalted at the right hand of the Father (Ep 1.20-21), he is now the head of the church, which is his body (Ep 1.22-23).

He develops the concept in the next chapter by noting that in our conversion we are raised together with Christ (Ep 2.5-6). He addresses this specifically (though not, as the larger context makes clear, exclusively) to the Gentiles in the Ephesian church (Ep 2.11), exclaiming with wonder in his voice that the formerly alien peoples are now united with believers from God’s longtime chosen people, Israel (Ep 2.12-18). The partition in the Temple courtyard that had excluded Gentiles at the threat of immediate execution was now—spiritually, at least—demolished, and would be physically demolished in just a decade.

This is the first and most obvious teaching of this metaphor: if diverse peoples are all “in Christ,” then they are one with one another as well, despite their apparently insurmountable differences. Paul notes that even the angels are driven to glorify God by the sight of erstwhile enemies—Jews and Gentiles—uniting in worship to God (Ep 3.10). As I often say to my students, “What does it take to astonish people who go to work in heaven every day?”

The metaphor has other implications. We have a firm foundation, and the resultant stability, because we are in Christ (Ep 2.20). We are holy—set apart, special—because we are in the ultimately holy One (Ep 2.21). We are a fit habitation for the Holy Spirit (Ep 2.22). We have confident boldness in his presence (Ep 3.12; cf He 4.16). We have power (Ep 3.16). We have understanding (Ep 3.17-19). We bring him glory (Ep 3.21).

These are the facts. But Paul isn’t one to stop with just the facts. In the second half of his letter, he moves to the application, the response: if this is true, what should we do about it?

And here he gets meddlesome. It turns out that we can’t just sit back and enjoy our situation, our privileges, our blessings. With these privileges comes great responsibility.

As members of the body, we’re designed—and obligated—to work together.

Despite our differences.

As the angels have observed, that’s the whole point.

That’s how we bring him glory.

Since there’s one body (Ep 4.4), with diverse gifts (Ep 4.11), we need to work together, in concert, as a single organism, coordinated, graceful, mature, gainly. We need to grow up together so that the body is the right size for the head (Ep 4.13)—so that we’re rightly proportioned as a body with a perfect head.

Part of that is taking care of each other. When you get something in your eye, your finger recognizes that it is gifted to get foreign objects out of sensitive areas, and it springs into action to help out its fellow member—even though the foreign object isn’t causing the finger any discomfort whatsoever.

And so in the body of Christ we all exercise our gifts for the benefit of differently gifted members—and we accept their ministry in areas where we need help as well.

And we DO need the help.

Paul develops this metaphor further later in this epistle (Ep 5.30) and in other epistles, including one to the church the capital of the Empire (1Co 12.12-27; Ro 12.4-8). It’s a Big Idea.

And so, it turns out, we have work to do.

Part 4: Even More Pictures | Part 5: Outcomes | Part 6: More Outcomes | Part 7: Even More Outcomes | Part 8: And More | Part 9: Corollaries

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Part 1: Introduction

We humans have a remarkable capacity for learning new things. We begin as soon as we’re born—maybe even before—and though that facility seems to slow down as we age, we still continue to learn.

A key to the way we learn new things is comparison. I tell my students that we all have a metal rack in our brain, with lots of hooks on it. When we come across something we didn’t know before, we look for something similar that’s hanging on the rack, and we hang the new thing right next to it. That allows us to get a jump start on the new thing by pulling in what we already know about the similar thing. It’s efficient.

And one way to do that is to use metaphors. This new concept, this abstract idea, is “like” this other thing that we’re already familiar with.

The Scripture does that sort of thing all the time. Jesus’ parables are just one example. And the whole story of God’s dealings with Israel is pictured in Hosea’s relationship with his unfaithful wife.

Similarly, there are biblical pictures of our union with Christ.

The first one I notice is Jesus’ feeding of the 5000, after which Jesus offends many of his hearers, apparently intentionally, by saying,

⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh. … Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. ⁵⁴ He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. ⁵⁵ For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. ⁵⁶ He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him (Jn 6.51-56).

Near the end of his earthly ministry Jesus repeats the concept—though, oddly, John doesn’t report it. Matthew’s account reads,

²⁶ While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” ²⁷ And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; ²⁸ for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26.26-28).

