TPV Reloaded: Do We Really Know What it Means to be in Christ?

In seeking the light of Scripture as to what the expression, "in Christ," conveys, it is important to bear in mind that the starting-point of Believers was Christ as man taking a new place on high consequent on the work of redemption having been accomplished. "In Christ" sets forth this place as that of everyone who believes God as to the value of the work on the ground of which Christ has taken His place on high. By that work He has won the title in righteousness to set every believer in His place, in life, righteousness, and perfect acceptance before God. In Christ is found the new character of the Believer’s life as possessed in Him. It is life such as it never existed before, in a risen Man, past every question of sin, death, the judgment of God, and the power of Satan. Then again it expresses the righteousness in which the believer stands: "He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become God's righteousness in him." (2 Cor. v. 21.) Nor is it otherwise with our acceptance; for "to the praise of the glory of his grace he hath made us accepted in the beloved." (Eph. i. 6.) And in one all-inclusive statement (Col. ii. 9) we are in Him—"complete in him "—who also as the exalted Man on high is above all principality and power. Further, we learn from the Lord, in John xiv. 20, that it was to be the characteristic portion of the believer, when the Spirit was come, to know that Christ was in the Father, and we in Him, and He in us. But there are two ways in which this new and wonderful position of the Christian is presented to us in the Bible.

First, as we have been looking at it, objectively; that is, as revealed to the opened eye of faith in all the perfection of it in Christ risen and glorified. Then in the ways of God with us in order that we may enter into the position subjectively; that is, so as to be consciously in our own souls.