IN CHRIST
IN CHRIST
It is plain enough to every one that, naturally, we are in Adam, and the consequences of being in him we have all experienced. The question of deepest interest is, When is the believer in Christ? and, When, in the work of divine grace, is he in Christ? It is evident, at the start, that, so long as Adam is responsibly before God, no one in Adam can be in Christ; that is, that Adam must historically have come to an end before any one of us can cease to be in him, and really to be in Christ.
[p. 336] This, plainly, is one part of our subject, even that the first man’s history is closed; the other part is, that the One with whom we are dead, is our life. The Son of man must be lifted up, “that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. Hence in the sin-offering the carcase was burnt outside the camp, figuratively setting forth that the old man was crucified with Christ; the man that was under judgment was judicially set aside; but Jesus, who thus suffered without the gate, so glorified God under the judgment due to us, that, though forsaken of God because of taking our place, yet He “was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father”. He was both the sin-offering, the blood of which was brought into the holiest; He entered heaven by His own blood: and, at the same time, He was the burnt-offering of sweet-smelling savour to God — the glorified One.
The termination of the first man in judgment has cleared the ground for “the second man” — “the last Adam”.
But the question remains, When is the converted soul not in Adam, but in Christ? I confine myself, at first, to the question, when the transition takes place; next, I hope to dwell on the advantages of being in Christ; and, finally, the knowledge which I acquire from being in Him, and how I acquire it.
We have to distinguish between when God, in His grace, sees us in Christ, and when we are conscious of our transition from Adam to Christ. God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world; that was before Adam existed; and this helps us much, for if God had chosen us in Christ before the existence of Adam, then we must, when His purpose is accomplished, be in Christ, as if we had never been in Adam, or as if Adam had never existed. Hence it is evident that the elect of God ceased, in His eye, to be in Adam the moment the old man was judicially terminated in the cross. But it is not only that the elect were seen by God in Christ in purpose before the foundation of the world, before [p. 337] Adam was, but now, in fact, every convert is in Christ, in the eye of God, the moment he turns to God.
But when does the convert himself experimentally pass out of Adam, as no longer in him, but in Christ? The prodigal clearly was not experimentally in Christ, even when he was kissed. While fear exists, and God’s love is not perfected, then one is not in Christ, as to one’s own side. And not only so; I may be in the blissful enjoyment of God’s reception of me, in the value of Christ’s work, and yet not have appropriated my place in Christ.
Here I must explain. There is a distinction of no small moment between the faith that apprehends how God can receive me because of what Christ has effected by His death and resurrection, and my own deliverance from the body of sin and death. When I am justified, I have peace with God. I have by faith entered into Christ antitypically as the sin-offering and the burnt-offering. My heart and conscience bear witness, not only that God had chosen me in Christ before the foundation of the world, but as to my own enjoyment in His reception of me. In Christ dead and risen the believer enjoys the blessed fact that he is justified; your “sins and iniquities will I remember no more”. He is in the full favour of God.
Still, there is another experience which he has to pass through, and one often more protracted, and fraught with a depth of suffering unknown before. It is unquestionable, not only that many a converted soul does not feel fit for God’s presence, but that, even after he does feel fit for it, and has enjoyed the holiest of all, he has not the sense of freedom, as to himself, from the law of sin and death; that is, he experimentally is not in Christ. I can have the sense of the value of Christ’s work to God, as the priest under the law, in offering the burnt-offering, knew when the offering was accomplished. I may believe that He has been “raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father”, and I may believe in my heart that “God hath raised him from the dead”, and yet, all the time, I [p. 338] may not have appropriated for myself the fact of being in Christ; and this the Spirit opens out to us, with much care, from Romans 5: 11 to 8: 12. What has been already true to God, and even borne witness to by my heart and conscience before God, has to be learned, in the bitterness of death, as true also for myself.
In arriving at the effect of the work of Christ before God, faith is paramount, — faith in His blood, and, again, faith in God who raised Him from the dead. This faith, while concentrated mainly on the work of Christ, necessarily engages the soul with the death of Christ and the power of God; the passover in Egypt typifies the one, and the Red Sea, the other. But this is, I might say, exclusively what Christ suffered on our account, and how God, to His own glory, raised Him from the dead; and thus believing, I am fit for God, because of His perfect grace to me. The light and joy of His salvation spring up in my soul; I am in the state of it; and if I had then left everything here, like the thief on the cross, no other question would arise. But though this burst of eternal sunshine has shone in on my soul, and I have tasted of being before God in the very righteousness in which Christ is — yet, in the life here I find that I am encompassed with the body of sin and death; and then I have to learn how I am also free from the law of both.