Just as “we are what we eat,” so we become united with Christ by taking him into us. Now, Jesus put this in crudely physical terms—that’s what many of his hearers found so offensive (Jn 6.52, 60, 66)—in such a way that even to this day some readers teach that we eat Jesus’ literal body in the Eucharist. But just as the New Covenant is spiritual, not physical (Jer 31.31-34), Jesus intends that we take in his teachings and his works so thoroughly and intensely that they become part of us, part of who we are to the very core.

And so, apparently, part of the responsibility for being united with Christ falls on us. We take him in, and he takes us in.

That’s a sobering responsibility.

Jesus uses another illustration of our union with him:

⁴ Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. ⁵ I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing (Jn 15.4-5).

A plant, an organism, lives only by staying together. Parts that fall away from the vine cannot thrive, for they get their sustenance from the core. Similarly, we cannot thrive apart from the spiritual strength we derive from being connected to Christ.

We often forget that. As we grow, we develop competence at things we give our attention to, and we grow confident that “I can handle it.” And to an extent, that’s true. I can write the letters of the alphabet. I can poach an egg. I can ride a bicycle. I can shave without cutting myself.

But in the spiritual realm—in living with authenticity, in accomplishing genuine spiritual growth, in genuinely edifying others, in effectively telling the story of the gospel—I can’t do anything without the Vine, without being connected to the Son.

More pictures next time.

Part 3: More Pictures | Part 4: Even More Pictures | Part 5: Outcomes | Part 6: More Outcomes | Part 7: Even More Outcomes | Part 8: And More | Part 9: Corollaries

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Of the many things that God does for his people when they come to him in faith—all of them astonishing—perhaps the most astonishing is that he unites us with his Son.

Now, all of God’s people are his sons and daughters, members of his family (Ep 1.5). But Jesus Christ is his Son in a way that no other person is; he is the Son (Mt 28.18-20), the one-of-a-kind, unique Son (Jn 3.16), the only Son in that sense—God the Son, in whom the Father is well pleased (Mk 1.11).

And we are united with that Son, placed in him; we are the body of which he is the Head (Ep 1.22-23).

It seems that Paul is simply overwhelmed with this truth. He uses the expression “in Christ” 74 times in his 13 epistles; “in Jesus” 6 more times; “in the Lord” 43 more times; and “in him” (with reference to the Son) 17 more times. That’s 140 times in total. He just can’t seem to get the concept out of his mind.

And Paul isn’t the only New Testament writer to address the concept in depth. John certainly does, and Peter alludes to it as well.

Strangely, it’s not something that the modern church seems to prioritize. You find a few cases along the way—Sinclair Ferguson’s video series on the topic is noteworthy—but across conservative evangelicalism it doesn’t generally seem to get the attention it deserves.

So I think I’ll write a series of posts on the topic. It won’t have the depth of book-length theological treatments, of course, but I’d like to survey the basic biblical data in outline form.

To begin with, I suppose the clearest statement of the basic principle comes from John, at the end of his first epistle. He writes,

¹⁹ We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. ²⁰ And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life (1J 5.19-20).

Here, interestingly, John says that we’re in both the Father (“Him who is true”) and “in His Son Jesus Christ.” This is one of the last portions of the Scripture to be written, and John is likely encapsulating all that the New Testament writers have written before. I think we can consider this the climax of biblical teaching about the relationship between God and his people: we are in him, united with him, one with him, the very God of heaven. And that union with God is made possible by our union with the Son, who is united with us as a perfect, unfallen human being—one with us, as it turns out, forever.

This is an astonishing concept.

This is something that Christ himself predicted. In his farewell address to his eleven disciples, he said,

¹⁸ “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹ After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. ²⁰ In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you (Jn 14.18-20).

“That day,” I would suggest, is the last day, the eschaton, the resurrection, when we shall know even as we are known (1Co 13.12), when we shall be perfectly united with the Father through the Son. But there is much in the New Testament to indicate that that union is occurring now, even before the death of death and the eradication of sin. More on that later in the series.

Jesus not only predicted this union; he prayed actively for it. In the longest recorded conversation between members of the Godhead, Jesus prayed,

²⁰ “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; ²¹ that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me (Jn 17.20-21).

And the Father, ever at one will with the Son, has answered that prayer (1Co 1.30).

This has always been the plan.

We’ll look into the details in the coming posts.

Part 2: Pictures | Part 3: More Pictures | Part 4: Even More Pictures | Part 5: Outcomes | Part 6: More Outcomes | Part 7: Even More Outcomes | Part 8: And More | Part 9: Corollaries

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