In Christ Alone

The Christian life shimmers with the presence of Christ. I suggested 3 prepositions (through, in, and with) for this presence and elaborated on “through Christ” last week. This week I zone in on the preposition IN Christ.

These two letters have inserted themselves into our English language from the Greek, en. IN Christ (in Jesus, in Jesus Christ, in the Lord Jesus, or in Him) dominate the letters of Paul. With a preposition and a noun, Paul opens up a window into eternity and divinity as no one else ever had.

In the beginning God intended to join together heaven and earth into one. He did it by putting his own image in us. He made us in his likeness. He visited us in the evening to walk and talk with us in Eden, our shared space. Eden, where heaven and earth overlapped. With sin’s entrance that overlap eroded.

The tabernacle and the temple were meant to bridge the separation that started in Eden. And when Christ clothed himself in flesh, the fulness of the heavenly and the earthly dwelled in him.

In the New Testament Christ modeled how to abide in God with him. And we now abide in this fulness as his followers. We abide in God, in his word and life (John 15).

Ah this little IN word displays a cornucopia of truth! Here, relish a few more with me!

·      Paul’s favorite term is that we are people who are in Christ. In God, in Christ we move and have our being (Acts 17). In Christ is one of Paul’s many ways of conveying the gospel message.

·      If anyone is in Christ, a new creation is on display. The old no longer matters;  the new in Christ has come. Joined with Christ, we are reconciled with God.

·      In Romans 8 Paul peeks into the heart of God: there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Give no one a cause to judge you if this is true of us.

·      In Galatians 3 Paul piles one preposition upon another: in Christ all children of God by faith are one in Christ, we are baptized into Christ, clothed with Christ (3:25ff).

·      In Christ, reflecting the eternal purpose of God, all humanity is one community just like all of God is one community of 3 distinct persons. Biological gender? It has consequence to anything pertaining to the work of God. Ethnicity? Not a God category to divide or fuss over. Worker or owner? In Christ their joint reason for being is to only produce goodness, not monetary wealth.

·      The mystery Paul understood in Ephesians is this: Christ revealed in the church (with all its diversity) as joining all peoples as one body in the heart of God. For Christ’s sake and the fulfillment of this mystery we must unite as one body in love. Individuals are not the fulness of anything.

When I was a Southern Baptist missionary in Montreal my wife and  I worked with a group of Haitian leaders and churches. One proverb I learned and still hold dear: sel nou faib. Ensemb, ensemb, se lavalanche. Alone we are weak. Together, together, we are avalanche!

·      Paul presses us to live in Christ (Colossians 2). Just as in Christ the fulness of deity dwells bodily, this fulness of deity comes to dwell in us in Christ. Wrap your mind around that! We are hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3). Flood your soul, all of creation in Christ. Do you feel with me that taking in the nourishment IN Christ affords is like drinking from a fire hydrant!

IN packs a punch, doesn’t it? We savor the thought this week, and realize we have all eternity with Christ at his feet to delight in it when this earth and heaven be one again in him.

Next week, the preposition with. You’re in for a treat!

Then: How to do this through, in, and with life work out in real life? That too will be a treat! Tune in.