How do one get to be in Christ? Is it same as to be righteous before God? I consider Romans 8:1 as axiom.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
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curiousdannii
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alvoutila
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I asked; how to get to be in Christ, not what it means to be in Christ. But because I have read answers for this question, I gues that you get be in Christ when you accept/receive Him as your lord and saviour(joh.1:12) after hearing gospel and having possibility to repent and to reject or accept this offer/altar call. – alvoutila Jul 21 '14 at 08:53
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The community will have to explain more about why they closed your question, but I suspect it would be re-opened if you were to specify some specific branch or denomination's view: e.g. How do Catholics answer these questions? Or, How do Evangelicals answer these questions? Or even, How do Orthodox Christians answer these questions? – Aug 31 '16 at 23:31
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That little word in is packed with profundity, significance, and comfort for believers in Jesus Christ.
One way of approaching this little word is via one of the many names for the Church Universal: the Body of Christ. A body, of course, is composed of many parts (viz., appendages and external and internal organs), and so it is with Christ's body, the church, of which He is the Head. All of the parts of the physical body are in the body and are thus joined to the whole body. Each part has its function, but they all function together. The main point of the analogy of the body can be summed up, I feel, in the expression
"Unity within Diversity."
To be in Christ, then, is to be a part of His body.
Theologically, the word in signifies where a believer is, positionally in the eyes of God; namely, in Christ. To be in Christ is to be united with Christ in His righteousness.
"For God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21, my emphasis).
We who are sinners saved by grace are anything but righteous. Moreover, Isaiah tells us that
"For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away" (64:6).
In other words, even the best we have to offer God cannot outweigh in the divine scale of justice our uncleanness, filthiness, and iniquities. Along comes Jesus, however, and His righteousness tips the scale in the opposite direction, so to speak.
Think of a zillion-pound weight being on one side of the teeter totter. That's our sin. Our righteous deeds piled up to the sky on the opposite side utterly fail to budge the zillion-pound weight one scintilla.
Jesus' cross death, however, means that God, when He imputes our sin to Jesus and then in turn imputes Jesus' righteousness to us when we believe, tipped the teeter totter as far as it can go in the opposite direction, as if the zillion-pound weight were but a feather! Aren't you glad you're in Christ? There is no safer place to be in all the universe, because when God sees us, He sees us in His Son. And as Paul reminds us,
"Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old has passed away, and all things have become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17, my emphasis).
rhetorician
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So to be in christ means that we are become righteousness of God in him through faith given to me? This faith is faith in Him? – alvoutila Oct 30 '13 at 17:19
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1@laovultai: Yes, you expressed the thought very well. God gives us the faith to believe that Jesus died for us (Ephesians 2:8,9). Once we believe and trust that God will do as He promises, our sin-debt is gone and God credits us with Jesus' righteousness. God's charges against us because of our sins are nailed to Jesus' cross, and we no longer bear any condemnation in Christ (Colossians 2:14)! – rhetorician Oct 31 '13 at 02:59
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@rhetorician.. Does God give faith to believe the fact that Jesus died for me, or to believe in Him, or to believe that God will do as He promises or all of them? Is the promise of God that you mentioned, promise that our sin-debt is gone and God credits us with Jesus' righteousness, when we are given faith? – alvoutila Nov 05 '13 at 21:43
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1I think "all of them" is my answer, though they need not be in any particular order. Each of us believes in Jesus and receives Jesus in slightly different ways. God is not as interested, I believe, in how or when you come to Jesus, or even in the words you use to ask Him to save you. The Holy Spirit has a way of nudging us and encouraging us to listen to, and obey, His promptings. The tax collector's prayer (Lk 18:13) is a great one. In English, it's only seven words long: "God be merciful to me, a sinner." What did Jesus say of him? He went home justified; his God-given faith saved him. – rhetorician Nov 05 '13 at 23:55
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I have recently thought that we are saved by faith in Jesus, but you said that faith is in the fact that Jesus died for us. – alvoutila Nov 06 '13 at 09:01
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@laovultai: They (faith in Jesus, and faith that Jesus died for us) are one and the same. They are two sides of the same coin. If a father tells his son, "Son, I bought you a new car for you as a graduation present," does the son have faith the father is telling the truth? Of course. He believes the father because he has learned to trust him in the past on the basis of what the father has done. The father has worked hard to make money. The father has given the son gifts in the past. The father has provided his son with loving discipline. What does the son now do to make the car his own? – rhetorician Dec 02 '13 at 15:04
