In Christ
AMde in me and Tin you.’’^ — John. i:d.
THEEE are two sides from which our union with Christ is presented in the Scriptures; they are best expressed by the Greek preposition in.” It gives us two hemispheres of blessing. The first is, ‘in Christ,” and the second is, “Christ in us.”
They are different thoughts, but each is the complement of the other, and together they constitute this blessed Christ life of which we have been speaking.
First, then, we are represented as in Christ. This speaks of what He is for us, as the other speaks of what He is in us. What is it to be in Christ? It is to be represented by Christ, to have Him stand for us, and enter into all the benefits and privileges of His standing. We are in Adam inasmuch as he is our head as a race. We are in our political representatives in the same sense, as they stand for and represent us. And so Christ Jesus is for us in a sense a representative, and His acts in a measure become ours; He acts for us rather than for Himself.
Let us look at five or six things that come to us from our being in Christ.
OUR SINS ARE JUDGED.
1. In Christ our sins have been judged. His judgment on the cross was for the sins of His people. He could say in that dark hour, ‘^ Now is the judgment of this world.” Our sins were on Him, and in Him have been put away, judicially dealt with, visited with the penalty we should have borne, the shame and the suffering which we deserved. Entering into union with Him by trusting Him and taking Him for our Saviour, saves us from the judgment we deserved. This is the first result of being in Christ, in whom we have redemption through His blood; the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of m CHRIST. S9
grace. ‘’ ^’ There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.” ^’He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting Uf e, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.”
WE ARE JUSTIFIED.
2. Again, if we are in Christ we are justified through His righteousness. Not onlyhave our sins been put away, but our lack of righteousness. He has met the law which we could not obey, and put His own merit and righteousness to our account, and we can stand in the same place as though we had kept the law, and manifested the same sweet spirit which He manifested without a single flaw. His righteousness passes over to us. His sufferings become ours. This is still more. It would be possible to justify us from our sins, and leave us, like the poor man just saved out of prison, a wretched, homeless tramp, with nothing on which to start hf e. Christ not only saves us from the penalty of the law, but we occupy His standing as though we had obeyed the law. What a vantage ground this gives us! Dear friends, notwithstanding your unbelief and your disobedience in the past, Christ is willing to be your righteousness. ^’Christ is made unto us righteousness.” “He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be mjade the righteousness of God in Him.” This is the second thing that comes to us by being in Christ; sin cancelled, and failure and shortcoming made up by His all-sufficient merit. Let us rejoice in it afresh. What a joy it inspires!
y “Jesus, thy blood and rigteousness,
My beauty are, my glorious dress.”
ACCEPTED.
3. Again, if we are in Christ, we are accepted by the Father. Our persons are accepted; we are regarded even as He is regarded, and we enter into the same place He occupies. It is not merely that the judge takes the pen and blots out our sin; nor even that the banker takes the pen and writes in his book our infinite credit; but the Father throws his arms around His child, and takes him into Christ’s very place. It is not a millionaire making the tramp rich, but a Father taking the prodigal to His bosom, and making him accepted in ‘the Son of His love.” That is what is meant by being in Christ, sin cancelled: righteousness given and love, even as He is loved.
SONS OF GOD.
4. But this is not all if we are in Christ. We enter next into His relationships, and we become to God and others what Christ is. And so He says: ‘My Father, and your Father; my God, and your God.” And: “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the Sons of God; even to them that believed in His name.” “Ye are all the children of God through faith in Jesus Christ.” So you become what He is, and take His place, and are God’s dear child, even as He is God’s own dear Son. There are two sweet words used in the New Testament to describe our sonship. One word means a born son. But the other means more. It is the word that is almost always applied to Christ’s sonship, and is rarely used of anybody else but Jesus; but it is also used of us, to denote that when we enter into this union with Christ, not only are we born the children of God, but are accepted in the same sense in which Christ is; that is, we have not only the sonship of a new birth, but the place of Christ Himself. We are not only sons of God, but we are first-born sons. There is a great difference between the old oriental idea of the son and the first-born son. The first-born was the heir; the others came in for something, but the oldest was the heir. So we are told that He is the first-born among many brethren; and we are called the ^’first-born ones.” So, beloved, you are a child as an angel cannot be; you are a child as Jesus Christ is. ’ ‘We are come to the general assembly and church of the first-born ones, heirs of God and joint-heirs with
Jesus Christ.” So in Christ we are taken into His relationships, just as if you went to your husband’s father, and though they had not known you, you were taken for the son’s sake, and loved as much as he. You are a perfect child, and have all the rights of your Elder Brother.
PRAYERS ANSWERED.
5. Again, in Christ we are presented by our Great High Priest before the throne in our prayers and in our worship, and we are accepted for His sake even as He Himself is accepted. Ever since His ascension He has ‘^ stood at the place of intercession, and He represents you and me, not as though He were pleading with the Father, not as though He said: “Oh, Father, do grant this request for my sake,” until at last the Father relents. His iron will gives away, and He says: “I will do it for your sake;” but Christ stands there as if it were you; and you stand here as if it were Christ. He hands over the petition in your name, and puts His name on the back; and your prayers go in to the Father as if He were asking. He is in His very person and character your representative. And He hands your petitions in as one of our ministers presents our state papers in the courts of Europe. So Christ stands for us at God’s right hand. He is not there in His private person, and we are not seen in our individual persons, but as a part of Christ. And when we come thus, as one with Him, we shall ask what we will and it shall be given. That is the meaning of the promise, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” But if ye go in your own merit, and pray because of your own strong faith, or the faith of some eminent saint who prays for you, you cannot claim His priesthood. But, Mt ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done.”
INHERIT ALL THINGS.
6. Once again; in Christ we inherit all things. We sit down with Him on the throne, and all His riches are ours, all things that are to come in the ages of the future. He has linked His future with us; and never again can Christ possess anything without us. Beloved, if you can say, ‘^lamin Christ,” you can add, ‘^ I have all things in Him.” So Paul prays for the Ephesians that they may see what Christ is; ‘Tar above principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. And he is the Head of the body, the fullness of Him that fillet h all in all.” He says: ‘^ All that is mine is thine. “We have begun to enter into the inheritance; and the ages of eternity will not exhaust its ineffable riches. Oh, that God may open your heart to know * Vhat is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints; and what is the exceeding greatness of His power,.... which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power and might, and dominion! “^’ And you hath He quickened, that were dead in trespasses and sins, .... and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”