Of course, I could not arrive at any freedom from myself greater than or beyond what God sees me through grace. I am in the blessed result of what is true of me before God; but I have to learn it experimentally: and the deepest suffering in our christian history is learning ourselves. It was my sins, but it is now the sin that is in me. Though I have the joy of forgiveness, I have not deliverance without this experience. I say we have to learn it, and it cannot be learned but in deep suffering. Can I drink the water of the Red Sea, typically the death of Christ, without suffering? This is practically Marah. Knowledge is the pastime of the mind, but learning that our old man is crucified with Christ is sensibly entering [p. 339] into its death, and persisting in it, for unspeakable relief. “Arm yourselves ... with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin”. Blessed liberty! Saul of Tarsus neither ate nor drank for three days, learning the cross. To be crucified with Christ is a terrible thing, but it is a suffering for the greatest gain, a blessed reality. “I am crucified with Christ”. “By whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world”. Paul was “in Christ” when he could say this; but I say he had to learn it. Surely it is very deep suffering when I enter into the simple fact, that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing — the night before the bright morning when I find that the body of sin has been judicially terminated in the cross; and this, not only in order that I should be placed in divine righteousness, but in order that I should be sensibly free of it.
It is no small suffering to learn that the man who had exposed me to the wrath of God is still alive, and then there is not peace. But there is more than this. Israel had not only to see the destruction of the Egyptian, but after having been thirty-nine years in the wilderness, they had to learn that there was no good in them. They had made no moral progress; fiery serpents being sent indicate this; they bit the people. Israel’s journey from Egypt to Canaan typifies the sufferings from himself of the christian ere he enters into “the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free”. I believe much of the shallowness among us arises from this, that many who have comparative rest of conscience before God, in the joy of His salvation, have not learned that they are free from that wherein they were held; that they are alive unto God in Christ Jesus; that they are in another life, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. This ground I cannot truly occupy unless I have found that the body of sin has been annulled in the cross, and that in the bitterness of death I part company from myself, and am on the shore of eternal liberty. I pass from the wretched man — the [p. 340] body of death, into the life and power of the Lord Jesus Christ; and there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. I am now blessedly in possession of the skin of the burnt-offering. When God clothed Adam and Eve, He foreshadowed His purpose of substituting for man’s nakedness the beauty of Christ. This doubtless was set forth in the skin of the burnt-offering being the portion of the priest that offered it; and mark, it was an abiding, personal possession.
I am now able to reckon myself dead unto sin and alive unto God in Christ Jesus. I can “thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord”. I am at liberty; and the Spirit of God dwelling in me is my guide and power, and not the flesh.
Thus far I have only treated of being in Christ as to my standing; and secondly, my own deliverance “from the law of sin and death”, that I may enjoy it. I have not travelled outside Romans.
I must now dwell on the gain of being “in Christ”, as set forth in Ephesians. There it begins with being chosen “in him before the foundation of the world”; and I believe it is in keeping with this purpose that “in him” is always used in Ephesians, whether it be “heavenly places in Christ”, or “accepted in the beloved”, or “in whom”, or “purposed in himself”, or “all things in Christ”, or “even in him”. In fact, wherever it occurs the idea is that nothing interferes or interposes now to hinder His purpose. We are simply and solely “in Christ”; just as it is said elsewhere, “if any one be in Christ, there is a new creation”.
Now, in Colossians, I apprehend it is to reach up to this; — to “present every man perfect in Christ Jesus”; “stedfastness of your faith in Christ”; “rooted and built up in him”; “complete in him”, in order that Christ should be in you “the hope of glory”; in a word, everything and in everything. To the thoughtful soul, the way “in Christ” is spoken of in Colossians opens out the deep and blessed truth of Christ in us; and this leads to [p. 341] what may properly be described as knowledge; that is, what we acquire, or come to know, as being in Him, and how we acquire it.
It is plainly by the Spirit of God that I become acquainted with the great gain of being in Christ. No man knows the things of a man, but the spirit of the man that is in him; and no man knows the things of God, but the Spirit of God. “In that day”, in the Spirit’s day, “ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”. It is not here how I am in Him, but that I may know the greatness of the life and nature which I have in Him; as it is said, “these things have I written unto you ... that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God”, 1 John 5: 13. We know the greatness of it; and it is thus that “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you”, John 15: 7. Thus we arrive at a full knowledge of the mystery of God. Thus we “may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge; that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”, Ephesians 3: 18, 19. I need not add more. The Lord lead us more and more into this vast field of glory and beauty.