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@rhetorician:: If you ask from me, I don't know. He thanks the father and asks this free gift by faith, because if he does not trust that father would really give it, he would not dare to ask it from the father. Correction: If son trusts that father means what he said to him he will have faith that father also does what he said to the son. If previous is really true, Son does the following; he may ask that can he receive this present. If yes he then takes or receives the car and drives it. So this would mean that if I trust in God and what he said, I have faith and I ask to receive this gift. – alvoutila Jan 14 '14 at 17:49
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this gift is to be born-again. Because if God said that no-one can come to the father except through me( Jesus), and; But as many as received him(Jesus(?)), to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name(john.1:12) and if I trust that those words are true, then I ask to receive this gift of born-again. – alvoutila Jan 14 '14 at 17:55
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@laovultai Faith in Jesus Christ means also faith in what He did, His journey, His teachings, His sufferings, His death and His resurrection. One cannot say he believes in Christ yet does not recognise or believe in what Christ say, did and teach. To be born-again in Christ is to be born-again in water and Spirit (John 3:1-7) but such is another topic :) – Zoe Jun 29 '14 at 03:44
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"That little word in is packed with profundity, significance, and comfort for believers in Jesus Christ." ... and you miss all of them in this answer by relegating unity with Christ to membership in the Church by neglecting mystical union with Messiah and therefore with the Father, which is what Jesus and Paul (clearly) taught. – Andrew Aug 29 '16 at 20:39
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@Andrew: Au contraire, mon amie! Membership in the Church Universal ("the holy catholic church") IS a mystical union. I do not deny that. Some NT passages emphasize the membership aspect of being IN Christ's body worldwide (the judicial, imprimatur-of-God aspect, with ramifications of being in community with other believers), whereas some passages emphasize the mystical aspect of being IN Christ (the experiential and mystical fellowship-with-God aspect, with ramifications of being in fellowship with, and abiding in, Christ). IOW, not "either/or" but "both/and." That's my perspective. Don – rhetorician Aug 29 '16 at 21:25
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@rhetorician No, membership in the Universal Church is not mystical, it is communal or relational, unless by "the Universal Church" you mean "the substantial and very body of the living Christ" and not the assembly of saints. You err by conflating them, and lose the power of the Gospel, which is the mystical union with Christ in his very body, by which he "makes the two into one new man", and not just relational unity of the assembly of saints, which is not mystical, even if you call it "a mystical union". – Andrew Aug 31 '16 at 19:58
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In his article Mysticism in the Early Church, early twentieth century theologian Arthur C. McGiffert describes what Paul means by "in Christ".
The Christian man is he in whom dwells divinity. By faith, the mystical bond of union, he is brought into complete oneness with God, so that it is no longer he that lives, but the divine Christ that lives in him (cf. Gal. 3:27; 4:19; Rom. 8; Eph. 2:22; 3:17; Col. I:27 ff.; 3:3). It is a genuine physical or metaphysical unity of which Paul speaks -not simply a oneness of spirit, or disposition, or will, but of substance. Jesus Christ, who is himself divine, or the Spirit of God, who is one with Christ, enters into the believer and substitutes for his fleshly nature a spiritual and divine nature, so that he is a new creature altogether. The result of the divine indwelling is not simply union, but identity. It is not that the man and Christ are brought into intimate association, but that they become one, so that the man dies with Christ unto the flesh, and rises with him unto a new life, unto the spirit; so that what Christ does he does, and what Christ has he has.''
Consider what Paul has said earlier to the Romans.
Romans 6:3-11 (NASB) Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
This inclusion in Christ is strictly by the action of God, and not of man.
1 Corinthians 1:30 (NASB) But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
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This is relevant to me. So to be in Christ means that Messiah is abiding in you? Also it might mean that you are made righteous? I now know that you get to be in Christ( in other words you are born again/saved/child of God/made righteous?) by calling[1 cor.1:2], by election[Eph.1:4&1 Cor.1:30], by faith[eph.1:13-14], by obedience[1 john.2:3-6]. It's good news to know that you get to be in Christ when you are called, elected, believe in your heart and obey. – alvoutila Sep 21 '14 at 20:48
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It's just an alternative way to express that you have accepted Christ as Savior. It generally is used communally --"together in Christ" -- representing the way Christian belief unifies us.
Chris Sunami
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